The Goode Fight

by Seth King

  “And one more,” I interrupt. I decided the night I met him- I am going to get Stellan, and nothing else is an option. I can’t give up now. Even if a part of me is telling me to stop because I’m putting myself in danger, which is definitely happening. I have to prove to him that sex before marriage isn’t wrong.

  I rest my hand on my upper thigh and curl my fingers towards my crotch a little, hoping he notices. “Part four, verse sixteen. ‘Come ... blow upon my garden; that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.’”

  Stellan now looks like he is about to have a heart attack. His eyes wide, he angles his body away from me as every muscle in his arm tenses up under his skin.

  “Interesting,” he says after a moment. “I mean, not interesting. I mean…can we talk about something else?”

  “Nowhere in any of these passages about sex did I see anything about marriage, Stellan,” I say, ignoring him. “Don’t you find that enlightening?”

  “Trust me,” he murmurs after a moment, his eyes a million miles away from me, “I have many more problems with sex than can be explained away in the Bible.”

  I wonder again what he is talking about, but then I decide that he’s not going to tell me anyway. The wine has fully entered my blood stream now, making me unnaturally bold, and so I grab my old MacBook from the side table and feel a little jitter run up my leg as I move on to phase two of my scheme.

  “You know what? I’m bored. Let’s check the news! I wonder what’s been going on with the Middle East lately.”

  I open the laptop, point the screen towards Stellan, enter my password, and then gasp in fake shock when I see that it is midway through a filthy video from some random porn website in which a blonde girl is performing a very generous act on her happy male lover.

  “Oh my gosh, how did that get on here?” I ask as moans escape from my computer’s speakers. “I let my friend Cara do her homework on this thing earlier because she said her computer was in the shop, but now I know she just wanted to use it to watch these filthy, sinful videos! What a bad friend!”

  Stellan turns to stone beside me. He tries to look away from the video, but he can’t. I feel totally embarrassed, but I still don’t turn it off, because it seems like it’s working. Turning him on, riling him up, bringing back that desperately hungry edge back to his eye from the other night. I intend to keep it going, but he suddenly reaches over and minimizes the window, displaying my embarrassingly nerdy background photo.

  “An eclipse?” he asks me.

  “Yeah,” I blush, “it was actually just a stock photo that came on the computer, but since I’ve always wanted to see one and never have, I figured I’d look at one every day on my computer until I can see it in real life.”

  He gives me a strange, contemplative look, but I have no time to investigate the origins behind it. I point up at the staircase leading to my bedroom.

  “And oh my God, why is my lacy black thong hanging from the banister like that? That is so embarrassing. I am going to kill my stupid cleaning lady for doing that!”

  Stellan’s fist clenches into a tight ball. The blood starts pounding in my ears, telling me to stop because this is dangerous, but I ignore it. I point across the room, under the never-used dining table that is currently covered in books and a laundry basket.

  “And dang it, why is that condom lying on the floor under the table? Just look, it’s totally unopened and everything, just waiting to be used. That cleaning lady is such a little trickster, leaving this crap everywhere. I can’t believe the nerve of some people!”

  I peer over at Stellan, whose eyes are growing hungrier by the minute.

  “Taylor,” he says with a mischievous glint in his eye, “stay away from Los Angeles.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’d be the worst actor in the history of actors.”

  “But I swear I didn’t do it!”

  “Seriously,” he says, clouds moving over his face, “tread lightly here, Taylor. You don’t know what you’re asking for. When I told you I didn’t want to take a bite out of the apple the other night, I meant it. It could lead to danger. I know you look at me and think you see one thing, but let me tell you, things are a lot uglier under the mask than they seem.”

  I set the laptop back on the table. “Explain what you mean by that.”

  Absolute hatred for himself suddenly shines in his eyes, breaking my heart in half.

  “You just don’t want to hook up with me. Trust me on that one.”

  “Why not?”

  “You just don’t.”

