Take Me Home

by Lorelie Brown

  “It never took me long, anyway.” I lift my knee, then cross it over my other thigh. A screen, a tease—but also giving myself some pressure against the throbbing ache of want. I pet my outer thigh. “I tried to make it last, but it didn’t.”

  “Show me,” she orders. Her breathing is turning fast and choppy again.

  “I’d think of her in that suit. She’s got a pixie cut, her hair all short and spiky. She looks so fuckable. And I’d think of her showing up on my doorstep one day.”

  “You wrote her letters, didn’t you?”

  “Sometimes,” I hedge. I never mailed any of them. I knew I was writing to the Siouxsie of twenty years earlier, not the one who was wearing thin a little from a hard life. “She’d just know that I loved her. Somehow. And she’d tell me to show her how much I wanted her.”

  “What a good little girl you are.” Brooke’s eyes are flashing. Her mouth is parted. The tips of her breasts have squeezed into sweet candies.

  “Very good. I always stripped naked right away. There in my doorway.” I touch myself gently. Softly. Almost a pat, and I’m so wet that there’s a small smacking noise as I take my fingers away. I shiver. “She likes it. She pushes past me to come inside and shuts the door.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  “No. I have her all to myself.” I dip my fingers between my lips and catch my clit between thumb and forefinger. I’m swollen and hard. I pinch. I gasp. “I lose the fantasy there. Usually. I’m touching myself and rubbing my clit. I can’t think once I start that.”

  “Like now?”

  “Fuck, yes,” I hiss. I start pinching and releasing my clit in a pulse that’s driving me mad. But it’s still not quite enough.

  I rub myself with the flat of three fingers. Brooke hauls my knees wide, unapologetically staring. I’m exposed and open to her. I stroke myself hard enough that I’m probably going to regret it tomorrow. I’ll be bruised and swollen. But for now I’m two breaths away from coming, and it’s going to be glorious.

  I fill my lungs with air and hold it, even though I don’t mean to. I can feel my orgasm coming, and combined with the way Brooke’s watching me, I’m going to die of it.

  Except no one ever dies. It’s an explosion behind my fingers instead. My pussy catches fire. The sparks of my nerves are only electric impulses, but they take me over completely. I flush hot, and then I’m sweating a little. Panting even more. I cry out.

  Brooke shoves my hand back down again. I’m rubbing and rubbing again, this time under her direction, and I never quite come down from the first orgasm before I’m shaking from head to toe. Oh fuck. It’s even higher. I’m not going to be able to recover from this, and Christ, who’d want to. I moan. There might be words in there, but if there are, they’re all filthy.

  I bury my face against her shoulder. My teeth find her skin. I don’t bite down. I’m not sure how I don’t. My jaw locks. I haul my head back, and then I’m looking at the ceiling, starting to come down. Some. A little. Aftershocks warm me and shake me. I have sweat between my breasts and in the hollow of my stomach.

  I’m heaving breaths like I’ve run five miles or something. “Fuck, I love you.”

  And the words fall like stones into a forgotten well. Plunk, plunk into an abyss of silence.

  So much for keeping my cool, then.

  By morning, I can almost convince myself that nothing happened. I didn’t make a fool of myself. Waking up in Brooke’s arms helps. We’re warm from sleep and the nearness of sleeping stuck together in that early-relationship way. My neck is sore. It’s sweet to be pillowed on her shoulder, but it’s not like she’s soft as a pillow. By far.

  I sit up and roll my neck against the quiet ache. The rest of me is kind of worked over too. My pussy is still swollen. My thighs are sticky and slightly sore. I’m dehydrated and my lips are chapped. I grab a tube of gloss from my nightstand. The sweet strawberry only reminds me of how bad my mouth tastes.

  I stumble to the bathroom and do what I need to. I resist the urge to sneak some makeup on and settle for brushing my hair as well as my teeth. Not even the weirdness of minty water stops me from a chug from the Doctor Who cup that lives on my counter. I’m so dry.

