I crossed the room to where the exterior glass door abutted the windows, and I looked out into the frost garden. Light shone on it. Only the heartiest growth was left wild to overtake the yard. I could feel Daniel’s eyes on my back. My heart thudded. There was something about rooms. We didn’t we belong in them.
Observing me from behind, he said, “They’ll need to fix the gate to keep trouble out. I broke it. I came in that door you’re standing at. Every window in the house is boarded, except these.”
“This is antique cherry. Just like the stairs and the foyer paneling. Even the window frames. If they nail it, they’ll ruin it,” I said running my hand on the wood trim. “The power is on. It’s not as cold as the outside in here. Someone must be keeping it from warp and rot.”
“You are very knowledgeable.”
“Just a small town girl,” I said. “But I guess I’m not alone in thinking this one is a gem.”
He came close to me. “You’re nervous.”
I sucked in a deep breath and looked up from the door sill. He was standing closer. The light caught in his eyes.
“I didn’t think I wanted to do this tonight. But seeing you here,” he confessed. “This close, all that comes to mind is every look you’ve given me. The way your body moves when you walk, when you cross over a puddle. The way it moves when you stand there against glass, perfectly still.” He took a step closer. “How you feel on me.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, too.” I admitted, shivering, letting my finger scroll the sill.
He came close until almost touching me. “There are many things I’d like to do with you, in time. Things I should repent just for thinking. You are too fearfully and beautifully built and at the same time, most certainly, and not at all suited for my degenerate thoughts.”
“I am here. And I am with you. Tonight.”
“Always,” he said. “Let me speak plain, so it can be said. I have been at this impasse a thousand times. I have never felt this. I have never desired anyone or anything more. I just need you to know this beforehand.”
“I understand.”
“So you will wait.”
“Daniel.”
“I feel a gun to my head if we do not. If you go out in the world an additional minute without me marking you mine. I know my ilk. You are a time bomb. Days away from being swept off your feet by some cunning cuckold or a nice lad with a golden retriever. But there is something between us.”
“It’s not just anything.”
“Yes. This thing. That is how I know this is not the way. I see rose petals and champagne and many other horribly uninventive things I could possibly do to let you know your worth within me.”
“This place doesn’t change my worth. Or yours,” I asserted. “And besides, I told you. Someone’s taking care of it. It’s not bad at all.”
“You deserve better. I can give you that, but not tonight.”
“Tonight,” I said with need. “This is nice enough.”
“I’ll give you more. I’ll give you anything.”
“All I want is this.” I said, laying my hand over his heart.
“It’s yours.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Gabrielle. I think you’ll be the end of me,” he said, his hands cradling my face. “Will you be my end?”
“I will,” I breathed, looking into his searching eyes. “I do. I love you, too,” I said then, with a shaking hand, drew back my coat over my shoulders. He met my hands with his and pushed off the coat. It fell to the floor. His hand went under my shirt, running along my waist, and up to my breast. He stepped forward pressing me against the wall, and I could feel him. He leaned his lips close to mine. Holding back with great restraint, he said, “There is only one chance to make a good first impression, Gabrielle. And since the setting isn’t in my favor.”
Our lips crashed together in unison. Our mouths fit at every angle. He raised me up and my legs wrapped around his waist, locking in the back. We moved backwards until he took us down on one of his knees then another and rested back on his heels with me on him, still keeping our rivaling mouths engaged. He removed everything on my top, discarding it, our mouths breaking as he whipped off my shirt. He kissed me longer, smoothing his hands along my spine, under my shoulder bones. He pulled me off finally, and raised me to stand by the waist, quickly sliding down my pants, tossing them while he kissed. Then my underthings. And kissed. Hands sliding. Legs rubber. He rocked back and I opened my eyes down at him.
“My God,” he whispered and gripped my thigh.
