by Amber Burns
I shook my head, “No Annabelle, but it’s nicer to be handed a cotton hanky than a wad of tissue when it does happen, not so?”
“Yes, it is.”
We drank our coffee, and when I stood to leave, just innately sensing that she needed the space, I saw three large garbage bags piled in a corner.
“Do you need help with those? There’s a dumpster in the road behind your house right? I can take them away for you?”
The expression in her eyes told me that she was torn between wanting to part with them and wanting to keep them, but her mouth firmed and set in a resolve.
“That would help, thank you.” She had stepped back from me and then hesitated, “Michel, thank you.”
With that she walked into my arms and hugged me tightly, her thin arms going around my torso. I carefully enfolded her in my own, and though it seemed far too intimate, kissed her hair and rested my chin on her head.
If I had thought talking to her was a sign, and that I needed this girl, then touching her, however innocently, was the baseball bat to the head that I was in love with her. There was no more denying it. We stood for an infinity, neither wanting to let go.
“Annabelle, are you feeling any specific connection here or am I being an idiot and misreading things?” I asked into her hair, the scent of strawberries and vanilla in my nose.
I felt her nod.
“I don’t want to let go, but I am not ready to ask you to stay yet, can you be patient with me?”
She started trembling in my arms, and I squeezed her.
“I have all the patience in the world, and I swear I will never hurt you.”
She raised her eyes to mine and said the most heart breaking words I had ever heard.
“Until you do.”
Annabelle stepped out of my arms and walked with me to the door as I picked up the surprisingly lightweight bags.
“Can you, Armand and I have a dinner date on the beach? Perhaps Friday night?” I asked hopefully.
Seriousness broken, she laughed her wind-chime laugh and nodded.
“Anything for Armand’s little purr on my shoulder again.”
I shook my head, “No fair you know, he has had more physical contact with you than I have!”
I gave a child-like pout and turned away to hear her say, “Oh Michel, but you don’t purr…”
There was a dumpster two blocks down the road behind her house, so that was my first port of call. I had to admit curiosity as to what she was throwing out, and when I tossed them into the full dumpster, I opened one bag. It took me a while to figure out what all of it was, but the garment bag in the top of the next bag gave it away; she had destroyed her wedding dress. It seemed expensive too. Granted I was a man and knew very little of these things, it just looked pricy, and I saw the name ‘Vera Wang’ in there somewhere…
It felt wrong to have gone through her garbage, but then, it was in my nature to need to know things about people. As I made my way home I stopped, a sudden ‘hallelujah’ moment had occurred in my brain. Had Annabelle hidden in her house to clear out her ex’s stuff these past few days? Was she doing something she had perhaps not let herself do until now? I walked the rest of the way home thinking I’d ask her over for dinner in two days’ time. If I was going to build a relationship with this nervous girl I wanted to know her thought process.
When I got home I found a blast from my past on my doorstep. Andrews sat on my porch with a khaki duffel bag next to him, his head and arms were resting on his knees. I stopped in my tracks when he looked up and I saw the dark purple circles under his eyes.
“Andrews? Are you okay? What are you doing here?”
He looked so defeated that I felt broken for him.
“I found out you were here Michel, I heard you’d gotten back on your feet and I wanted to come see you, I haven’t heard from anyone else I tried to reach since I got back two weeks ago.”
My heart started thumping in my chest when he took a joint out of his pocket and lit it up.
“You only got back two weeks ago? How are Briggs and the others?” I asked.
He shook his head and didn’t speak, looking down at the ground between his feet again, his shoulders shaking.
“Shit. I’m sorry man,” I sat down on the step next to him. “Well please stay as long as you’d like to, you’re welcome here.”
We sat in silence for a while, passing the joint back and forth, and then I stood, opened the door and took him inside. The first thing he needed was a shower.
“Come on, I have a spare bedroom this way. Let me just grab some sheets, it hasn’t been used yet.”
I made the bed with the spare linen I had kept from originally moving in and placed a clean set of towels down for him while he stood dejectedly in the corner.
“I know how you feel at the moment, and I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but it gets easier I swear. It might take months, but I swear, it will. I’m going to go make something to eat, why don’t you have a shower in the bathroom down the hall and then come to the kitchen?”
He nodded and then I left the room, heading to my kitchen to get some food sorted. Half an hour later when he hadn’t appeared yet I went to check in on him and found him curled in a ball under the blankets fast asleep, a pill bottle on the side table. For a moment I panicked, but when I saw his chest rise and fall evenly I breathed a sigh of relief. I picked up the bottle and was again happy to see it was a legitimate prescription for sleeping tablets, soon to run out though. I had to find out what happened to mess him up. Did this happen to every single man who went to that shit hole?