  Brooke is still asleep. I stop in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and watching her sleep. Probably creepy. I should stop. But, like, falling asleep in my bed implies some level of consent to me seeing her asleep, right?

  Okay, still completely creepy.

  I slide into bed next to her instead. She’s on her side, and I nestle up against her, being the big spoon. Her breathing is slow and calm. I bend my neck and bury my face in her short-clipped hair. I kiss her neck until she wakes.

  She rolls onto her back. “Hey.”

  I kiss her, a quick peck of closed lips. “Good morning. Want coffee?”

  “That’s like asking a nun if she wants a good shag from her husband the lord.”

  I clap a hand over my mouth as if I have to hide my squeak of a laugh. “That’s terrible, and I still can’t tell if you want coffee.”

  She stretches her arms above her head and lifts her pelvis. With her feet flat on the bed, the pose makes her into an exaggerated expression of woman. Tits up and stomach hollowed out and her ass round and tight.

  “Unf.”

  She cracks one eye open and grins. “Coffee. Yes, I want coffee. We can try another round after you’ve caffeinated me. Until then, it’s rape.”

  I waggle my eyebrows. “I dunno, some people like games like that.”

  “Some other time.” She blows me a kiss. With her pink hair and all her tattoos and her naughty talk, I think I might melt. “You promised me coffee. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  I scoot Bennet outside quickly, where she does her stuff thankfully fast. But even though I haul her upstairs again, Brooke is already waiting in my little kitchen.

  “I borrowed your toothbrush. I hope that’s okay.”

  It squicks me out a little. I’ll probably pull a new brush from my stash once she’s gone home. But it feels weird to complain about that when my mouth has been practically glued to her cunt.

  “It’s fine,” I say as I power up the Keurig and grab a couple of mugs.

  Brooke sits at my breakfast table. She’s sideways in the chair and leaning against the wall. She’s gotten dressed again, in her white jeans and the tank top. It clings to her breasts. Her nipples are soft, her tits rounded and perky. She hasn’t buckled her belt. It hangs open, the pink leather and chrome buckle bright against the white of her jeans.

  She looks so naughty it makes my palms tingle. I busy myself putting water in the coffeemaker and starting it up. “Any special requests for your coffee? Decaf, regular, flavored, plain?”

  “Something caffeinated and plain, please.”

  “Don’t tell me you drink it black.” She seems like the type.

  I’m giddy. I haven’t had her in my kitchen in the morning before. She usually leaves. I know that she likes ham and cheese sandwiches with mustard and lettuce, but coffee is a new territory, and one of the ones that matters. You can’t ever really know a person if you don’t know what they need in the morning.

  She shakes her head, which makes a chunk of pink hair fall into her eyes. Her hair looks messy this morning. I wonder if she’s missing some kind of balm that she normally uses. “Plenty of milk, plenty of sugar.”

  “I can do that.” I fish my half gallon of milk from the fridge, managing to not wiggle my butt with happiness. “Christmas is soon. Have you thought about coming to my parents’ for Christmas day?”

  Except there’s dead silence. The kind that normally follows We need to talk, not a holiday invitation. I’m holding the milk as I turn around, and I can’t help the thought that I’m about to get dumped while holding a bottle of organic, grass-fed milk. I set it down on the counter so that I don’t drop it and shatter the glass.

  Brooke seems deeply uncomfortable. She won’t look me in the eye.

  And I’m a des
perate idiot. “We can go anytime you want. After church? I could go there with you first.”

  I ought to take the invitation back. Pretend that I never said it and that I haven’t already called Mom and told her that I’m bringing Brooke back. That I haven’t already wrapped a present in dark-red, glittery paper.

  As if the card inside doesn’t say how much I love her.

  She rakes her fingers through her hair. “Keighley.” She stops with her hands laced around the back of her neck, elbows in the air. Her triceps are standing out in stark relief that speaks to her tension.

  Good, because my tension is running pretty high too. I cross my ankles and lean against the counter edge. The Keurig is blinking blue at us. Neither of us move toward it. “Brooke,” I say in a similar tone.

  “We’ve only been sleeping together for not even a month.”