His pants were open. I had done that. He drew me back down, my thighs on his stronger ones. He brushed my hair back, uncovering my breast. More kisses. And skill. I felt adored. He rolled us over, onto the blanket. My head resting on his folded jacket that smelled of a fragrant dryer sheet. I closed my eyes and inhaled, not wanting to forget it. Mundane as it was. I felt his chest on mine. His knees separated my legs. Lips bent down to mine, his arm supporting his weight. His kiss changed. Like an IV drip of love. He lifted his hips moving himself to the center. I knew what came next.
He pressed himself firmly inside me, hard and smooth. I gasped, taking in a sharp lung full of cool air. A guttural groan rumbled from deep in his chest. My body burned white hot from the inside. Strange flames licked every inch of my skin, generated where our bodies joined below. In this piercing pain, masochism made sense because the pain and pleasure created the most delicious emulsion. I dug my nails into him, gripping, trembling in anticipation of what came next. His hard body became rigid against mine.
“Is this your innocence?” he asked in a hoarse voice, but he knew.
He carefully shifted his weight onto an elbow, the tendons in his shoulders and neck pulled tight. I felt a pang of guilt at my lie of omission, but I hadn’t wanted to scare him away from this. As his eyes searched mine, his hardened features quickly transformed into an expression of tenderness and reverence, and I drowned in it.
I knew already if I ever had been innocent, I didn’t want to be again. Whatever he was guilty of, whatever crime he’d committed, I wanted to be guilty of too. Whatever stake he burned on, I’d burn with him. No burden could pull me away or convince me this was wrong. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hurt for him, and nothing in my entire life had ever felt truer. I stroked my hand down the hard expanse of his back, coaxing him, begging, urging him on.
“Yes. But, please, stay with me,” I managed in rasped whisper as my spine arched and my body stretched, for him, onto him. God, it hurt but he was so beautiful and the weight of his body on mine felt like the half that was missing all along had now found home. Underneath him I felt whole, and I willed him to continue with every fiber of my being.
His eyes glittered, shaming the beams of moonlight, seeming insignificant and lusterless by comparison. He ran his fingers down my cheek and brushed my lip with his thumb, so I tasted him. No air escaped between us, his exhale was my breath, our chests rising and falling heavily, in time with one another. It was only seconds, but it felt like a lifetime body stretched, for him, onto him. God, it hurt but he was so beautiful and the weight of his body on mine felt like the half that was missing all along had now found home. Underneath him I felt whole and I willed him to continue with every fiber of my being.
He leaned down and gently pressed his forehead to me, and I was certain the beat of his heart was the only thing keeping me alive.
“Could I do worse to confess I have no regret? Not even a little,” he breathed into my hair, sounding as desperate as I felt. I gently sucked the tip of his thumb. Relief washed through me, and I shook my head minutely, shyly, but I understood completely.
I took his smooth cheek in my hand and pulled his face to mine. “Please…” I said with conviction, but my words were lost. I’d lose anything, give anything, and I told him this much with my eyes. His lips formed a mischievous smile when he withdrew from inside me. At the motion I bit down on his thumb, drawing some blood, and
my lids closed on their own accord.
“Don’t,” I whimpered, as his velveteen thumb slid across my lip coating it with his coppery flavor. We were blood for blood now. I clawed my fingers into his flesh, attempting to pull him back in to me, worried he’d changed his mind.
“Gabrielle, Gabrielle,” he chanted, and I needed to see him. “There is no going back for either of us now,” he confessed as he locked my gaze.
“Don’t think of the pain,” he prepped me, affectionately, neither of us knowing then the cataclysmic truth of his words. He pushed so deeply inside me, I didn’t think he’d ever find a way out and then all thoughts vanished.
Because in that moment, I…we, were perfect.
