by Cat Porter
“Let me in, Tania,” I whispered. Gently, I slid in further and further. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it.”
Serena came, her moans ringing out, and my chest contracted at the sound. She turned around immediately and kissed Tania’s mouth, kissed and licked her tits as I worked Tania’s ass.
“Let him in, Tania, it’s all right,” Serena said against Tania’s skin. She slid up her body and kissed her mouth again. “He wants us both coming all over him now.”
Tania let out another low moan.
These two were killing me.
Serena pushed down the bed and buried her face in Tania’s pussy, a hand curling around her ass, meeting my busy fingers. Tania squirmed, moaning loudly as Serena slid two of her fingers inside her pussy, working her as I worked Tania’s ass with steady, careful strokes. I’d never been with a virgin before, ass or otherwise. I liked it, I liked giving Tania something new, something only the three of us shared.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” Tania jolted in my hold, her skin wet, her body stiff. I bit her neck, and she came hard, her groans and cries somewhere between shock and ecstasy, her body trembling yet bound between me and Serena. She clung to us, we clung to her.
Serena kissed her mouth gently until she relaxed. I released Tania’s ass, and my palm squeezed down over her wet pussy. Serena kissed me while Tania’s hand reached back and found my stiff cock.
“Shit, you’re incredible,” Tania muttered pulling on my cock. My last drop of self-control evaporated.
“If we had lube, I’d be in your ass right now,” I muttered.
Letting out a grunt, I sat up on my haunches taking in a breath, wiping the sweat from my eyes, down my chest. Serena took my cock in her mouth, her eyes on me.
“Baby—”
Tania curled behind me, her tongue laying a wet trail up my spine to the base of my skull. Her nails skimmed down my shoulders and arms, her fingers traveled to my nipples, scraping around them and down my middle as she rubbed her body against my back. Shivers streaked over my flesh.
Hands, tongues, lips, sucks.
Tania’s tongue clashed with Serena’s as they both ravaged my cock and my balls with their greedy mouths. I slid my fingers between Tania’s thighs, in her ass again and she squirmed and writhed against my touch. My other hand kneaded Serena’s tit.
They were my women, mine for right now, mine in this goddamn bed.
My hands dug in their hair as I pumped my hips. The burn whipped around us, hot and thick. This burn was good, galvanizing. The three of us rode that fever, they rode it with me as they gave to me, taking me higher, giving me this insane pleasure. The pressure built in my cock and nothing stopped me, nothing ripped at me. I stayed inside it and rode its wave. I focused on their hands on my flesh, their wet tongues. They kept me close, the heat of their bodies blending with mine. I let myself into this vortex the three of us created and I didn’t get scorched. I fucking flew.
Specfuckingtacular.
I came, grunting loudly, making a mess on both of them. I collapsed on the bed in between them, our limbs tangling, our breaths making short, savage noises. The three of us kissed and groped and sucked, our bodies wet, our skin burning.
We spent the whole day on that bed fucking any way we could until we had to leave.
Until I had to leave them at the mercy of the rotten world outside that precious room.
The shower water ran, the sound cutting through the fog of my sleep. I jacked up in bed. Tania was curled up, clutching a pillow on the other side of the mattress. Serena was missing. I tripped out of the bed on the twisted sheet and darted into the steam-filled bathroom. She stood at the sink, her body dripping wet from the shower. Her head was bent over her arm.
Red blood splattered onto the white porcelain.
“What the hell are you doing? Are you okay?”
Her head lifted to mine, her eyes heavy. In one hand she held my knife, blood dribbling from her abdomen, her other arm.
“What the fuck?” I grabbed the knife from her.
I wiped a hand across the blood just above her pussy. She had cut over the tattoo of the Smoking Gun skeleton. I gripped her bleeding arm. Another small red line rose up in blood there, about two inches below her wrist.
“Baby—”
“Finish them both for me.” Our eyes met in the steamy mirror.
“What the hell are you talking about? Jesus.”
“I want to obliterate their brand and put your mark on me. And one over my wrist. Just like yours on your face. I want it on me.”
“That’s crazy.”
“You finish it for me.”
“No. You don’t want that.”
“I do. I do. Today we say goodbye for however long, maybe forever.”
“That’s not true. We’ll have another day and another and another. We’re gonna make it happen.”
“Until then...please.”
I scanned all the ugly bruises and scars over her beautiful body. “Baby...”
She gave me a watery smile. “This is my choice. This mark I want, and I want it from you.” Her voice was thick and determined. “Why should I only have scars of what they did to me? Of my stupidity in ending up with them? Why? Why can’t I have a good memory on my body? So that every time I see it, touch it, I’m filled with the good that is us, the good that these two days brought us. Knowing it matches yours. Last night was fantastic. It made me feel good, feel free, powerful even. I want to remember that victory every day, I don’t want to forget. It’s going to be a rough road without you. I need this, Justin. I need it from you.”
I took the knife from the sink and pressing my lips together, I sliced the two dashes along the line she’d made over the tattoo. The letter “F” rose up in red on her pale flesh.
“Finish my wrist now.”
