by Nicole Fox
“You have to understand,” I say, clenching my teeth to stop from yelling, “that when you say that, it’s going to annoy the hell out of me. You have to understand that, because otherwise I’ll seem like a crazy psycho when I do this.”
“Do what?”
I pick up a half-full glass of water and toss it in his face. It splashes hard, droplets bouncing off him and hitting me. I place the glass down and fold my arms, waiting.
Fink wipes his face with his sleeve, and then smiles, and then laughs like a maniac. He grips the table and shakes back and forth, laughing like somebody with no problems in the world laughs, laughing like somebody who has never had to worry laughs. He laughs like everything is okay and everything will always be okay. And then releases the table and wipes a tear from his eye.
“Okay,” he says. “I guess I deserved that.”
“You did. But I promise I won’t do it again. I just . . . I have to know, Fink. I have to know why you ran out of me because of the baby. I mean, I get it. I guess I do. Babies scare men. But surely you could’ve just woken me up, and we could’ve talked about it, or . . .”
“Sure, I could’ve done that.” He shrugs. “What are you expecting from me? Some kind of detailed analysis of my feelings—”
“Don’t get sarcastic with me,” I interrupt. “I want an explanation before I decide if I’m taking you back or not.”
“So you’re telling me you came down here and saved my ass and now you don’t even know if you’re taking me back. Be honest, Nancy. You’re taking me back, and we’re going to be a real couple this time. We’re going to do shit, like go to the movies or whatever, and when you have appointments at the doctor and things like that, I’ll come with you. I’ll look at the what-do-you-call-it, the photograph that looks like an aerial photo?”
“The ultrasound?” I say, giggling. There are tears in my eyes.
“I’ll look at the ultrasound and pretend to be able to see the kid, and when the kid is born, I’ll be there. I’ll take him to school and soccer and all that good stuff. I promise.”
I want to fall into his arms. I want this to be the moment where everything gets good, better than good: where everything runs smoothly until the end of time. But I also can’t deny my feelings, and my feelings are far from simple. “But you just walked out,” I say. “And you didn’t come back. You didn’t even come back this time. We’re not sitting here now because you came back to me. We’re sitting here now because I came to you—again. So who’s to say that you won’t just disappear again?”
“I am,” he says firmly. “I say that. Because I know I’m not my dad. I know I won’t ruin that kid’s life. I know I won’t be the reason another fifteen-year-old joins a biker club. I’ve left the club, Nancy.” He explains about being banished from Salem. “And all for you. You think I wasn’t going to come back to you.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out an envelope, sliding it across the table.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
I open it and look inside: a one-way plane ticket to LA, leaving in four hours.
“You really were going to come back,” I whisper. “You were going to fly all the way out there—and you’ve left the club, your club—all for me . . .” I trail off, revelation after revelation stacking atop each other until there’s a tower in my mind. I watch it, seeing if its foundations are strong, seeing if it will topple easily. It seems sturdy, and we have plenty of time to make it sturdier.
“What about tonight?” I ask.
“I was going to ask you about that,” he says. “I’m banished from Salem, it’s true, but I reckon there’ll give me some leeway for the first week, let me get my shit together. I was wonderin’ if we could fall asleep together, pretty lady.”
“And I’ll wake up and you’ll still be there.” I wink at him playfully.
“I guess we’ll have to see about that,” he says.
We go outside to my car. “Can I drive?” he asks.
“Sure.” I toss him the keys. “Why?”
“Don’t you know anything about me, pretty lady? I’m a gentleman. I’d never let my pregnant fiancée drive.”
His words don’t hit me until I’m sitting in the passenger seat. “Fiancée,” I whisper. And then I turn to him, louder: “Fiancée? Are you serious?”
He kisses me as his answer, a long kiss, the sort of kiss which is a preview to the life we’ll spend together: warm, comfortable, and tinged with incredible passion. When he breaks it off, I suck in big gasps of air, hungry for more.
“I mean it,” he says. “I’m deadly serious. I love you, Nancy. I fuckin’ love you, and I’m not going to let my shit get in the way anymore. Well, I’m gonna try my hardest not to let it.” He smiles. “I don’t know how successful I’ll be, but I reckon I can give it a good go.”
“Promise me,” I say, touching his face. “Promise me you’ll stay until the baby is born. Give me that much.”
“That’s not what I meant. I’m staying, no matter what. It’s just some days I might be a pain in the ass.”
I lay my head against the headrest and smile. “I’m sure I can deal with that. Let’s go back to my place.”
He starts the engine.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nancy
“I need to tie you up,” I say, trailing my hand along his arm as he watches TV. “That way I can keep an eye on you.”
“Tie me up?” He laughs. “Really? I’ve never been tied up before, Nancy. I’ve never been the type. I’m always the dominant one, you know? I reckon I’d feel damn vulnerable tied up like that.”