He moved, rhythmically, again and again. I’d hinted a good game, but when the time came, I had no bite except for myself. He stopped giving me everything, because I couldn’t hold back my singing moans; which on the whole, for the world, was more than enough. When I could see it was a strain for him, my teeth sank in my lip silencing myself. He observed and stopped holding back, thrusting inside, overflowing me and my body arched stroke after stroke. My eyes fluttered open to see him adoring, all beauty, power, possession, and awe. He was drawing something out of me. Right at the root. I bit down hard. When he knew he had it pressed down, ripping sound from my throat and I gripped his tight cheeks. They stayed tight with my weak hands barely hanging on as he played crushingly smooth, drawing me out into him, and I let my voice go. He was in control, but I was drawing him too. A steady tremble quaked from the bittersweet pain buried deep near my womb while rapturously disassembling—the combination so complete I believed in creation. A pause, but he stayed on, skillfully drawing out the last note.
The feeling rushed me. I quietly blew into a thousand million pieces but not away. I floated with my old pieces in between pieces of him. You couldn’t measure the speed or distance in our experience. It held me together. A perfect cluster of me with him. What clock could count us? What gravity could beg us down? There was none.
We lay together holding each other long after, warm when it should have been cold. He draped me in the jacket, and I draped him in me. It was our universe. Only the bluing light of dawn warning of a sunrise received our attention, cast through wavy glass panes with tiny bubbles inside.
“Come with me,” he said, kissing my head, and rolling to the side. I propped up on an elbow as he stood to get dressed. I smiled and dressed as well. He draped the blanket around his neck to keep his hands free as we climbed two levels in the creaking house. He asked me to stand back as he dislodged the rusted access to the rooftop, pushing up with both hands as he had before, his arms up in a Y. It lifted and climbed the narrow access, and the prop held when he extended the opening to its full potential. Half his body was lost to the outside, but he reached down for me and held my hand, leading me back out onto the rooftop. We sat down in the middle, the high point, side by side, and watched the sun rise through the skyline, breaking through in between building after building. We watched it ascend them all, and we were dashed in its light.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
“Not a bit,” I said, quietly drifting, though after I replied, I felt a yawn.
“You’re tired,” he half-smiled. “I have some things I need to take care of today. So I can stay.”
Forever, he meant. “Can they wait? We could find breakfast?” I was being selfish. I didn’t want to part for a minute.
“They cannot,” he assured me. “Can we meet tonight?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Where do you want to meet?”
“Let’s meet again at the park. Our bench. May I take you out tonight? To dinner?”
I smiled. “Yes.”
His hand combed into my hair and we kissed. He helped me up and stooped to scoop up the blanket. He began removing his jacket—the Army green one.
“Your coat is wet,” he said. “Take this.”
I shrugged out of mine and assessed the back, all the way down to the hem a huge splash of damp soaking through the thick wool.
“Thank you. It must have happened somewhere inside.”
“Take this, only, please, return it tonight. I would give it to you, but it belongs to a friend. It’s the only thing he prizes.”
“Is it special?”
“An heirloom. His grandfather passed away trying to save his father from a strong current when he fell from their boat. His father was never recovered. He was with them, just a child then, and the rescue boat found only him, soaking wet, wearing just this,” he said, snuggling it around me. “If I don’t return his grandfather’s coat, he will most certainly scalp me with a hook.”
“I will be careful with it,” I promised. I wound the blanket and tucked it under my arm.
“You don’t want that thing, surely,” he jested.
“Yes, I do. It’s my new favorite blanket. Oh, I left something.” My hand dug in and found the cold circle of calamari. I pulled it out closed fisted, and went to put it in my current pocket. He caught my hand and unfolded it, then slid it back onto my finger again as he’d done a few hours before.
“I will replace it,” he swore.
“I know. I just like to save things.”
He smiled, wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me close, and rested his chin in my hair.
“Tonight,” he said.
“Tonight,” I replied. He kissed my head, and I savored it but yawned involuntarily.
“You should go. Get some sleep,”
“You’re not coming down with me?”