I slashed quickly on the delicate skin of her wrist. Dropping the knife in the sink, I licked over the wound, and she let out a cry. We were both marked with each other, for fucking ever. Not just skin and blood, but soul deep, that shadowy place where twisted secrets are spun and hidden from even ourselves.
Lifting her up on the edge of the bathroom counter, I spread her legs wide with a shove of my hips.
She dug her hands in my hair, a line of blood skating down her arm, another down into her cunt. “Yes, yes. One last time.”
“Stop talking like that.” I dropped to my knees on the damp tile floor and kissed her pussy, licking at her blood, her wet heat.
She clung to me, crying out, her blood smearing my face.
Making every moment count, every moment between us last. Wherever and whenever. Even here in a motel bathroom in Who Knows Where, South Dakota at four twenty in the morning.
“This is just the beginning,” I said against her skin. “Just the fucking beginning.”
17
“You sure?” Finger asked, again, buckling the saddlebag on his bike.
“Positive,” Tania replied.
“This is the best idea. It is.” I shifted my weight, ignoring my sudden inability to breathe properly. Ignoring the early morning heat bouncing up off the asphalt of the motel parking lot making me even more lightheaded, even more dizzy.
Finger stared at me and Tania, calculating, regretting.
“You go. You’ve got to go,” I said. And he did, he had some club business to take care of in Nebraska today.
“Go,” Tania added.
My watery eyes hung on his. Something pinched inside my chest and twisted and twisted. This was the first time I’d be alone. On my own, without the framework of the Smoking Guns, without a specific place in a horrible hierarchy which was, of course, liberating, but also oddly terrifying. Now, I would be without Justin.
When I’d first met him a spark had gone off inside me and unspooled everything I’d had rolled up tight. All the long weeks afterward, I�
��d kept that sparkling thread under my heart muscle and would take it out before I’d go to sleep, right before I’d close my eyes. I’d wind that delicate, vibrant twine around me tightly and burrow my face into my pillow and wish and dream. And the dream had come true. He’d done as he’d said. He’d come back for me. He’d broken me out and given me a new chance at a new life. I wanted that new life with him in it.
But now we had to separate, say goodbye.
We’d had two nights. They’d been priceless. Now they too would become memories to spool and unspool in the dark of my night.
Something dislodged inside me and threatened to slide out from under me. My stomach hardened against it. If I lost it now, got emotional and crazy, all of me would let go and go tumbling into a pit that there would be no climbing out from. I needed to choke it down and carry on without him holding my hand, without him whispering my name against my skin, and laughing softly in my ear.
Tania stepped back from us, and turned to her car, busied herself pushing shit around in the crowded trunk. Finger kissed me, cradling my face in his hands. I pressed into him, my arms wrapping around his waist, and squeezed him hard. My fingertips dug into the taut muscles of his back, memorizing their feel, their curves, how they stretched and tightened against me. How it felt, the two of us together in the world.
Would there ever be a place for us in this world?
“I’ll get you a driver’s license with a new name and date of birth. We got people in DMVs all over, won’t be a problem.”
“Goodbye, Serena,” I quipped.
“Yeah.” His eyes clouded at the sound of that terrible word. Goodbye. He fisted my hair, keeping me close. “I’ll be in touch real soon. You know that, right?” His voice was even more hoarse than usual, that odd, scratchy, husky quality more pronounced now.
“I know,” I said into his chest, breathing in the fresh soapy scent we shared from a shower the two of us had hastily taken together only half an hour ago.
Remember this. Remember how this feels.
He released me and pressed a round hard object covered in a worn suede pouch into my palm. “I want you to have this.” I glanced up at him as I opened the pouch and pulled out an old pocket watch.
He flipped the top. No, it wasn’t a watch.
“A compass?”
“My dad gave it to me. His dad had given it to him. It’s the compass he used in the army in Vietnam. Take it.”
“I can’t. It’s precious to you, it’s—”
He took my face in his hands, his fierce eyes drilling into mine. “You’re precious to me. You mean everything to me.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t explain it, but I have this mess of feelings for you. Actually, it’s not a mess, it’s real clear how important you are to me.” He took in a breath, his brows knitting. “Knowing you have the compass is a solid promise. My promise that I will always find you. I will always come for you, that you and me, we’re connected like the laws of gravity and magnetics and physics that govern this earth. You and me, we’re inevitable.”
My heart pounded in my chest as I held his iron gaze. Urgent faith, sturdy strength for the both of us.
A commitment.
“We’re going to be together one day, Serena. One day real soon.”
“One day,” I breathed, knowing in my gut what that meant.
Things were shit now. Med would be on the warpath, out for blood. He just might figure out that it was Finger who had helped me—or he wouldn’t. Either way, it meant that Finger and I couldn’t be together in plain sight. We would have to lay low for a long time yet.
How long?
“No one’s going to keep us apart.” Finger closed the antique brass compass and put his palm over it, pressing it in my hand. “We will be together, we’ll find a way. We can’t not find a way.”
“One day.”
“One day.” He kissed me hard, and a noise escaped the back of his throat. He pulled me into his chest, kissing the top of my head, burying his face in my hair.
