by A. M. Wilson
“Baby,” he groaned, burying his face into the side of my neck. He lifted his head, and his eyes shone. “Be clearer for me, because I don’t want to misinterpret this.”
Cupping both his cheeks, I stroked along the sharp ridge beneath his eye. A scar fanned out from the corner there and blended in with the other natural lines. It was lighter in color and slightly puckered. I moved to trace it with my thumb. “It doesn’t get much clearer. The one and only time I’ve had sex was the night my daughter was conceived.”
Law clenched his jaw and dropped his forehead against my breast bone. My hands slipped from his face. Not able to read his mood, I didn’t know what to do, but I felt awkward not touching him after that confession.
Tentatively, I reached out and settled my hand on the back of his head. He didn’t brush me off, so I threaded my fingers through his messy locks.
I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, I wanted to scream but couldn’t make my mouth work.
My hands fell from his hair when he abruptly pushed himself up and stood. He wouldn’t look at me when he bent over.
He was getting his things and getting dressed. He was leaving. Once again, the mistake I made fourteen years ago was too much for him, and the reminder disgusted him. Could I blame him?
Something hit the floor beside me and the sound caused me to raise my head. Law had stripped off his jeans and socks, and now stood completely naked, stretching his hand out to me.
Hope soared within me. Was he going to stay? I grabbed hold, planting my good foot on the ground, and he pulled me up straight into his warm, solid chest. Both his arms encircled me, and for a few heart beats, we held one another.
“Could have been me,” he stated cryptically. I raised my head, wanting to look him in the eyes, but he held on tighter, forcing me to relax against his chest. “I would have given anything to have been your first. Anything. Thought it was going to be that way. Went so far as to plan it for when you were ready.”
That hope crashed and burned a fiery death.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way though, Cami.” His fingers sifted through my tangled hair. “I’ve seen you with your daughter. Beautiful, like her momma. Kind. Polite. She’s got your attitude, too.”
I trembled in his arms.
“And your stubbornness, I can tell.” His arms jerked, squeezing me tighter. “Point is, I wouldn’t change that for you, even if it meant having everything I wanted. I’ll have to settle for second, and I’ll be happy doing it, if it means I get to finally have you.”
Sliding his palm beneath my jaw, Law tilted my head back to capture my eyes. “What do you say?”
No hesitation. “Please, Law, yes I–ˮ His mouth crushed mine, and the rest was swallowed by his kiss.
He pressed me up against the wall, the surface freezing against my naked back. Shivering, I wrapped my arms around him to steal his warmth as I kissed him back. A desperation stole over me, one that reminded me this moment was fleeting. If history does repeat itself, it led me to believe that this amiability wouldn’t last.
So, I grabbed hold, living in this moment where I could pretend that Law was mine and I was his. That I could believe an impulsive mistake never forced me to choose between the man I used to love and the daughter I could never regret.
It wasn’t real, it was a fairytale. Yet, I was ready to deceive myself if it meant I could have this one memory to carry me through the dark times that were to come.
“God. God...” he breathed through kisses, his harsh exhales filling the silence of the house. “Your lips are perfection. And your body...” He traced my curves from my shoulders to my hips. “I could worship for hours.”
Licking, sucking, tasting, his mouth moved from my lips to my jaw, my ear to my neck; frantic in his quest to take and take. His fingers reached around my back and unhooked my bra. Once it was gone, his mouth found my breast. He stroked the tip with his tongue until it was tight and red, and it swelled thick under his touch. His mouth covered my nipple and sucked deep, sending pleasure blooming through me.
Bending at the waist, he lifted me into his arms and started down the hall.
In the bedroom, he released my nipple with a slow graze of his teeth that sent goosebumps skittering across my arms and tossed me onto my queen-sized bed.
He stood at the edge, looking down on me, and gripped his cock in his palm. His hand slid up to palm the head, then back down, and he gave it three sharp tugs.
Law was hot when he was in a pair of well-fitting, dark-wash jeans and a shirt stretched over his muscular frame, but strip the man naked and have him stroking his cock? He was downright combustible.
That thought must have shown on my face. Law smirked, and slowed the motion of his hand until he was steadily masturbating.
“Think I could get you off just standing here stroking my cock. By the way you’re squirming, I’d say you’re already close.”
“Maybe next time. I need you in me.”
“We should get rid of this, then.” He hooked his fingers in the sides of my thong and peeled it down my legs. “Better. Now spread them.”
Nerves hit first, followed by embarrassment. “Wh-what?”
“I want to watch you touch yourself.”
“I thought we were going to have sex.”
He leaned over the edge of the bed, putting a hand in the mattress near my hip, and brought his face close to mine. His voice lowered. “We are. But first, I want to see how you’ve been taking care of yourself for the past fifteen years, and I want to touch myself while watching it. After that, when you’re so ready I can see your arousal dripping from your pussy, I’m going to lick you, and then fuck you like I promised.”
“Oh.” The word left my mouth on a shuddered exhale.
“I know you like how I’m stroking my cock. Put your hand between your legs and show me how much. I’ll even help.”