“That’s the point.” I lean in, kissing his neck. “You’d be the vulnerable one instead of me.”
“Are you serious?” He turns to me, looking sexy as all hell in his tight-fitting T-shirt, his muscles bulging, his light green eyes looking up and down my body. “Do you actually wanna do this? I’ve gotta be honest, I reckon I’d feel a little awkward about it. With any other woman I’d say no and that’d be that. But maybe we can try it. Maybe we can see how it goes.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
“Ha!” He covers his mouth, shaking his head. “Sorry, pretty lady, but I reckon my life’s gonna involve doing stuff I’m not completely comfortable with for a while. I reckon that’s the whole point. I was comfortable outlawing and hurting people and walking out on you and running from every good thing in my life. It’s the good stuff that makes me uncomfortable, so maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.”
“Is that a yes?”
“That’s a hell, yes.”
He grabs my neck and pulls me close to him, kissing me firmly. I grab his shoulders and kiss him back, pressing close to him, wanting to be closer every second, wanting to be so close that we fuse and become one person. Before I fall too far into the moment, though, I lean back and slap him on the chest.
“Get in the bedroom, mister. I’m in charge today.”
He jumps to his feet and snaps a salute. “Yes, ma’am!”
I follow him, waiting as he lies on the bed and spreads his arms and legs. “Goddamn,” he says. “This feels weird.”
“We don’t have to . . .”
“I want to,” he says. “I’m curious now. I want to try it.”
“You might want to get undressed first . . .”
“You’re a fuckin’ pervert.” He stands up. “I’ll show you mine if—”
He doesn’t need to finish. I want to be naked for him. Being naked for him makes me feel sexier than I ever have before, the way his eyes roam over my body like it’s the beautiful surface of a lush countryside. I yank off my clothes and stand there, arms at my sides, breasts pushed out. He strips quickly, his cock already rock-hard for me.
“Okay, now lie down.”
He lies on the bed, arms and legs spread. I take the curtain ropes, and then two ropes from bathrobes, and tie his wrists and ankles to each corner of the bed. I know he could break out if
he really wanted to. He’s so strong, he could break the whole bed if he wanted to. But that’s part of the thrill. He’s submitting to me in his mind as well as his body: his soul, even.
“Okay.” I climb onto the bed next to him. “Close your eyes. You’re mine now.”
He does as I ask, and then I place my face against his chest, kissing, licking, moving down the hard pack of muscle on his belly, feeling every ridge with my lips. It’s like kissing an ancient boulder, something that has existed for thousands of years, something timeless and powerful. My heart flutters, my cheeks flooding with warmth, my lips tingling as I kiss those immense muscles. I kiss all the way down to his cock, so hard that it tWolves like a racehorse eager to get out of the block.
I bring my hand to it slowly, touching the tip, and then stroke it up and down in big movements, pumping it hard. I kiss the tip, and then open my mouth and take it in, and then force my face down to his balls, listening to his gasps and grunts, using them as fuel to drive me on. I suck him for a few minutes, savoring every moan of pleasure, and then sit up and straddle him, my pussy less than an inch from his cock.
“Keep your eyes closed,” I say, placing my hands on his pectorals.
I take his cock and sit down, his cock sliding inside of me. And then I sit back up, smiling to myself as he groans in frustration.
“Don’t make me break out of these ropes now,” he says.
“You’d do that to me?” I say sweetly, stroking his cock. “You’d really ruin my fun like that?”
“You’re a sexy little bitch,” he mutters, breathing heavier and heavier the more I stroke him. “You’re a psychopathic maniac.”
“Careful, Fink.” I sit back, this time all the way, laying all my weight on his cock, sliding down the length of him until my ass is pressed against his balls. I take a long breath, savoring the moment of his cock pressing against my pussy lips, opening me up. I dig my fingernails into his chest and tWolf from side to side, grinding my sweet spot against the tip of him.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans.
“Oh, fuck,” I agree.
Using his chest as a grip, I bounce up and down on his cock, bouncing like crazy, my breasts bobbing up and down and my hair whipping and my fingernails scratching lines of blood into Fink’s chest. Fink opens his eyes, staring at my breasts, and shifts his hips as much he can in the bindings, thrusting up inside of me. I bounce up and down, driving downward with my hips, in complete control of the angle of his cock, making minor adjustments as I ride the pleasure.
Then Fink growls and tugs his arms, snapping the ropes in half and bringing his hands to my breasts. “Fuck,” he growls. “Fuck, fuck, you feel too fuckin’ good. You feel fuckin’ perfect.”
He leans up and I wrap my arms around his shoulders, our chests pressed together, me riding him faster and faster, bucking atop him, completely lost to the world now. I keep thinking: this is the father of my child. Over and over, and the thought only adds to the pleasure. He’s here, we’re together, we’re close. I grab his back, running my hands up and down the muscled texture, and then drive down even harder. He’s not fucking me and I’m not fucking him; we’re fucking each other.