7
I seemed to have been put on a permanent babysitting duty over the next forty eight hours, because I was so intensely aware of what he was going through. The first days after I got out were fuzzy in my own memory, but they were there. I had a constant and niggling worry that something bad was headed my way.
After trying to set my mind at ease that it was still okay to have dinner with Annabelle, I prepared a basket, as before, and packed snacks. Olives and cheese, crackers, wine and cold meats. When I left the house Andrews smiled and greeted me happily, to my surprise he even gave me a hug as I stepped off the porch with Armand over one shoulder and a basket in the other hand.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me these past two days Michel, I appreciate it.”
“Anytime Travis.”
It was the first time I had called him by his first name since Afghanistan. I should have known something deeper was up when he turned to walk back into the house.
Dinner with Annabelle was amazing, she came walking down the beach toward me in a floaty light pink dress, the skirts clinging to the outline of her shapely legs as she approached in the early evening dusky light. Armand of course shot straight toward her like a moth to a flame, and she greeted me with a kiss to the cheek. The contact left a spot of my skin tingling.
We sat down and spoke about the most random things, covering topics from cats, to me telling her about Travis Andrews showing up at my house days ago in a very sorry state. I still had not heard from him what had happened before he came home, and she laid a hand softly on my arm when she probably saw the worry on my face.
“I am worried about him, I don’t think he has seen a psychiatrist yet,” I said, staring back toward the house, we weren’t sitting very far from it.
Annabelle moved closer to me on the picnic blanket.
“Let’s change the subject to something a bit more pleasant,” she said, smiling shyly.
I sat back with my arms out straight behind me and my legs crossed at the ankles.
“What do you think we should talk about then Miss Annabelle?”
She looked down at her hands and I truly did love the blush on her cheeks, it made her look so young.
“How old are you Annabelle?” I asked, and she giggled.
“I’m twenty three Michel.”
I blew out a big breath.
“Phew, I’m thi
rty. Old grizzled and thirty.”
She laughed again.
“Well I think you are handsome,” She gushed.
I straightened and crossed my legs.
“Will you come closer Annabelle?”
I reached forward and raised her chin to look into her eyes. She nodded and crawled toward me on her hands and knees, stopping right in front of my own legs. The mood changed between us very suddenly and I could sense her heart racing when I reached to bring her onto my lap, you could cut the tension between us with a knife.
“Michel I, I haven’t been with anybody since…” Her voice trailed off.
She was as light as a bird on my legs and as nervous as one too.
“It’s okay, I am not like him. I won’t hurt you, and I won’t rush you.”
I spoke softly and took her face in my hands, feeling the tremors run through her. She was the one who brought her lips to mine, I was not going to let her feel scared. She held them there, her soft silk lips against mine, and when I pushed more firmly against her mouth she yielded to me with a sound in the back of her throat, a soft ‘mewl’ not unlike those Armand made in his sleep.
Her hands snaked up my chest, tentatively at first, and then she was wrapped around me like a strangler fig vine around a tree. This is how we were entangled when I heard the gunshot, and though my eyes were closed, I saw the flare of the revolver muzzle in the distance down the beach to our left.
Annabelle jumped in my arms and we released each other as though burnt. I instinctively knew what that sound was and didn’t want her to see what I knew waited up that beach.
“Annabelle, please go into my house and call an ambulance, don’t come further up the beach.”
She stared at me, in shock and looked terrified.
“Why, what was that? What just happened Michel?”
She looked from me to the house to the area down the beach, hysteria building in her voice. I took her face in my hands again and spoke as sternly as I could, because my own insides were shaking.
“Listen! Do as I said, take Armand with you, and don’t you come down that beach!” I bent down and picked the kitten up to hand him to her, and watched her walk away. “The phone is in the kitchen,” I called after her.
Only once I saw her close my front door behind her did I walk down the beach, steeling myself for the sight I knew was there. I found Travis near the water, lying on his stomach, what was left of his head in the sand. I sank to my knees about two feet away.
“Oh Travis, what happened to make you do this?” I asked the silent and unmoving body.
I didn’t really want to go any closer, I could see from where I was there was no chance he had survived. I sat there waiting for the ambulance, and once the paramedics arrived I walked back up to the house to check on Annabelle. She sat curled on my couch with the kitten on her lap, and looked up when I opened the door.
“Are you okay? What was that? Where’s Travis?”
It took a moment for my lack of response to bring home what had happened. She turned pale,
“Oh my God, he?”
There was no completion to the question required and I simply nodded.
“Annabelle, please stay with me tonight. I can’t be alone, I’m sorry, I have just lost too many friends.”
