by W E DeVore
Q sat up in bed and stared at him in horror. “Why? What are you saying?”
He studied his cup for a moment before glancing back up at her, barely able to make eye contact. “It’s on me, Clementine. I should have stopped it. Things got out of hand and what happened last night can’t happen again. It never should have happened in the first place. When I woke up this morning… this isn’t right. We made a mistake.”
The bubble of bliss that had been swelling inside her chest burst, filling her with frigid disappointment. She folded in on herself and lay down on her side, turning her back to him, deliberating his words. The glimpse of intimacy she’d experienced with Sanger the previous night was enough for her to know that the two of them becoming lovers as well as friends was the best idea either of them had ever had, considering the circumstances.
“Talk to me, Clementine,” he said. “Please, don’t be upset. I’m trying to do the right thing, here.”
She lay motionless and silent as her mind raced through the variables at play. He set his tea on the end table beside him and lay behind her, bringing his body close to hers. “I just don’t want you to get confused.”
“I’m not the one that’s confused, Sanger,” she replied said. She rolled over to face him, mirroring his posture, shivering in the cold and anticipation. “Last night wasn’t a mistake.”
“We’ve been spending too much time together. It’s not right...”
“Aaron, stop. Up until a few minutes ago, this is the closest thing to right I’ve felt in months.” She reached out and brushed a wild curl away from his forehead, twirling it between her thumb and her index finger. “You think it’s just some coincidence that we keep spending so much time together?”
“You’re lonely. I get it. But you and I both know that’s all this is.”
“Is that what you really think?”
He lay his back and stared at the ceiling. “It’s what I know, Clementine. I shouldn’t have brought you here. I shouldn’t have held you like that last night. Told you all those things… You and me is a bad idea.”
She reached out and turned his head to her. “Well, I don’t agree. I think it might be the best idea either one of us has ever had.”
“For fuck’s sake, Clementine, you tried to kill yourself two months ago. This is only going to make a mess of things.” He got out of bed and walked to the front door. Grabbing his shoes, he said, “Come on, I’m taking you home. This needs to end, right here, right now. Things can’t change between us. I’ve always known that. I was weak last night and I’m sorry, but I’m going to make things right, now.”
She sat up and stared at him in disbelief. “Why are you doing this?”
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the floor. “Please, Clementine. Don’t fight me on this. I’m sorry. I really am.”
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me why you’re doing this, Aaron,” she demanded. “What the fuck happened to you between last night and this morning?”
“You know what happened,” he exclaimed.
“Actually, I don’t. I know exactly what happened to me, but I don’t have a clue as to what happened to you.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “You going to ask me what happened to me last night? Or do you want to kick me out of your bed without getting all the facts first, detective?”
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly not wanting to know the answer. She waited for him to speak, when he didn’t, she said, “Look, Aaron, last night, my best friend and I had amazing, mind-bending sex that made me cry it felt so good and I fell asleep, completely happy, with him still inside of me, and telling me a bunch of things in Hebrew that sounded remarkably like ‘My god, I love you’, but my Hebrew’s always been crap, so maybe I got that part wrong. Then, for the first time in months, I woke up this morning happy. I woke up reaching for someone who was alive and in the next room singing to himself, and it made me feel like I was drunk, I was so happy just laying here listening. I woke up seeing sunshine right here, right now, not Ben’s blood splattered everywhere, listening to him choke to death. You understand me? For the first time since I woke up in that fucking hospital, I didn’t wake up from a damned nightmare.” Her voice broke and she caught her breath. Clearing her throat, she said, “So, that’s what happened to me, Sanger. Now, why don’t you tell me what the fuck happened to you?”
He flinched and stared at a fixed point on the floor. “Nothing happened, Clementine. I just can’t do this. It’s not right. I’m sorry, but you have to go.”
She curled her knees into her chest, gaping at him in wild-eyed disbelief. Sanger folded his arms and continued to look away, visibly ashamed of himself.
“Fine,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed to face him. “I’ll go, if that’s what you really want, but I want you to know something. Look at me, motherfucker. You owe me at least that, don’t you?” He leaned back against the front door, studying her from across the room. She stared at him hard before continuing, “Aaron, for the last seven months, the only thing I wanted was to see Ben again, to have our old life back. But I can’t. It’s gone and it’s never coming back.”
She shivered slightly and moved to stand next to him. When she put her hand on his arm, he entwined his fingers around it.
“That’s what I mean, Clementine. This is too much, too soon.” His eyes traveled over her face. “You need to learn to be on your own. You don’t need me…”
Q put her thumb on his lips to silence him. “Let me finish. There’s no use in me wanting something that’s impossible for me to have, when there’s something else I could want. Something that maybe I could even have. Something that I thought you wanted, too. At least, I thought you did last night. That’s not true… I know you did, Aaron, you’re not that good of a liar. And I don’t know why you’re pushing me out, but I’m not leaving without telling you that I want this so much.”