The orgasm develops strangely inside of me. It feels as though it comes from my hands, pressed against his muscles, like the power of his muscles transfers to my hands, up my arms, and then down into my pussy, where it grows larger and larger, engulfing me entirely. Distantly, I know this must not be the case. But it feels like that, and the feeling is sweeter and more intense than any orgasm I’ve felt before. I ride the feeling, Fink’s muscles driving my orgasm around me, powering it, growing it, until my pussy is so tight I can hardly stand it.
I drive down on him one final time, and then all hell breaks loose.
I lose control of myself, falling forward as though I’ve been hit in the back. I kiss Fink on the lips, on the cheek, wherever my kisses land as the orgasm explodes inside of me. It trembles and shakes, vibrating my pussy on his cock, my lips going tight and loose as squirting pleasure empties over his hard cock, sliding down the length of it and making his balls wet. I bite my lip, too hard, blood dripping down my chin and into his body. I tilt my hips one way and then the other, riding the pleasure, gripping onto his muscles, feeling the firmness of them, the safety of them. They are muscles which seem to tell me that everything will be all right one day, everything will work out in the end, muscles which bring protection, love, dedication. All of that rolled into one orgasm, one orgasm which stretches my capacity for pleasure far past anything I have felt before, one orgasm which pushes me past the merely pleasurable into the truly euphoric. My mind and body floods with love and pleasure, and then I collapse when it’s over, panting at the unbelievable size of the release.
Fink comes soon after, sucking on my nipples so hard it hurts, and then lies back, panting just as heavily as me. I slide off him and lie next to him, resting my head against his chest, listening to his frantic heartbeat.
“Damn,” he says.
“You cheated.” I kiss him on the cheek. “You were supposed to stay tied up.”
“Can you blame me? How’s anyone gonna stay tied up when you’re bouncing all over the place like that?”
“What’s the time?” I ask.
He leans up and looks at the digital clock. “Six.”
“Let’s have a nap for a while,” I say. “We’ll order some food later.”
“That sounds good to me.” He scratches my scalp lightly, tickling me. “I’m not going anywhere. I guess having me tied up is insurance, eh?”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
I sleep deeply, waking once or twice to make sure that Fink is still there, and then holding onto him all the tighter when I see that he is. We wake around nine o’clock.
I sit up, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “Hungry?” I ask.
Fink unties his ankles. “Starving. You got a laptop, or do you call?”
“I’ve got a laptop. Hang on.” I push some clothes off a chair, revealing my laptop. I hand it to him.
“Pizza?” he asks.
“Whatever you want. I’m not too fussy.”
“Pizza, then.” He orders, closes the laptop, and then the apartment buzzer goes off. “I’ve heard of fast service, but damn.”
“I’ll go and see who it is.”
I know who it is the second I press the intercom button. I’ve heard Dad’s drunken breathing too many times not to know who it is. I wait, wishing I could just tell him to go away, wishing I had that in me. But after everything, I still can’t find that grit. He’s still my dad, even if it makes me angry, even if it makes me hateful. If he says anything mean or cruel to me, however, he’s done. A second chance, I reflect. Mom said she lost count of how many second chances she’d given Dad. I’m the same. It’s probably in the hundreds.
“Nancy?” he says, finally.
“I’m here.”
“Can I come up?”
“You’re drunk,” I say.
“Yes.” He doesn’t sound arrogant like he usually does when he’s drunk. He sounds tired, defeated. “I am. But I’m not here to hurt you or upset you. I just want to talk to you one last time.”
“One last time?” I snap. “What’re you talking about?”
He laughs, and then coughs. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt myself. I didn’t mean that. Can I just come up? Please?”
“Fine, but you should know that Fink is here. I don’t want you freaking out about that.”
“I have no problem with Fink. That’s all over now. I just want to speak to you.”
I press the button to open the door, and then throw on some pajamas and a bathrobe. Fink gets dressed in his jeans and a T-shirt and stands in the doorway, watching silently. I open the door to Dad’s knock and lead him to the couch. His cheeks tremble. His eyes are bloodshot, but not in rage like drink usually makes him. This is sadness. He drops heavily onto the couch and looks up at the ceiling.
“I need to say
this now so—well, just so it’s said. I need you to know that I’ve called up a rehabilitation place and they’re going to let me in. It’s a long program, the longest they have, I think. One year. One year with no contact with the outside world for the first three months. One year to try and get my life in order. One year to prove that I can be a better man. I wanted to tell you in person because I think—Nancy, oh, God—” He wipes tears from his eyes. “You got the short straw with me. Your mom, I caused that lady hell, but you were just a kid. You didn’t deserve to grow up like that—” He collapses forward, bringing his head to his knees and weeping uncontrollably. I place my hand on his back, whispering soothing words, but it does no good. He’s a wreck. It’s like all the pain he’s caused over the years has turned inward, devouring him.