Ares

by K. Cantrell

  I can’t remember a time when I’ve been happier. Which is what makes it hard to watch Ares work his ass off on my behalf, especially when I don’t sense that he’s on the deliriously happy train like I am. But it’s hard to gauge with him sometimes. He rarely smiles and when he does, it’s always because I’ve said something that amuses him or pleases him. So he might very well not be a bubbling over with joy kind of husband. I’m okay with that. As long as he’s communicating with me about what’s going on with him.

  I think he’s not. This feeling grows each night when he comes home from work and his shoulders droop a little more. After another long week of this, I can’t take it anymore. The chicken browning in a pan can wait, so I turned it off.

  Meeting him in the living room, I engulf him in a hug, which is one of my favorite parts of the day. Yeah, I like it when we fool around in the morning and I’m not going to lie—when he goes down on me is the best. But the way he makes me feel when we’re just enjoying the circle of each other, that’s something else. It has a whole bunch harder to quantify emotions wrapped up in it.

  Sex is easy to categorize, easy to understand. The marriage part of us is more nebulous. But I need to know if Ares is unhappy.

  Much like he did to me that day when I had to confess I quit my job, I guide him to the couch and sit him down, then stand behind it in the narrow area between the living room and the open kitchen so I can gently massage his shoulders. I use the word massage loosely since my fingers barely make an indentation in the granite of his muscles. I get points for effort, right?

  “How was your day?” I ask casually, hoping to draw him out.

  “Fine.”

  This is the part where a lot of women would go off in a rant about being home alone all day and needing human contact, conversation, etc. One could even accuse me of having been such a woman in the past. Because he’s not human, I can’t say that and also, this is a conversation between us most of the time. If I want more, I have to get it out of him.

  “Did you stop any bad guys?”

  “No.”

  At least he’s relaxing a bit under my fingers. Yes/no questions aren’t going to get the job done, so I try another track. “Have you found your purpose?”

  He shakes his head, apparently having used up his quota of words for the evening. And now the little niggle in my stomach grows. Sure he can be reticent, but this is even more of a clam routine than normal. “Ares, is something wrong? You seem down about something.”

  It doesn’t escape me that this might be the first time I’ve ever asked a guy I’m sleeping with to voluntarily tell me if he’s unhappy. Usually I can already tell if a guy is on the way out, which is my cue to avoid, avoid, avoid. But Ares already told me he wouldn’t ever leave me. I have to believe he meant it.

  “I…” He trails off, hesitating in a very un-Ares-like pause. “It is nothing.”

  Obviously it’s not nothing. “Is it me? Are you unhappy with something I’ve done?”

  I feel pretty safe in asking. He doesn’t do that thing where I say something to piss him off and then he holds a grudge for two days until he finally gets around to telling me I bruised his tender feelings.

  He shakes his head and I keep kneading his shoulders, which he seems to enjoy and I like touching him, so it’s a win-win. “If something is bothering you, you should talk to me. This is part of having a meaningful relationship with another person. I’m here to help, to share in the burden.”

  I’ve made that clear, right? We’re doing a whole marriage/relationship thing that’s going the distance. I want the good with the bad, for better or worse. I think. I have a better shot at getting it right with Ares than I do anyone else because we’re both learning. Odds are good that if I screw up, he won’t even realize it. I need that grace.

  His shoulders get even tenser, which I would have said is impossible. I would be wrong.

  Finally, he sighs in a long exhale. “One of the salesmen tripped and fell onto the concrete. His arm bone broke in two places.”

  “That’s too bad,” I say absently in the way you do when you hear about someone else’s misfortune. “Is he going to be okay?”

  Ares shrugs under my fingers. “We have received no reports from the hospital.”

  “Then how did you…” It’s all starting to come together. “Is that how your healing woo-woo stuff works? You can sense a person’s injuries?”

  Miserably, he nods. “I intended to help him to his feet. The moment I touched his shoulder, I knew the extent of his injuries.”

  “But you didn’t heal him.” It’s a statement not a question because unless Ares is really crappy at it, the guy wouldn’t have gone to the hospital if my husband had used his powers.

  “I did not.”

  And he feels bad about it, clearly. “You don’t have any obligation to use your powers unless you want to.”

  “I wanted to,” he counters fiercely. “This is my burden. I cannot stop the yearning inside to alleviate another’s suffering.”

  “But you still resisted. So that’s something.” I guess. I mean, obviously the changes in his genetic structure aren’t going away. He should just accept this. I don’t know why he’s so touchy about it.

  This does not go over well. Ares pulls out from under my fingers and glances back at me with a scowl that ruins the nice slant of his forehead. “At what cost? The man still suffers because I did not help.”

  “What would he have done if you hadn’t been there? Same thing. He’d still be in the hospital. ” I counter mildly, using his own argument against him.

  That’s what he told me when he wouldn’t heal my foot. But that doesn’t seem to be what he’s looking for. Since I’m pretty relieved that this is the issue and not something more along the lines of being married sucks so I’m out, I flip the argument on its head, just to get him to think about what’s bothering him.

