by Lena Pierce
But it’s more than that, I reflect, as I pour myself my third glass of wine. I’m tipsy, but I don’t care. It’s half past eight o’clock and the TV is playing and I’m hardly watching it at all. Diesel is out somewhere, doing something. It’s more than that, I reflect as I take a long sip from my third glass of wine. I’m sure there’s more to it than sex. I’m sure there’s more to it than wanting him inside of me. I think about that first conversation we had about a baby. Lately, when I close my eyes, I see myself holding a child with Diesel looking down at us. It makes no sense. And yet it won’t go away.
I clean up the broken bowl, scooping up the big pieces and vacuuming the small awkward ones. I shouldn’t be with a man who breaks bowls, I tell myself. I start on my fourth glass of wine, opening a second bottle. I wish Diesel was something else, but then if he was something else, wouldn’t he be somebody else, too? I think about how I told him about my past, how easy it seemed, how well he listened. Do people get to choose who they fall for, or is that decision made for them?
The TV image is slightly distorted from where milk has dried on it. For some reason, that seems hilarious. I take another sip, and then spit it out laughing.
“What’s funny?” I turn at the sound of his voice. He’s standing in the doorway, a bottle in his hand, his words slurred. As he walks into the apartment, he trails the smell of smoke with him.
“Nothing,” I say. “You’re drunk.”
“Am’nt,” he slurs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, little lady, lady little. The world needs to get off my goddamn case.”
“Don’t throw yourself a pity party,” I tell him. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s that.”
“I better not do that, then.” He drops heavily into the chair and then takes a swig from the whisky bottle. It’s almost empty, a few trickles dropping onto his tongue. “What’re you drinking?” he asks.
“Wine,” I say.
“I’ll have a glass. Womanly shit, but better’n nothing.”
I think about telling him no, but if I’m drinking I might as well have company. Plus, he looks terrible. His face—and the smell of smoke—tells me that he’s just done something as terrible as his face. I should be running to the nearest police station. Instead, I get him a glass of wine and refill my own, placing them both on the coffee table. He drains half of his in one gulp.
“This is disgusting,” he says.
He takes a matchstick from his pocket and chews the wooden end, and then tosses it to the floor. “One day I accidentally broke the switch that turned the shower on and off. It wasn’t the shower unit or anything. Just the switch that let the water pass through. Maybe they’re not common?” I shake my head, but he doesn’t look at me. He stares into space. “I pulled on it too hard. I was twelve but I was big, way bigger than the other boys. Maybe that’s why he hated me so much, or maybe it’s because I killed my mom when I was born. Whatever it was, I broke this switch and my dad—my fine, upstanding policeman dad—came home and found out.
“I knew there’d be hell to pay because there was always hell to pay, so I’d blocked myself in my room.” He chuckles darkly. “He busted right through that door, his policeman’s boot smashing right through, and there I was, nearly as tall as him, pissing my goddamn pants. Sometimes it was the belt. But if it was more serious, he’d get out this long, thin blade.”
“Oh God, Diesel …” Tears prick my eyes. I move up the couch so that I can reach across and place my hand atop his.
“I got used to it after a while. He’d cut into my back and tell me I was a useless piece of dirt who’d never amount to anything. He’d cut patterns into my back and tell me he was doing it for my own good. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
“It’s okay.”
I wipe tears from my cheeks. I try and remind myself that this man most likely just burned down a building, that people might be hurt, but right now he just seems like a troubled drunk man who needs somebody to care for him. I don’t know if I want to be that somebody. But I am that somebody. I’m holding his hand. I’m listening. I can’t stop myself. Something inside of him is calling out to me and I can’t ignore it.
“I started staying out nights when I got older, getting in with the wrong crowd. That’s what they say, isn’t it? The wrong crowd. But it didn’t seem like that at the time. These were people showing me some goddamn kindness, who I could laugh with and drink with and smoke with and fight with. If we hurt each other, it was fair. It wasn’t some grownup asshole cutting a kid. You can guess what my dad thought of me staying out. My proud policeman dad. My respected-in-the-fucking-community dad. The beatings came down harder. I got more scars. Look at me, Willa, and you’ll see everything the bastard did to me marked for life.”
My heart is breaking for him. I tug on his hand, leading him to the couch, and then get on my knees so that I can wrap both of my arms around him. We’re both drunk but it doesn’t matter. This is real. I know this is real.
“This wasn’t in LA. It was down near San Diego. When I was sixteen, I saved up enough money from all my small jobs—fighting, mostly—and I skipped town. I came to LA not giving a shit about anything other than never being dragged down into the basement again. I didn’t care. Not about myself, not about anybody else. I’d go to bars and pick fights with the bouncers just for the hell of it. That’s where Grimace found me, a pup gone wild … That’s what he called me one night, when we were drinking. I’m boring you. I’m boring myself.”
He leaned forward and picked up the wine glass, draining it.
“You’re not boring me. You could never bore me.”