He pushed my legs apart and dropped to a hip, so that one of my knees was trapped around his back. Bringing his legs onto the bed so that he was lying on it with me, he used his free hand to push my other leg open wider. Once my legs were where he wanted them, he snagged my right hand and pushed it between them. Already, I could feel myself dripping wet.
“That’s it,” he coaxed, as I used two fingers to circle my clit. “Push them inside. Show me what you like.”
I dipped them into my wet warmth, causing Law to groan, and pulled them out. Using my arousal as lubricant, I circled my clit again. “Oh, God, Law.”
“That’s beautiful, Cami.” He stroked himself harder. “Show me again.”
I repeated the motion, but this time, when I went to circle my clit, Law lowered his head between my legs while he continued to pleasure himself. “Don’t stop touching yourself,” he commanded.
At first, I didn’t understand why. But then his tongue joined my fingers, and a full body shudder ripped through me at the pleasure. I forgot what I was doing, and my hand stopped moving.
Then his tongue stopped moving, too.
“Cami, touch yourself,” he ordered huskily.
“Right.” I started again, and so did he, his tongue and my fingers pleasuring me. Once I kept my fingers where he wanted them, he moved his tongue lower and dipped it inside my pussy.
He licked me like he said he would, and it ended up better than the first time. With the help of my hand, I came screaming while he plunged his tongue in and out.
Law crawled up my body, stopping to press random kisses along my torso. When he was situated between my hips, he dropped back on his heels. “Can you get pregnant?”
“I’m on birth control.”
“Good. I’m clean, baby, if you trust me. If not, you’re gonna have to wait twenty minutes while I run to the pharmacy.”
I reached up and stroked the hair on his chest. “I trust you,” I whispered and meant it.
He groaned and dropped his lips to mine. While he kissed me, he rubbed the tip of his cock along my opening. “You have no idea how s
exy that sentence is. Especially coming from you. Get ready.”
“I’ve been ready.”
With his lips to my collar bone, he chuckled. “You came thirty seconds ago, and you’re raring to go again.”
“Please, hurry.”
With my plea, he started to sink the tip inside. It was slow and tantalizing, but it was the most blissful form of torture in my entire life.
When he was completely seated to the root, he began another torturous rhythm of long, slow strokes. The pressure began building immediately, and I knew it was only a matter of time before another orgasm ripped through me.
He seemed to feel the same way, because it wasn’t long before he increased his pace. “I’m going to take you hard now. Can you handle it?” His face contorted in a wash of pleasure and pain, as if holding himself back nearly hurt.
“Yes. Go faster. I can take it.”
He made me prove it.
I clenched his hips with my inner thighs and held on while Law took me hard and fast. He wrapped one hand beneath my arm and up my back to hold onto the base of my neck. The grip helped him go deeper, and at the same time, made me feel more connected to him. Our hips slammed together so hard, I was sure there’d be bruises. My hands roamed every inch of his skin, desperate to feel all of him, to remind myself this moment was real and not something I’d conjured up.
“I’m close, hold on.”
“I’m nearly there,” I panted into the space where his mouth nearly touched mine.
“Wait for me.” He angled this thrusts just right so the top of his pubic bone rubbed against my clit. By the third brush of his pelvis, I started to fall over the edge.
“Law,” I cried.
I tightened around him, and he seated himself deep as his own orgasm washed over him. He buried his face in my neck and whispered my name over and over again.
“Fuck, Cami, fuck me. Are you all right, beautiful?” His hand behind my back stroked my neck, while he planted his other elbow in the bed to support his weight and brushed the hair out of my face.
Emotion choked me. “I’m perfect,” I managed to squeeze through the tightness of my throat.
“Ah, baby, I know. I feel it, too.”
We held onto each other while our heart beats returned to normal and the chaotic emotions began to fade. Law carefully slipped out of me and went into my master bath. The toilet flushed and the tap turned on and off, and then he was back with a damp rag. He hooked me around the thigh and cleaned me off.
“Thanks,” I said after he ditched the rag in the bathroom and returned to the bed a second time.
“I’ve got to get going. Some things to take care of at work. Kiss me before I go.”
Those words warmed my heart. The entire day had blown my mind; in a way, I was still trying to process if it was real.
I didn’t keep him waiting since he had work to do. Putting an elbow to the pillows, I sat up and pressed my lips against his.
“Have a good rest of the day, beautiful.”
My eye lids fluttered closed at the sweetness of it all. When I opened them, he was striding towards the hall. “You, too.”
It seemed inadequate, but not as awkward as ‘thank you’ or running after him and professing my love, both of which were possibilities.
He strode out the door and into the hall. The jangling of his belt buckle told me he was getting dressed, and I smiled to myself, an image of him standing naked in my hallway floating through my mind. His head poked around the doorframe, and I quickly wiped the goofy smile off my face.
If I hadn’t, his words would have done it for me.
“Oh, and have fun not thinking about me while you’re on your date tonight.” With a smirk, he left.
Seconds later, the front door opened and closed, and a few seconds after that, I heard the roar of his engine firing to life.
That son-of-a-bitch.
***
Needless to say, I cancelled my date with Nathan that night. I texted Law to tell him so, but didn’t know if he got it, because he never responded.