  “Okay,” I say, “well, if you’re going to be Mr. Mysterious, then do you want to know what I think?”

  He looks over, intrigued. “I know you’re going to tell my anyway, so shoot.”

  I take a hard swallow. There is a very loud voice in my head telling me not to say what I want tell him next, but somehow I ignore it. “I think you’re bad, Stellan. Something about you is…dark, but in the best possible way. You proved it the other night in front of the mirror, and again when you almost fought those guys at dinner. But for whatever reason you fight the bad; you push it down because you’re afraid. You try to pretend that you’re good, even though it’s not the real you.”

  “You’re very observant,” he says quietly.

  “Explain.”

  I reach up and put the TV on mute. The only sound now is the clock in the kitchen ticking away.

  “How do I say this?” he says as he stares up at the ceiling. “Ah. I’ve got it.” He turns to me, his expression a warning, the air taking on a darkly serious tone. “You’re right about something- I used to be bad, but I don’t want to be bad anymore. I’m like an addict just out of rehab- I’m in recovery, and I want to stay that way. But then you came along, and you’re making me want to relapse. You’re like my favorite drug, and the reaction I feel around you is…indescribable. Incredible. I feel it in every molecule of my body. It’s like you were made specifically for me. And the more I’m around you, the more I want you. It gets harder and harder to resist you all the time. I’ve been fighting a constant battle every second I’ve been with you, and I’m losing strength.”

  He looks me dead in the eye, his face growing softer. “You’re my weak spot, Taylor.”

  For the millionth time, I melt at his words.

  “I’d tell you I have the same reaction around you, but I think you already know that,” I say as my heart flutters. “But I don’t get it. Why did you ask me to come to Nashville if I’m such a bad influence on you?”

  He shakes his head, looking disgusted with himself. “Because I’m stupid, that’s why. I can’t stay away. I’m trying to be good, and you’re breaking that. You’re breaking all my good, Taylor, and it’s kind of scaring the hell out of me.”

  “No, Stellan,” I begin, “I think you’re wrong. I don’t think I’m breaking you, I think I’m bringing out the real you, and you’re scared. You know, you don’t have to shut part of yourself off like this. I think we’re all two people- the good and the bad, the yin and the yang, all that. It can exist at the same time. Good people can be bad sometimes, and vice versa. Hey, think of it this way: you’ve been in North Carolina long enough to know our summers, right?”

  He nods weakly, his eyes still desolate and filled with self-loathing.

  “Okay, well, the mornings always start out perfect and blue, but a lot of times a terrible thunderstorm will hit at four or five in the afternoon. Does that make the mornings any less beautiful, though?”

  “You’re right about one thing,” he says, his voice pained. “I am a thunderstorm, capable of destroying everything in my path. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to protect you from. Ugh, I shouldn’t even be letting myself sit here with you in the first place. This is so stupid of me. I almost wish you would’ve turned me down the other night, after I rescued you. That’s why I was so rude to you in the beginning, to warn you to stay away from me, for you
r own good…”

  He looks away, tortured, collapsed. I know he’s warning me to walk away, and I’m scared, but my growing affection for him outweighs the fear. It’s not just lust anymore, although that’s there in spades, obviously. I also want to help him, to make him see that he doesn’t have to hate himself like this and live in all this shame. I wish I could just put my hand on his skin and heal him, take away all his problems. It kills me seeing him hurt like this, so I reach up and touch a finger to his lips – and the reward I get is a tingly feeling spreading all over my body, along with that fire I love exploding in his eyes. And it makes something in me explode, too, besides the tinglies: red-hot desire.

  “Remember the other night, when you kept telling me how wonderful I was?” I ask him softly as I take my hand back for fear of jumping him. “That’s what I see in you. You’re…perfect. Too perfect for me,” I trail off.

  “You’re wrong,” he says. “I’m trouble. I’m fucked up. If we do this, you will lose all sense of being in control, and your life will literally be in your hands, and that’s it.”