She stood and came to me, hugging me tightly, and I felt her nod against my chest.
“Yes, I’ll stay.”
We waited until the paramedics finished asking questions and picked up the medication they found next to the bed and in his bags. After there was peace in the house again, I left Annabelle for a moment to go and fetch the picnic goods we had left in our rush. When I came back she poured us each a glass of wine and carried them through to the lounge, sitting down on the one end of the couch.
“I am so sorry for what you have gone through tonight, nobody should have to see what I’m guessing you saw on that beach.”
She looked into her wine glass and went quiet. I was starting to go numb about it.
“It’s okay, I saw much worse in Afghanistan, he is the second of my friends I have seen dead up close, and the last one I had left. Honestly I kind of saw it coming tonight. I should not have left him alone.”
She moved closer and curled herself around me.
“Just let me comfort you tonight Michel, I don’t know how to make you forget, but I can try to not to let you feel alone.”
I held on to her with my own arms around her small waist, amazed at how narrow it was. I breathed in her neck, her perfume intoxicating.
“Anna, can I call you Anna?” I asked into her hair.
She nodded, “I like that.”
She nuzzled my neck and her next words were an ignition flame to a gas leak of arousal.
“Michel, why do scary situations and grief especially, cause a need for physical comforting and…” She trailed off lifting her head and wiping her hair from her face to look at me. “I’m sorry, that’s indecent.”
I stopped her from hiding her face again.
“I know what you mean, do you mind if we pick up that kiss where we were interrupted earlier?”
Her lips met mine before I had a chance to see her final facial expression, and our tongues entwined as her mouth opened to my gentle explorations. She moaned against me as I ran my hands up and down her back against the soft chiffon of her dress, feeling the zipper at the top, and working very hard to resist the temptation of sliding it down to expose smooth skin.
“Michel, lift your arms,” she murmured, breaking the kiss for a nanosecond.
She pulled my shirt off over my head and turned to sit straddling my lap, lifting the skirt of her dress so that she could sit more comfortably. I watched as she adjusted herself and took a deep breath.
“Anna, before this goes any further, are you okay with it going further?”
She turned that deep cerulean gaze on me, and I read her certainty and arousal there. She nodded and brought her lips to mine again,
“Yes Michel, I am ready to move further, and stop trying not to unzip my dress, if you want to, do it.”
I sat forward on the couch and reached around her back, and this time when my fingers found the zipper I didn’t restrain myself; I pulled it slowly down. She hollowed her back, arching her breasts into me as the front of her dress slid down her shoulders and draped itself around her elbows. Her pale skin was suffused gradually with a pink flush, and I brought my hands to the front of her body, running my fingers very gently over her nipples, visible through the lace of her bra. They were already firm, but hardened even more under my touch as she bit her lip and watched the movement of my hands.
In a smooth movement I unhooked the back of her bra and pulled it away to expose small, pert breasts with rosy pink nipples. When I lowered my mouth to her collarbone, pulling her down into me with my hands around her, she made little incoherent sounds of pleasure, digging her fingers into my shoulders. I stood with her in my arms and started walking to my bedroom, her legs wrapped around my waist tightly. I put her down in the bedroom, and as she lowered her legs the diaphanous fabric of her dress slipped down over her hips to pool at her feet.
“You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen Anna, you are truly my mermaid girl.”
I stood back to admire the sight of her standing there, hands folded demurely in front of her. She looked so shy. Annabelle stepped out of the dress and approached me slowly, tentatively. She nibbled on my neck.
“Compliments make me uncomfortable Michel.”
I felt her hands at my belt buckle, and then my belt slipped loose and landed on the floor with her dress. She pulled the zipper down and unbuttoned my jeans, pulling them off when I lifted my legs one at a time. I took her to my bed and laid her down on her back, and after switching on and dimming the lights, started at her feet and kissed a trail from her toes up her legs, nipping at the insides of her knees and thighs.
She squeaked, pushing at my head and knotting her fingers in my hair when I pulled at
her lacy panties with my teeth. I reached for them and when I slid my fingers through the sides at her hips she tilted her pelvis to let me slip them down. This was the most magical moment of getting naked with a girl for the first time, when she let you remove her underwear, that permission that’s given, so to speak.
Her skin was soft, smooth and hairless, and I leaned down to kiss a strawberry shaped wine stain birth-mark on her right hip bone. Her fingers were still tangled in my hair, and she dragged me up to kiss me again. Our pelvises met and she rubbed herself against me with soft grinding motions. I reached a hand down, feeling the moisture of her arousal on my fingers as they slipped easily between the silky lips of her sex.