I hung on. This was too hard, too awful. Too everything.
“We should get moving,” came Tania’s soft voice from somewhere behind me.
He let me go and hugged Tania. “Thank you. For everything.”
“You’re welcome.” Tania hugged him back. “This will all work out. You’ll see. She’ll be fine.” She pulled back from him and put her arm through mine.
“You take care of her for me,” he said to her.
“I will. We’ll take care of each other. Now go.”
Finger got on his bike and started her up. That blast ripped the air, making my heart beat even faster. I’d considered it an ugly sound for so long, yet right this second it was a symphony bursting with promise and possibility and glory. He put his gloves on, looking away, on purpose, I was sure of it, as he adjusted himself in his saddle. It had only been a couple of days since he’d been on a bike, but I could tell it had felt like forever for him.
He sucked in a deep breath, his back straightening, and stared at me and Tania. His dark eyes were now shielded by his goggles, but I knew they burned, burned same as mine. One day soon I would be on a bike with him, and we would ride together without hiding, without fear. That longing, that emotion, that determination radiated between us, and I sucked in its heady fragrance through every pore and let it fill me, fill me with courage to face the very next moment without him, and then the next, and the next.
My eyes blinked from behind my sunglasses, and something in my stomach dropped and unspooled, but I pulled it in. Yes, one day soon. I had to believe. I had to be patient.
I had to be careful.
His chest heaved. “Tell me to go. I don’t think I can—”
“Go, baby,” I breathed. “You have to go.”
I clasped the compass tightly. It was the one thing I owned now, the one thing that was mine in all this world. He’d lain his heart and soul in my hands, and I would keep them safe. I would never let them go.
Ever.
We made it to Chicago.
Tania and I got that apartment she’d had a lead on, a tiny walkup in a crap building in Pilsen. The neighborhood’s charming decrepit buildings were slowly starting to turn into lofts, but it was still affordable, plus the area had a lot of ethnic diversity which we both liked.
Within a few weeks of landing in Chicago, Tania got her old job back at a restaurant as a waitress and substitute bartender a few nights out of the week, and an additional job at an art gallery during the day with Neil, a good friend of hers from college. I found work at a vintage clothing store taking in stock and keeping it organized which I was very good at. I dressed the way I wanted to, bought clothes at a big discount for myself and Tania. It was fun.
Finger had gotten me a new name, Social Security number, and driver’s license as promised, but I was nervous about using the number so I managed to get paid under the table. I’d told my boss I’d just gotten a nasty divorce and wanted to stay under the radar for a while, and he was cool about it. I was now “Ashley Wyeth” to the world.
Hello world, hello shiny normal life.
Well. Kind of normal.
Tania and I settled into being roommates very easily. She took the one small bedroom, and I slept on a futon sofa in a corner of the living room. I’d separated my corner from the rest of the room with a broken Asian screen we’d found on the street which we cleaned up, patched, and repainted. I didn’t mind the living room. In fact, I preferred being in the much larger open space instead of that tiny, tiny bedroom. I couldn’t breathe in there.
Tania loved flea markets and rummage sales, and I discovered I did too. We spent our weekends scouring Maxwell Street Market, which was gritty but had loads of character. We always found something we had to have. Tania often brought home odd pieces she’d find on the sidewalks that other people had thrown away. She saw something in each pi
ece, and I loved getting my hands on whatever it was and giving it new life. We made a good design team.
We worked hard on making our living space special. I would scrub a trashed piece of wood furniture clean, stripping it, varnishing, painting it an odd color, then scrub it again to make it seem antiqued. I’d find quirky hardware pieces and use them for handles or as eccentric details. We decorated the apartment with inexpensive tapestries. I made a mini chandelier of sorts out of rusty bicycle chains and the prettiest small bulbs. Tania bought old pillows, and I patched up any holes or tears with contrasting fabric. Each time I opened the front door, the colors, the textures, the lines all sang to me in a bright rich chorus of YES.
On the weekends, Tania and Neil would drag me with them to funky art parties at galleries or artists’ studios or performance spaces. I met people my age, I made friends. Well, sort of. I made acquaintances. I wasn’t ready to let people in, I wasn’t sure when I would be. I stuck to Tania and Neil. They were enough for me for now.
What I really wanted, needed, was out of my reach.
After too many weeks, Finger was finally able to come to Chicago for a visit.
He didn’t come to the apartment. In fact, I didn’t think he ever would. We’d agreed it was best that when he was able to come to Chicago, he and I would meet on neutral ground in case he was being watched or followed.
I headed to the low budget motel in the northern outskirts of town. I knocked on room 103, my stomach churning, my mouth dry. Three sets of two knocks as he’d told me to do.
The door opened, and I held my breath. A threshold to a new life, one with him in it. Would the emotional and physical intensity between us be the same? I didn’t want the heady chemistry between us to change, but maybe it would be different now. Would we still want and need each other the way we had in that motel, or was all that only us being swept up in a life-threatening drama? We still were in a life-threatening drama, but without the immediate fear of death and destruction hanging over us like the last time.