  My pulse picks up faster than ever. So on top of everything else, he thinks he’s too controlling? Good, then so be it. I’m sick of all the responsibilities piling up in my life – I want someone to take the reins, if only for a little while. I hate all this new adult stuff, paying my own bills and taking care of my own house and keeping the oil changed in my car. Sometimes I want someone to burst into my door, throw me against the wall, and just do me. Have their way with me. Make all the responsibilities fade away and take me to a different world.

  But he won’t. He’s stubborn and set in his ways, just like all guys. And then I realize: he might be a complicated guy, but he’s still just a guy, and the best way to get a guy to do something is to tell him he can’t do it. Challenge him a little. The first time Adam had come to my dorm in Budapest I’d tried to get him to try some sweet tea I’d made, but he said he’d heard it was disgusting and refused. But as soon as I accused him of being scared, however, he drank a whole glass of it and said it was the best American drink he’d had since Coke.

  I look back at Stellan, a new resolve burning in my blood.

  “You know what?” I ask. “I’m starting to think you’re all talk.”

  He tilts his head. “What?”

  “Yeah- the other night was fun, but for all I know it could’ve been a fluke. How do I know you’re not just talking yourself up with all this ‘I’m trouble’ crap to sound like a badass, and you’ll be a wet blanket once we actually do something?”

  He runs his tongue over his top lip and then bites his bottom one, my favorite move of all.

  “Well, you’re halfway right,” he says with a dark smile. “There will be wet blankets when I’m done with you.”

  I shudder from head to toe. For a moment my subconscious makes one last stand. He said it himself- he’s dangerous, and the bells and whistles going off in my brain are confirming that. Am I really going to put myself in his hands like this?

  I look over at the leg muscles bulging under his jeans. Hell yes, I am. My attraction to him is a speeding train, and there’s no jumping off now.

  I look him dead in the eye and lick my lip one last time. Man or monster, it’s time to see the truth behind the talk.

  “Prove it.”

  One last struggle plays out across his face before he looks up at me, his eyes on fire. His lips curl into a snarl, his breathing slows, his fists clench into balls, and as a breathless rush of desire rolls over me I realize I’ve done it. As wrong as this is, and as much as something deep and instinctive in my soul is screaming at me to turn and run, I can’t help but smirk at my accomplishment:

  I’ve unleashed the dark side again.

  “Oh, babe,” he says, relishing every word. “You have no idea what you just said.”

  8

  Stellan Goode

  Good Stellan begs me to stop.

  Taylor agreed to come to Nashville, you got what you came for, now leave, he tells me desperately. But as always, he is easily overpowered by Bad Stellan, who takes the reins and leads me as if on instinct. Once again, Taylor dared me, and once again, I am powerless to stop myself.

  “What do you want me to prove?” I ask her. “That I can do…this?”

  She’s sitting a few inches from the back of the couch, and I reach around and slap her ass. Hard. She gasps, but by the way her breath speeds up I can tell that she likes it. I imagine her reaction down there, and I feel warmth rise up my stomach and into my throat as I think of the moisture I am about to get on my fingers.

  “Or that I can do…this?”

  I lean into her ear, stopping for a second to breathe some hot air onto her cheek, and then open my mouth and bite her earlobe. Her moan corresponds with another thing becoming hard in my pants. Ah, this is heaven. For a few moments I kiss and lick and suck her ear softly and tenderly, rolling my tongue all over, and as I do so I feel her pulse get faster and faster.

  “Mmmm. Te quiero, mami,” I murmur into her ear. “Looks like those Bible verses worked. This isn’t very holy of me at all, is it? Look at you, you’re making me bad. And I love it. What else do you want me to prove now? That I can do…this?”

  I shift my hand, pull down her black lacy bra, slip my finger into my mouth to get some wetness on it, and then start rolling it around her nipple; never touching it, just teasing, around and around and around. I circle her faster and faster, getting closer to her nipple and feeling the edges of it harden, until she starts to moan in my ear.