“What is it that you want?” he whispered.
She could feel his nervous energy merging with hers as she pulled herself closer to him, standing on her tiptoes until her lips were right next to his. “You, Aaron. I want you. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll go, but you need to say the words. Tell me you don’t want me, cowboy, and I’ll leave you be. But if you do want me, I’m right here, and I'm yours. So, please don’t make me go if that’s not what you really want. Because all I want is you.”
Sanger moved hesitantly. His lips barely touching hers until she wrapped her arms around him and brought him to her, her tongue gliding across his, hungrily tasting him. He grabbed her thighs, his hand sliding up to her hips and beneath her underwear, pulling her closer. Q’s body flooded, opening for him to the point of agony and she tugged at his shirt until he took it off. She moved to kiss him again and he pulled back from her. Closing his eyes, he covered her hands with his, clutching them to his chest.
She reached for his mouth with her lips. “Aaron, please don’t make me go.”
Brushing his lips against hers, he whispered, “No, my love. I think you should stay right here with me.”
He pushed her back towards the bed and they fell onto it together, moving slowly against each other, taking each tentative step from friend to lover with care this time, and using their mouths to map each other’s bodies as they explored each new discovery, greedily tasting what had always been forbidden. Finally, Q couldn’t wait anymore. She drew him to her, taking him inside of her before he could offer any hesitation. He took both of her hands in his, gripping her tightly as he plunged inside her. He moved with rhythmic purpose for several minutes, watching her beneath him.
She began to cry out with each movement, quivering with the pleasure of it as her climax came closer.
Sanger suddenly slowed, looking at her in concern. “Clementine, we can stop…we can slow down…”
She brought her mouth to his to silence his fears before collapsing back, urgently moving her hips against him.
“You can go as slow as
you want, Aaron,” she panted. “Just please don’t stop.”
He started moving with her again, watching the orgasm build inside her, smiling as her back arched and she cried out. Sanger didn’t make a sound, focused only on her. Her body quivered around him, as she climaxed, telling him how much she wanted him with each movement.
He cradled her head in his arms, moving more deeply within her, never breaking eye contact, whispering her name over and over.
She closed her eyes and moved her hips slowly against him, raising her arms above her head to push as leverage. He gripped her hands in his and whispered, “Kiss me. Just hold on to me.”
She felt him grow inside her and he trembled against her, resisting his orgasm, gasping as he struggled not to make a sound.
“Let me hear you,” she whispered. “I want to hear you.”
A loud moan escaped his lips and he screamed, “I love you. Oh, god, I love you.”
He pushed harder against her as he lost control. Q’s body responded and she moved her hips in counterpoint under him as her own release crashed down. She held him to her, whispering his name. Her body shuddered with the newness of him and a small kernel of happiness began to blossom inside her as he rested against her, kissing her neck, whispering, “Ken, ahuvati. Ani ohev otakh. Ani ohev otakh, yafati. Ken.”
She closed her eyes, feeling a sense of lightness that had been elusive since she’d awoke in the hospital. When she blinked her eyes back open, Sanger was studying her. He caressed her hair, tracing the curve of her cheekbone down to her neck with his fingertips.
Her eyes traveled over his face, seeing him differently now. His grey eyes, full of tenderness for her. His lips still flushed brilliant scarlet with desire. She’d always known that her friend, Aaron Sanger, was an attractive man, but her new lover, Aaron Sanger, was beautiful in a way she’d never seen before.
She looked up at him. “Tell me again.”
He traced her mouth with his thumb. “Ani ohev otakh.”
“You love me.”
He shivered. “I’ve tried so hard not to, believe me, I’ve tried, but I can’t help the way you make me feel. I love you, Clementine.”
Q inhaled deeply, taking his confession into her lungs and holding it within her. “Why did you want me to leave?”
“After you fell asleep last night, I was laying here, holding you. Telling you over and over how much I love you and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide it anymore. I’d have to tell you. And I didn’t think you’d be ready for that.”
Q shook her head and held his face in her hands. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He laughed. “I have told you, a few times, you just never listened. I thought maybe you were pretending for my sake, so we could keep being friends.”
She closed one eye and squinted at him. “If we’re being honest, I figured that’s what you were trying to say in October after Derek’s party, but I thought maybe you were just confused.”