I kiss him on the cheek, holding his shoulders, trying to keep him from swaying. He brings my glass of wine to my lips. “You’re not drinking,” he says.
“I am,” I reply, and let him tip the glass so its contents empty into me.
Both of us swaying together as though slow dancing, he goes on.
“I joined up with the Riders. I was an enforcer. Beating people up, getting money, and then I got word that the old man had died in a shootout. I didn’t give a damn about him. Or maybe I did. Fuck, I don’t know. All I know is I went down there for the funeral and that was the biggest mistake of my life. I ended up getting into a fight with one of my dad’s cop friends and having the fucking book thrown at me. It was a scuffle and the man wasn’t hurt, not even close to hurt, but they gave me five years for it. Five years, Willa, but it might as well’ve been life, ’cause when you’re the son of a cop it don’t matter if you’ve joined up with a one-percent club, you’re still the son of a cop. I would’ve been torn apart in there if Grimace hadn’t set me up with some of his inside boys, fixing it so they were transferred to my prison. He saved my life.
“So what choice to do I have?” He leaps to his feet, hands in his hair, pacing. “He saved my goddamn life!” He stumbles into the kitchen and returns with the bottle of wine. “I burn, Willa. I burn and I burn and I fucking burn.” He takes a long swig from the bottle, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his leather. “And I burn and I burn and I …” He drops onto the couch.
He’s admitted it, I tell myself. It’s out in the open now. I can’t lie to myself. He’s done it and I need to get out of here. I can’t be with a man who burns down buildings. I can’t. So why am I resting my head on his shoulder, and why is my hand straying to his knee, and why is my clit aching and my body screaming? My head is groggy. Logical thinking is difficult. All I can think about is Diesel, younger then and not named Diesel, being beaten by a fully-grown man.
I turn my face and see him looking down at me.
“Tell me your name,” I say. “Tell me your name. Tell me your name, tell me your name, tell me your name.” I leap onto his lap, splitting my legs so that our crotches press together, his cock hard despite how drunk he is. I giggle as I writhe, grinding up and down on him. It feels good. That’s all I can think about right now. “Tell me your name or I’ll stop. I promise I’ll stop.”
I slam them away. “Your name or nothing, mister. I mean that.”
“My name is Diesel.”
“Okay, fine. If you want to be pedantic. What did your name used to be?”
“Why do you want to know so badly?”
He keeps trying to touch my ass and I keep slapping him away.
“Because if I’m going to make love to you, I want to know what name to scream.”
I twist my hips. The denim is hard, rough. I wish it away. I want what’s underneath.
He looks into my face, his dark green eyes full of life even if they are full of whisky as well. I’m drunk, too. There’s no denying that now. “My name was Damon Holmes,” he says, “but my father beat that name out of me. I was called Damon when these scars were being made. I was called Damon when I was picking my baby teeth off the kitchen floor. I was called Damon when my head was bouncing down the stairs. If you’re gonna scream for me, scream Diesel. It’s the only name I’ve ever wanted.”
I know it’s wrong. I know I should run. I know—
I bring my lips to his, unable to stop myself, kissing hard , moving my hands down his body to the front of his jeans, feeling his rock-hard cock, rubbing it and making it harder.
When the kiss breaks off, I moan, “Diesel, Diesel, Diesel …”
Chapter Eleven
Willa
He grips me under the armpits and lifts me up, carrying me into the bathroom. “What are you doing, you madman?” I cry out. I’m too drunk now to care about anything else apart from the strength in his body, how easily he can hold me. My clit feels engorged, aching, like there’s too much blood rushing too it. My lips are swollen and desperate to feel him. My hole tingles with the desire to be opened up by him. My whole body is alive with a thousand sensations all pointing to Diesel.
“We’re both sweaty and dirty,” he says. “We need to clean up.”
He stumbles as he carries me, but only a little. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist, jostling up and down, my pussy grinding against the leather of his jacket. He puts me down in the bathroom and steps back, watching me.
“Take off your clothes,” he says, his dark green eyes more animalistic than I’ve ever seen them.
This is the point where I usually say no … No, I can’t do this. No, this is wrong. You smell of smoke and I’m not that sort of woman. But wine has beaten back those words. If I regret it in the morning, fine, but the morning is a long, long time away. It can sort itself out. I love the way he looks at me, like any moment he could jump forward and attack me, attack me with his hands and his tongue and his cock, which I can see outlined in his jeans.
I remove my top, pulling it over my head, and then reach around and unclip my bra. I’ve never been much of the striptease type, and I don’t think I can start while I’m this drunk, so I just strip off quickly. Diesel doesn’t mind. He begins to unzip his jacket. I wriggle out of my tights and then pull down my skirt, so that I’m standing there just in my underwear. It’s the first time Diesel has ever laid eyes on my bare breasts. He pauses unzipping for a moment, staring with wide eyes.
“Fuck, Willa,” he says. “Fuck.”