Law was back on my shit list.
I didn’t know if shit lists usually included people you wanted to have sex with, but mine did.
And he was the only person on it.
8.
The following day was Thanksgiving, and Evelyn and I spent it the way we always did. By giving back. Since it’s always been the two of us, I’d felt silly early on trying to cook us a big Thanksgiving meal. I created a solution that held to the true meaning of the holiday.
I’d learned a lot during my childhood about poverty. My parents didn’t have much, and when they died, Ritchie and I had nothing. I learned to work hard through circumstance, and used that knowledge to create a life for my daughter where she didn’t have to worry about money, food, or necessities like I did. That meant I had to do what I could to teach her about working hard in other ways, by donating our time and talents to those who didn’t have what we did.
Three times a year I required her to do something selfless, and apart from Thanksgiving, she got to choose what that was.
This past summer, she donated thirty hours of her time to community clean up picking up trash, and earlier last spring, she volunteered during activity-time at the local adult group home.
Thanksgiving was the time we’d volunteer together at the soup kitchen one town over and provide meals to those in our county who couldn’t afford to buy their own. Throughout the day, the volunteers staggered their breaks and ate their Thanksgiving meal with the people who came to see us.
My hope was to teach her not only to be kind and helpful to those less fortunate, but also the humility to see them as the people they really were.
Distracted by the upcoming holiday, I didn’t notice I hadn’t heard from Law until after my appointment on Friday. The doctor cleared me from the crutches, and instructed me to tape my foot and start some stretches for my ankle. When I went to text the good news, I realized there’d been radio silence.
What was I supposed to do?
I didn’t want to seem needy by reaching out when he clearly hadn’t thought of me. I shot out a text to Kiersten, tucked my phone back in my purse, and went on my way home.
That night, Evelyn and I got our mani/pedis.
I went to bed without a text.
***
The weekend came and went.
Sunday night, while Evelyn was doing homework, I sent him a text asking if he was still in town. I remembered what he’d said that night at the grocery store, about living in Arrow Creek now, but maybe he had to go back home to deal with some of his father’s affairs.
Just because we shared a few hours of mind blowing intimacy didn’t make him accountable to me.
He never responded.
***
A week went by.
Then two.
Then three.
Still nothing.
***
December 16th—my birthday. As of today, I officially entered a new decade. I kissed my twenties goodbye and greeted my thirties by waking up at the ass crack of dawn, packing a shovel and a lawn chair in the trunk of my car, dropping Evelyn off at school, and driving to the cemetery.
After shoveling a path from the main walkway to Ritchie’s plot and clearing a spot to sit, I brought the shovel back to the car, and hauled my lawn chair, the blanket, and two flasks of bourbon back to his grave.
Ass went in the chair, blanket covered my lap, one flask rested against the guitar on his headstone, and the other was in my hand.
Was it morbid spending every birthday with my dead brother? Most likely yes, but I didn’t care. When I was lonely, I felt more at ease here with Ritchie than I did in my own house.
“Hey, Witchy Ritchie. Your sister’s turning into an old lady. I’m sort of pissed you aren’t here to experience this with me. This morning I found a gray hair on my head. Do you think what mom used to say is true? That for every gray hair you pull, three more grow in its place? If so, I’m s
crewed, because I yanked that sucker out without even thinking twice.”
I took a swig from the flask.
“If I could see you, I’m sure you’d be shaking your head at me right now and rubbing the back of it like you always did when I was about to get into trouble.”
A smile spread across my face at the memory. It was his tell when I was digging myself into a hole. I could easily picture him standing somewhere behind mom or dad and frantically rubbing the back of his head as if trying to tell me to cut it out. It never worked. I was too stubborn to listen to my wise big brother.
“Hear that big brother? I just called you wise.”
The only answer I received was an arctic wind blowing across my face. I was used to it. A little cold wouldn’t scare me away.
“He never called, Ritchie. He didn’t answer my text,” I whispered dejectedly. “I thought us having sex was his way of saying he was willing to work on putting the past behind us. I’m not naïve.” I crinkled my nose and tipped the flask into my mouth. “I didn’t think we were suddenly back together and everything was hunky–dory. But, I thought we’d be something more than this.”
The sun started to peek out from behind the clouds; the warm rays a welcome surprise. “He didn’t even wish me ‘Happy Thanksgiving’. What do you think my chances are for a ‘Happy Birthday’ text?”
From somewhere in the direction of the highway, a car loudly honked.
“Yeah, me neither.”
I stared at my fingers as I fiddled with the flask. I played with the cap, twisting and untwisting it, and passed it from hand to hand. I tried meditating in some form or another while I soaked in this time with Ritchie, but no matter what I did, I remained restless.
When I had a warm buzz going, I crouched in front of the headstone, uncapped the second flask, and poured it out in the snow. I tossed the empty flask in the direction of my chair. Crossing my arms on the cold marble, I rested my head against them.
“I know this isn’t what you asked for, and I know it makes me selfish to do what I want instead of what you asked. I also know you’d understand. And if you don’t, that’s just mean, because I visit you all the time.”