  “If you’re so wound up about it, go to the hospital and fix him,” I say and skirt the couch to curl up on the cushion next to him while we hash this out. “What’s the worst thing that could happen? He gets better and you don’t feel guilty anymore.”

  “This I cannot do.”

  Something bleak steals into his demeanor, sucking all the life out of him and I scramble to back track. “Well I’m not saying you have to. Just…you know, why not?”

  “Because that is not who I am,” he spits out. “Nor who I want to be. I wish to pluck out this desire to heal and throw it into an abyss.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere. I recall how he told me that he wasn’t who I thought he was, but at the time, he’d been trying to convince me to be afraid of him, which didn’t work. Now I’m starting to see that maybe he’s not who he thinks he is either. “But it is part of you. You maybe should work on accepting it.”

  “I refuse,” he says flatly and the bleakness has extended even to his silvery eyes, dampening them, which scares me a little. “You cannot fully understand what this power has stolen from me. I will never use it.”

  Except he has used it at some point in the past or he wouldn’t know that systemic healing takes a lot of his energy. I sense this is part of his struggle. “Why don’t you tell me then? Did you try to heal someone and they died anyway?”

  His eyebrows come together and he shakes his head. He’s not going to tell me. But then he surprises me by admitting, “Many. Too many. On the battlefield. I did not protect my team as I should have after the attack because I was touching them to determine the extent of their injuries. My drive is to heal, not to kill. My comrades died as a result.”

  “Oh, honey.” I rub his shoulder, ineffective for relieving his hurt, but it’s all I have. There’s nothing to alleviate the crushing sensation in my own chest, though. “I’m sorry.”

  I’m not sorry I asked. This is something that has weighed on him since we got married. Since before that, when he came to Earth in the first place. Of course he doesn’t want a bunch of scientists trying to get into his DNA or
whatever to figure out how he does it.

  Wow, it must have been really hard on him that time when I hurt myself. Did he have to try extra hard to resist healing me, especially after I taunted him and stuff?

  Now I’m the one who feels guilty. I shouldn’t have acted like that, but in all fairness, I didn’t fully understand the details of how these powers affect him.

  This burden will continue to weigh on him. I can’t fix that, which makes me insane. I wish I could. I hate seeing him so conflicted. The only thing I do can ease his suffering a little.

  I take him to bed and he lets me strip him for the first time. Usually he’s pretty much in charge and I don’t mind that. But I want to care for him, to show him that I think he’s beautiful exactly the way he is.

  Normally we get naked and dive into each other pretty fast but we both seem to be on board with slow this time and it’s exquisitely torturous, but oddly wonderful at the same time to really pay attention to my husband. I mouth his torso in long lingering kisses as he watches me, which is something he does with this laser focus that arrows through me.

  I want to watch him in kind. I throw a leg over his hips so I can take him astride, which we’ve done before, but it’s a more difficult position for me given his size. Right now, I don’t care about me. I want to bring him pleasure and because I’m so intent on it, it works.

  His eyes shutter as bliss steals over his features. That’s right, lose yourself in it, baby. I flex my thighs, raising myself up and down his shaft, yanking little noises out of him that satisfy me to the point of smugness. I like that I can affect him, that he lets me know when I’m doing something good.

  But then he opens his eyes and the look in them slays me. This is not just good, it’s something else, something bigger. Our gazes lock and a wealth of things spill between us. My chest gets tight. I can feel my pulse pounding in my throat and there’s a telltale prick at my eyelids that means my emotions are very close to the surface. I can’t keep it all inside. What I’m feeling is too big, too strong to push back, so I don’t.

  One tear falls as I lace my fingers with his, dragging one of his hands to my face where I press his palm to my cheek. His touch centers me enough that I can tell him. “I love you.”

  My voice cracks on it but he seems to get the point. A smile blooms on his face and I can’t stop drinking it in. That means he’s not going to laugh and say it’s too soon, right?

  “Ti amo,” he murmurs and follows that with a string of Italian—I think—as he pulls me down into his arms to hold me in an embrace that has nothing to do with sex, though we’re still joined.

  I soak it all in. This is the first time I’ve ever told a man that I love him and it’s perfect that he wants to punctuate it with tenderness and foreign words that I don’t know how to translate but understand perfectly. He thinks in languages other than English most of the time, I guess, and picks whatever words best express what he wants to convey. I should start learning his languages too. I should have a long time ago and then I’d be able to do the same because everything I’m feeling right now is too hard to put into any of the words I know.

  So I show him.

  It’s all there in my caresses, in my soft gasps as he touches me in kind. We explore each other physically but it’s spiritual at the same time, which I would have scoffed at if you’d told me that existed. Because I think the secret is that it doesn’t exist until you create it. Ares and I are making love in every sense of the phrase, building it up between us, solidifying our bond with each thrust and slide of skin.

  This is magic and I cannot get enough. Somehow I manage to hold off my orgasm, drawing out the pleasure for us both because I never want this to end.

  But as my body weeps and begs for more, Ares gives it to me until I am nothing but heat and tension, desperate for release. He fingers me exactly the right way because he knows my pleasure better than I do, murmuring in his sexy voice, and I come for him with a cry.