  I’m such a fucking idiot. But still, I want her to say it. I’m not putting her out of her misery, not throwing myself on my sword for her benefit. “So?”

  “So don’t you think you’re moving a little fast?”

  I shrug. It feels like there’s broken glass in my spine after all. “There’s no such thing as too fast. There’s only faster than the other half is comfortable with.”

  “Fine. Then you’re moving faster than I’m comfortable with.” She gets a really obstinate look when she wants to. Her mouth is set in a flat line, and her nose is tight. Her lashes are bare of makeup, and I can see how short and pale but thick they are.

  I can feel my chest relenting a little. “Thanks for finally opening up about something.” My words come out harsh and tight. “Considering how little you’ve given me.”

  “What are you talking about?” She does affronted really well too, it turns out.

  “How did you leave home?”

  “I was nineteen. I told my mom I was going and I went.” Even now, I can see the lie. I’ve seen her lie every time she’s talked about her past, but I’ve willfully ignored it. Her gaze takes her away from me. She folds her arms over her chest.

  “Bullshit.”

  “What, you want to hear about the screaming argument after I told her?”

  “Yeah. I kind of do.” I cross my arms also, as if I can hold in the way my heart is thumping.

  “This is kind of my point. I don’t want to talk about that shit. You’re a really good lay, Keighley, but I’m not about to slice open my soul because of it.”

  I flinch on the inside. Maybe the outside too. Fuck her. “Why don’t you have a goddamned dog.” I can’t even make it into a question.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You don’t want to care about anything. Anyone. You adore dogs.”

  She stands up so fast that the chair knocks back against the wall. “You’re pissed at me because I don’t have a pet? You didn’t even have one until a month ago. Hell, I bet half the reason you kept Bennet is because of the way I like dogs. You’d do anything for a girlfriend, even if it means not being yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Did you even give a shit about tattoos before I came along? Now you’re about to get inked? With dog paws, for Christ’s sake? Jumping awfully quick into that one, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah. Because I’ve fallen in love with Bennet.” Speaking of, she’s winding herself around my ankles and whimpering. I don’t pick her up though, because I’m not sure of my grip. I’m shaking too bad. “Pretty much the same way I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Brooke shakes her head as if she can make it untrue. “Two minutes ago, you’re saying how you don’t even know me because I won’t open up. You can’t have it both ways, Keighley.”

  I rock back on my heels. “Fine. Maybe you’re right.” Maybe I’ve fallen in love with the idea of her, what I build up in my mind in the silences between things she actually said. “Step one, talk to me. Tell me about you.”

  “Jesus, I don’t want to.”

  I get cookies for not pointing out that she sounds like a four-year-old, right? “With me, or with anyone?”

  She paces a few steps toward the living room. At first I think she’s leaving, and my stomach takes a dive in the direction of my toes, but then she comes back again. “Anyone, okay? It’s not just you. I don’t want to back up. I have enough going forward.”

  I’m relieved that it’s not only me. Maybe that’s terrible of me. I’m a horrible person. But I can breathe again, just a little bit. “Then you’re always going to be alone.”

  “I’m okay alone.”

  Is that true? “Are you? Then why were you looking for a Thanksgiving date? Why did you want to be part of someone’s holiday? You even specified family holiday.”

  “Because of turducken and tofu. That’s all.”

  I explode. I bolt forward and slap my hand down on the countertop. It stings, but not enough. “Stop lying! At least to yourself. Lie to me, I don’t give a shit. But you’re going to be stuck in your same shit if you don’t open your goddamn eyes.”

  “I don’t need this.” Brooke storms toward my bedroom and comes out with her boots.

  “Where’s your mom, Brooke?”

  “Dead,” she snarls. “She died three years ago and I didn’t hear about it for six weeks, okay?”

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “I don’t know. Mom cut him loose when I was three. He dropped out of my life when I was seven. Maybe he’s dead too. I don’t give a shit.”

  “What was high school like?”

  “Fucking hell.” She shoves a foot into her boot and stomps to get it all the way on. Or because she’s pissed, I can’t tell. “Isn’t everyone’s?”