  “That’s right, baby,” I say as I suck on her soft, delicious ear lobe. “I love the sounds you make. That’s right. Get good and wet for me.”

  She opens her eyes to look at me hungrily before they roll back into her head. Oh God. This is so hot. Taylor is so hot. And I’m only just getting started.

  “You like that, babe?”

  “Mhmm,” she whines. “Keep going.”

  “No. But I will do something else.”

  With one quick movement I grab both of her wrists, lift them up together, and slam them against the wall above us. The raw force of the movement makes her yelp, her eyes widening and her back arching. I hold her arms in place against the wall with one hand and return the other to her right breast and finally make contact with her nipple, pinching and twisting it with just enough pressure to make it hurt.

  “Fuuuuck,” I grunt as I roll her nipple between my thumb and pointer finger. She whines in response, making my need for her grow even more desperate and fiery. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want her, not even close.

  “You’re helpless, you know,” I murmur menacingly as she fidgets under me. “You’re pinned. I could take you right now if I wanted to. Hold you down while I filled you up and made you mine, and there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

  “Mhhmm,” she says again, lost in ecstasy, barely able to keep her eyes open. “So do it.”

  “Do what?”

  For some reason I want her to say it- I want to hear how reckless her thoughts are. She opens her eyes and looks directly at me, and I am so turned on by this eye contact, I pinch her nipple harder than ever.

  “Ah,” she cries. “I want you to fuck me.”

  My body is rocked by a wave of outrageous desire like I have never experienced before. Driven out of control by my want for her, I lean in and kiss her earlobe. “Say it louder. Now.”

  “I want you to fuck me!”

  “Not loud enough. Wrong move.”

  Keeping her hands above her head, I reach my right leg across her, hook it under her knees, and then move on top of her, clamping her legs in place and locking her under me. She is now fully pinned beneath me.

  “Ohh, you’re definitely mine now, baby,” I tell her as I leer down at her. “All mine. Look at you- you’re helpless. I’m so much stronger than you, so much more powerful. You wouldn’t be able to get away if you tried. I’d be able to do anything I wanted. What I really want is to
push your legs open, bury my face in you, and lick you until you come.”

  She takes a sharp, ragged breath. For one desperate moment I actually contemplate doing this, and maybe more, but I tell myself to slow down and not get carried away. I need to keep this precious girl safe.

  “Why must you make me do this to you, baby?” I ask her. “Why are you so tempting? And what should I do to you next to punish you for it?”

  I look around and then remember the cup of wine on the coffee table behind me. I reach back, grab a cube of ice, and then hold it over her bare nipple until a bit of icy water drips onto it, making her inhale sharply. Then I suddenly put the ice cube directly onto her skin, rubbing it slowly around her nipple, making her back arch higher than ever. As her whining grows louder I travel downward, twisting around and around on her smooth, supple skin with the ice, leaving shimmering ribbons of water behind. With every inch I get closer to her pussy, she breathes harder and faster, and when I get to her bellybutton I circle it a few times, just enough to make it wet. A shiny and delicious glint of silver catches my eye.

  “I love your bellybutton ring,” I say hungrily as I glance at her beautiful face.

  “Spring Break in Panama City with Cara,” she says faintly. “She made me do it with her, and since I couldn’t take the ring out without creating a hole there, I left in the smallest one I could find.”

  “I love it,” I say as I stare down at the ring. “And you’re about to love it, too.”

  She starts to ask what I mean and then I put the ice cube in her belly button, scoot back, and dive down and begin licking it all around like it’s the part of her located six inches to the south. There are a surprising number of nerve endings here, and I know she’s shocked by how good it feels. I run my tongue up and down and around, pushing the ice cube every which way, taking the soft silver ring in my teeth and tugging it lightly every now and then. She moans louder, and the harder I suck on the ring the more I feel her body start to tremble and twitch under me. She pulls at her wrists and wiggles her legs, but I keep her clamped tight.