I’m a tiny bit nervous despite the wine. I’ve never been the confident sort who can get naked and think nothing of it. In college if I ever stumbled home with a man, I would always prefer the light to be turned off. But for some reason I feel like I have to be brave now. If I have bared myself to this man emotionally, I have to do it physically, too. I pull down my panties, kicking them off when they reach my ankles. My pussy has a small tuft of clipped blonde hair—I’ve never been huge into shaving—which draws Diesel’s eyes immediately.
“Fuck,” he says again, voice raspy. “I need you.”
I skip over to him, giggling, feeling playful. Wine and lust rush to my head in equal measure. “Then take your clothes off,” I say.
I help him along, throwing his jacket into the corner and then unbuttoning his shirt so, quickly, two buttons fly away. His scarred torso reminds me of what his father did to him, all the horrible stories he hasn’t told me about and will probably never tell me about. I need to make him feel better, and in doing so make myself feel better. Soon we’re both naked, standing opposite each other. His cock is massive, at least ten inches, so hard it looks like he could burst any second. He walks past me, cock brushing my belly, and switches on the shower.
When he returns to me, he grips my shoulders and pushes down, not hard, but not soft, either. I fall to my knees and take his cock in my mouth, opening my mouth as wide as I can and forcing my lips down. I can get down only to half of it, but I work the base with my hand, rubbing and listening to him moan. He growls low, pleasure making whatever words he’s saying difficult to understand. I suck him for a few minutes, feeling the tip of his rock-hard cock hit the back of my throat, gagging and choking and then sucking some more. And then he’s pulling me to my feet and his eyes are locked on my body.
He reaches down and slides two fingers into my pussy, eyes locked on me the whole time. “I finally get to touch your perfect fucking cunt,” he says. “You’re so fuckin’ tight.”
I barely hear him. His fingers brush up against my super-sensitive lips and deep into my pussy, pressing into the spot of warmth inside of me. He slides his fingers in and out to the rhythm of the shower, pushing me into it so that warm water cascades down my body and clings to my nipples.
“You’re gonna come for me,” he says, stepping in after me, “and then I’m gonna fuck you harder than you’ve ever been fucked.”
I gasp as his two fingers move in small circles around my sweet spot. I’m afraid I’ll fall, so I lean against his muscled body, propping myself up by gripping onto his scarred pectoral muscles. His fingers work tirelessly, circles moving fast until there’s a whirlwind of heat inside of me, caressing my hot spot, making it hotter. Fire, fire … but I forget about the fires as the orgasm approaches. My toes curl; my fingernails scratch down his torso; my pussy gets tighter, and my head gets even foggier than it already was. I bite down on his chest as the pleasure mounts deep within my pussy, as though a powerful tidal wave is smashing against a dam, over and over, and soon it’ll break …
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I moan into his chest as the orgasm breaks inside of me. The pleasure travels through my entire body, making my nipples sore and my clit throb, my hole so tight I feel it squeezing around his fingers. I don’t know if it’s my come or the warm shower water dripping down my thighs, and I don’t care. I tilt my hips, riding the orgasm, sitting down so that his knuckles crush my clit and one last wave of pleasure moves through me.
When it’s done I throw my head back and let out a moan, panting with the intensity of it.
“I need to be inside you,” he says. “I fuckin’ need it.”
He grabs my shoulders and turns me around so that I’m facing the shower tiles, and then pushes my upper back. I follow his lead, bending forward, pushing my ass out and looking over my shoulder to see his face. It’s twisted in pleasure, locked onto my ass cheeks. I push my ass out even more, loving that look on his face, like I’m the only woman alive who could ever really satisfy him. I’m almost at a ninety degree angle as I push my ass out further. He moves his hands over my ass cheeks.
“You’re so fuckin’ perfect,” he says, as the tip of his cock rubs up and down my clit, so close to my hole I want to scream. “You’re so goddamn fuckin’ sexy. Tell me you want to be fucked.”
“I need to be fucked!” I moan. And right now that’s how it feels. My body is roaring out for him. My body needs his cock.
When he slides into me, there are a few moments of pain. He’s huge. He’s so big it’s like I can feel him splitting me in half. His massive cock drives into my tight pussy, opening me up, his tip widening a path for the rest of him. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, wondering if he’ll be too big for me. But then my p
ussy releases for him, and the pain is replaced with hot, wet pleasure. I open my eyes and push back, my ass pressing into his abs, and then I’m moaning and he’s fucking me hard. He doesn’t start slow. He drills into me, and I’m so horny that I don’t want him to start slow. I’m soaking wet and I want him hard right away.
He grips my ass cheeks and pumps his hips, his cock slamming into my sweet spot, his balls slapping against my clit, fucking me deep and hard. I grip the tiles with my fingernails, two of them snapping and not feeling it at all, only feeling his cock inside of me. I don’t feel the ache in my legs or my arms or anything, except distantly. My world becomes my pussy and his cock, the tearing friction, the brutal pleasure. His fingers dig into the flesh of my ass cheeks as he groans and growls, taking me like an animal. I feel like an animal. It feels fucking great.