“I need to think for a spell.”
“What about?” I asked concernedly.
“A plan,” he said and stroked my bottom lip. He broke his intensity with a smile teasing the corner of his lip, adding, “New Jersey isn’t cheap, after all.”
I laughed, and he smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have a part-time job. And some money, too, tucked away in a savings account. It was from my mother.”
“You should be investing. You’ll compound more quickly,” he said formally, as he brushed back my hair. “Or, so I’ve been taught.”
“In the nice house,” came from my sleep-deprived mind.
He looked tranquilly at me but didn’t verbalize. I didn’t care to know more. I tried to put as much of my heart as I could conjure into my words without sounding desperate. “Daniel. I can make a place to sit for us. For two.”
“You may put it in the house I buy you,” he allowed, making his position on it clear. “Go and rest. Do you promise to dream only of me?”
I nodded, resting my drowsy head atop his heart.
“This is everything to me,” he said, and I kissed him one more time before another unstoppable yawn, then came off of my tip-toes and walked towards the opening.
“You’re safe going down,” he said confidently watching me from where he stood. “They’re sound, the stairs. They won’t fail. I only wanted to hold your hand.”
“I see,” I said lazily, lowering myself, watching him stare into the distance, the horizon moving against him, washed now in an orange yellow light. I love you, I thought and regretted every day I remembered that final image of him that I didn’t say it.
Maybe he would have been there at the park, the next night, if I had.
There was a woman beside me chasing gray pigeons. She fed them and lured them, then stomped her filthy shoes at them. Fabric concealed her head, bearing only the belief system of unwashed hair. She was coming over to me and stomped my foot when I didn’t move from the bench where I waited….
My phone was ringing in my pocket. I was in my dorm. I kept reshuffling everything on my desk. I swiped it clean all the way to the edge then restacked, reshuffled. I couldn’t get it right. It needed to be like it used to be back when I went to class. My roommate walked in and I jumped. She crinkled her nose and went straight to her bed and put on her headphones….
It was dark. I paced and paced, frantically in the pocket of the woods that I’d l
ast seen with snow. I was so hungry. So thirsty. I paced some more, shoving my hands in and out of my pockets. I ran my hand through my hair, but my hand wouldn’t go all the way through. My phone rang and I answered it. Too rushed, but she wasn’t paying attention. Schools fine, I’m fine, just studying, can’t come out to play. She was satisfied….
I was in the TA’s office. She was saying something. My leg crossed over the other. It shook. Thirty days, she said. Thirty days to turn it around. She crinkled her nose at me just like my roommate. I said thank you then ran down the hall, the cuffs of an Army green jacket past my knuckles as I hugged myself, and threw up in her bathroom sink….
“Can I help you?” he asked and sat down beside me on the bench. It was very, very late, but I had to tell someone. He was there, and I told him. I was waiting for someone who was supposed to come back. I described him and asked him to help me look, if he had time. I couldn’t be everywhere, if I’d heard him wrong. If he too was waiting somewhere else. I showed him my ring. He grinned and leaned towards me, groping me. I clawed at him and kicked him onto the ground and I ran…it should have stopped me, instead I began carrying a knife….
I was in the alley alongside the house we’d made love. It made me nauseous and I threw up again, because of the smell so terribly strong. There was a woman in the back, in our room…the pigeon lady. She grinned at me and unwrapped a tin foil of chips in offering. I was so hungry, I took one….
I skulked down an alley in daylight…every entry for blocks was the same, no Now Open sign…I encountered cat bowls beside trash piles…only one permeated with rancid brown beer…the ajar door from the alley led me through a gutted back room…into a painter with a roller brush in a squat hull room…’Lounge Opening Soon’ in the window…”Get the fuck outta here,” he shouted, violently thrusting the roller at me from his ladder….Back in the alley, I ripped open the trash and found colored light strands…
In the Land of Milk and Honey Page 50