“I wasn’t confused, my love. I’ve been confused about a lot of things, but never that. I know exactly how I feel about you. I’ve tried to let go of it. But I just don’t think I want to. It feels too good, being in love with you.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she whispered. “Lila said you were at Christmas. And for a minute, I thought I saw it, too. And it made me so happy. I didn’t think I remembered how to feel happy, but for that one moment, I thought, ‘Aaron Sanger loves me’ and it made me happy. Just like right now.”
“And why’s that?” A shy smile that she’d never seen before crept over his face and it filled her with delight.
“I don’t know. Somehow it makes the world make sense again.”
He moved onto his side to lay next to her and her body instantly protested his absence. “Everything’s going to change now, Clementine.”
Q caressed his cheekbone and moved closer to him. “No, it’s not. We just get to see each other naked now.”
He smirked and said, “You know what I mean.”
“If you’re still trying to talk me out of this, it’s not going to work. I’ve made up my mind.”
He bent down to kiss her. “You have, have you?”
She ran her hands over his chest, fondling each muscle line as it flowed into the next. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No?” he asked.
“Hell, no,” she said continuing to trace each muscle with her fingertips. “I don’t even like being this far away from you.”
She pressed her body into his skin, shivering as she brought the blankets up around them. Sanger rolled onto his back, carrying her with him and she lounged her body over his.
“My god, you’re beautiful,” she whispered. She stared into his eyes and sighed in contentment. “Ask me a question and I’ll tell you no lies.”
He grinned. “Have you ever thought about this, before now? Us, together. I mean.”
“No, not really. I mean, I thought you were gorgeous and sexy as hell when you were turning on that superpower of yours for some poor woman, but it was more objective, like appreciating art or something. You turn.”
“Ask me a question and I’ll tell you no lies.”
“Did you think about us together, like this, before Ben died?”
“No. Not really,” he said, sliding his hand in a lazy pattern down on her back and across her hips. “But when you sing sometimes, there’s this moment. You open your mouth and close your eyes and every time you do, I wonder what it must feel like to make you look like that in bed.”
Q felt her face redden. “And what does it feel like?”
“I forget. I was distracted.” He winked at her and laughed.
She touched his face with her hand, holding it to look at him. “Tell me no lies, Aaron. What does it feel like?”
“A miracle,” he whispered. “God, Clementine, please don’t break my heart. I don’t think I’ll recover.”
“Ask me a question, I’ll tell you no lies.”
“Are you going to break my heart.?”
“No,” she said. She stared at him for a few seconds as she formed the words in her mind. “Last night, after we had sex… You were holding me and I was holding you and I couldn’t feel an end to it. It took years for Ben and me to get to where you and I are starting from. It’s terrifying. But you need to understand something. This part is hard for me. It was hard before I lost Ben. I don’t know how to let myself do it again, not yet. But I don’t think I’ll have much of a choice this time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Loving Ben was like a door. I opened it consciously. I stepped through it on purpose. I knew what was on the other side waiting for me; and I thought about it and I decided that’s what I wanted.” She rested the back of her hand against her forehead and looked away. “I don’t know what this is, Aaron, but it’s not a door I could close if I wanted to.”
“I’m a patient man. I’m not going anywhere. You take all the time you need.” He stroked her collarbone with his fingertips. “Ask me a question, I’ll tell you no lies.”
“When did you start loving me?” she asked.
“No, I’m pleading the fifth, Clementine,” he said, kissing her neck and flicking his tongue over her skin.
“Come on, that’s not how the game works. Tell me,” she insisted, taking his hand in hers and bringing it to her lips.
He curled his arm under his head to cradle it in the crook of his elbow. “You have all the information you need to figure it out. You tell me.”
“I don’t know. I mean, at least since that time at Mike’s when you said you were joking,” she said. “Why did you lie to me like that?”
Pain flashed across his eyes. “I didn’t know how bad I was hurt and I was feeling like I might not make it out. I wanted you to know, just in case. I thought, I’ll tell her now, see how she takes it. You didn’t take it well, so I told you I was joking. I thought that I’d still have time to tell you it wasn’t a li
e if it came to it. Lucky for me, you don’t seem to think you’re that easy to love.” He pulled her down towards him and kissed her. “But you are. You are so easy for me to love.”
“Feels more like lust than love to me, cowboy,” she teased as his body responded beneath her.
He rolled them over, pushing her down to the bed and kissed her slowly, caressing her face, “No, this is love. I know the difference, believe me.”
“You sure about that?” she asked, biting her lip.
His eyes scanned her face. “Yes. This is love.”
He slid his hands between her legs, making her back arch, crying out as his tongue found its way to her neck.
“And this, my love?” he whispered. “This is lust.”
Q closed her eyes and moaned, holding him to her, trembling against his hand. She lifted her head to kiss him. “Ask me a question, I’ll tell you no lies.”