  “What kind of hell?” I’m an interrogator. I’m a doctor lancing a boil. She’s leaving, she’s moments from it. I feel like I’m getting all the jabs in that I can before she shuts the door behind her.

  She’s shoving her way into the other boot. “People made fun of me. I dyed my hair and drew on myself and hung out with the other freaks. Isn’t that what high school is for everyone who’s not like the majority?”

  “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”

  “Lots of things suck.” She ties knots in her lime-green laces and it only takes four steps across my living room before she’s at my door, one hand on the knob. “That’s why I don’t bring extra crappy shit into my life.”

  “And I’m extra crappy shit?”

  Her eyes are shiny with a sheen of tears. She blinks and one falls over the crest of her lashes. It rolls down the outside of her round cheek. “Right now you are.”

  The door shuts behind her with a quiet click.

  My heart shatters into the silence.

  I shouldn’t be here. I already have my hoodie up over my head, but I tug it down farther over my forehead. I look like a creepy lurker, probably.

  At a church ceremony. So brilliant of me.

  At least the sunrise service at Brooke’s UU church is packed. I don’t think I would have been brave enough to approach if I hadn’t seen the thick throng of people on the beach.

  I’m standing at the far outside of the ellipse of attendees. The first yellow rays of sunshine are coming up behind us.

  I set Bennet’s shoulder carrier on the sand. She comes out only far enough to sigh and plop on my feet. I have her with me because I’m heading to Mom’s after this.

  I’m going to need hugs from Mom. And I’m going to need to bitch to Sierra like mad. She’ll understand. She’ll understand that I’m here because I can’t help it. Brooke once mentioned that she was giving a reading at the solstice service they were having instead of a traditional Christmas one.

  Right now, a woman with her hair split into deep-gray braids that lie over her shoulders and go all the way to her elbows is talking about hope. Spring will return, and renewal will come with it.

  I know she’s right, but I don’t want her to be. Not right now. I spot Brooke. She’s in the front row of the crowd, holding a white candle. She’s dyed her hair pastel green, w
ith streaks of darker blue, making it harder to recognize her. Her head is bowed. I can only see the edge of her cheek and the tip of her nose.

  Is she sad? Do I want her to be sad? I’m not even sure. I don’t think so. I wish I had a candle though, something to focus on so that I won’t hear the aching of my heart. Pain has a sound, and it’s pretty much the slow thump of a heartbeat going on and on when you can’t prevent it.

  A shift at the front of the crowd allows Brooke to step forward and mount the little platform. The older woman steps to the side, allowing Brooke the microphone. I drop my head and look down at Bennet. She’s on her back in the sand, wiggling herself into a shallow burrow, but catching my attention makes her hop up. She taps my knees with her little paws, so I pick her up, but I keep my face buried in her sandy, scruffy fur.

  “I was asked to deliver a reading on Emmanuel,” Brooke says.

  I peek from under my hoodie. She looks wan. Her cheeks are drawn. Her makeup is subdued but the swath of pink on her mouth makes the rest of her coloring even paler.

  “Emmanuel is part of a prophecy, and his name means ‘God is with us.’” She pauses, looking out over the crowd.

  I duck my head.

  I’m fighting the impulse to run, and I don’t know why. I shouldn’t be here in the first place. Sand has wedged itself between the soles of my feet and my flip-flops. It’s cool, and I twist my heel to increase my discomfort. I hold Bennet tightly enough that she whimpers and wiggles.

  “God is with all of us, but he may not look the same for all of us.” Brooke swallows. Her gaze is lost. She’s turning inward. “She might not look the same for us at different points of our life, too. And he might go away sometimes.”

  She is sad. I turn and walk away as quickly as I can manage. I shouldn’t be here. This is her safe space. The one she’s found for herself miles away from where she started. I’m contaminating it, trying to push myself on her.

  Jesus, exactly the way I was trying to make her agree to a relationship.

  I close myself in my car, Bennet on my lap. She knows I’m upset and licks the underside of my chin. Blindly, I pet her.