  He follows me quickly, sweeping me into a deep embrace as we shudder together. Even that is perfect. We’ve never come at the same time and I vow to repeat it as much as possible. I want to do everything together.

  We lay there entwined, lazily stroking each other. Eventually we have to eat, but I order a pizza for delivery, not the slightest bit interested in untangling myself from my husband long enough to cook anything.

  “I’m glad I could make you feel better,” I tell him at one point. “You’ve had me pretty worried lately.”

  His brow furrows and his hand stills on my stomach, where he had been drawing absent circles with his fingers. “I am sorry.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for. I just didn’t know what was wrong and I thought…well, I’m just happy to know that it’s your security job that’s the problem, not me.”

  “My job is not a problem,” he says, surprise coloring his voice. “Why would you say so?”

  It’s my face’s turn to scrunch up as I glance up at him. “You’ve been coming home in these moods. And then earlier you said you were struggling over your drive to heal. Isn’t that the problem? You’re doing the wrong job. This is your opportunity to, I don’t know, embrace something that speaks to you or whatever. Like I’m going to do with cosmetology school.”

  “Are you suggesting that I leave my job in favor of some other form of employment? I must have income, or what will become of you?”

  “Sweetie,” I say and then pause as I try not to let my heart squish out of my chest. “I just want you to be happy. It seems to me that would be best accomplished by doing something where you can take care of people. That’s what you like doing.”

  Obviously. He’s taking care of me by staying at a job he doesn’t like, after all.

  “I do not like caring for people.”

  “Sure you do. You like taking care of me, don’t you?”

  “That is different,” he insists. “I love you.”

  Okay, well, there goes my heart. I let it squish. While I like the foreign stuff, in English, it’s way more powerful to hear. So much so that I get a little distracted about the subject at hand. “Maybe start with me then. Next time I have a headache, heal me. Just for practice. Then you can see that it’s not so horrible and that you’re really good at it.”

  He freezes, going so stiff that my stomach rolls over. Did I say something wrong?

  “Is it so hard to understand that I do not wish to heal?” he says softly.

  I sit up so I can focus on him, running my fingers through his mussed blond hair. “You’re the one who said you were upset that you didn’t heal the sales guy. I figured that meant you wanted to, but you were still stuck back on what happened to your teammates. Probably you just need to work through that. Maybe healing someone successfully will help.”

  Ares scowls. “Healing is abhorrent. Do you not listen when I speak?”

  I roll my eyes. “Of course I do. But sometimes you have to read between the lines, so I’m trying to hear what you’re not saying. You have to accept that you’re someone different now—”

  “No,” he says with brutal finality. “I do not accept this. You do not understand.”

  I cross my arms over my naked chest, feeling exposed all at once. The expression on his face scares me. I have just told the man I love him and now he’s mad. I don’t like how quickly we’ve veered from one to the other. “Okay, so explain it to me.”

  “I have,” he bites out. “I am a soldier without a war, not a caregiver.”

  “But sweetie—” The mulishness of this man knows no bounds and I pinch the bridge of my nose as I work out how to get through to him. “You’re so good at taking care of me. Why are you resisting that part of your personality?”

  Coolly, he stares at me. “What is the thing you hate most?”

  “What? I don’t know. Spiders.” I eye him back.

  “Imagine for a moment. You are manacled to a table and required to endure days upon days of painful treatments, which you have been told will
refashion you into the fastest, most skilled hair stylist in existence. When you awake, you learn that not only are you never allowed to cut hair again, you have become the world’s most skilled spider handler.” His mouth curls up in a harsh smile. “And now imagine that I tell you perhaps your problem is that you have not yet stood in a room full of spiders with the sole intent of accepting who you are.”

  My stomach heaves and I swallow the bile that rises in my throat as phantom spider legs prickle across my skin. And yeah, he’s made his point, in spades. Except not really. “Spiders and healing are not the same thing.”

  “To you.” Stubbornly, he crosses his own arms over his torso. “If you cannot understand that it is the same in my heart, then perhaps the real issue is that we are not so well matched.”

  “Maybe not.” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself, even as a panicky flutter in my chest cuts off my ability to breathe.

  What is wrong with me? Am I trying to ruin this? Shut up.

  I don’t shut up. “If you have any kind of heart, you’d know that helping sick people is a noble cause. It’s not like you can make your powers stop. Why not figure out a way to do some good?”

  I really don’t get why he’s being so stubborn. I’m trying to help him.

  Wearily, he shuts his eyes as if he can’t bear to look at me any longer. “You forget that to do so would invite scientific speculation I wish to avoid. I would not only be unable to help people once I am sequestered in a lab, I would be unable to lead a normal life. Is this what you wish for me? For us?”

  I shake my head, effectively muted by his final, devastating point. Well no, I don’t want that. Of course I don’t. This is not my battle, but his, and it doesn’t escape me that he fails to realize his drive to heal is his war now. Even I, with my big mouth, can’t convince him of this. It’s his to figure out. Or not. I can’t save him, or us.

  That scares me most of all.