Keeping Never (Never say Never)

by C. M. Stunich

  I did men mostly at first, but soon, I had transitioned over to female clients exclusively. The perverts had finally come out of the woodwork and showed me that the opposite sex can be just as cruel. I did whatever they told me to, no matter what it was, no matter how depraved or sick or fucked up. I did it until it changed from hurting myself to hurting others.

  There was this couple, okay? And they had a third person with them, a woman. She was bound and gagged, spread open on a bed. I'd seen plenty of bondage before, so that was nothing new, but then … I saw her face, her eyes. I'd seen her on the news a few weeks prior. She'd gone missing on her way home from the gym. I looked her right in the face, and I left. I ran, and I took all the money I had and booked a one way ticket to San Fran.

  I left her there, Never. I left her there and I didn't tell anybody because I was afraid. Afraid of Dick Prick and the couple and even the cops when they found out that I was a runaway, a whore, an alcoholic. Two weeks later, they found her body. I'm responsible, baby. Me. I am. I could've saved her, and I didn't. I have her blood on my hands. Do you still love me? Do you still want me? How the fuck could you? And even if you do, you have to know that one day, I will go to Hell for all the things I have done. I will burn forever, and there is nobody that can save me.

  27

  Ty and I are sitting on the front porch of the house that is now ours according to his mother's lawyer. He tells me that he got a phone call while I was sleeping in the car, and that's how he knows. I don't give a shit about that right now. I don't care about the smell from the house or the fact that my phone is beeping nonstop, filled with texts from my sisters and Lacey, from Noah. I don't care about the little, orange tabby cat that's rubbing on my ankles or the small flakes of snow that are beginning to drift from the sky.

  Ty stares blankly ahead of himself, eyes wide, hands shaking, and he lights up a cigarette. He smokes it quick and starts in on another. I don't blame him. How could I? The worst part about all of this is that he isn't even done. There's more to Ty's story. More pain, more heartache, more blood splattered across the walls of his heart. How did he ever live to tell the tale? That's what I need to know. I touch my SOG chip for reassurance, slide my fingers down my arm and pause when I reach my opposite hand, find the rings that Ty gave me and find strength in the undiscriminating metal.

  “You were a kid, Ty,” I tell him which he already knows. He turns to me like a zombie, neck stiff, muscles taught and I see that his lip ring is bloody from where he's chewed his lip to bits. I reach out and cover his mouth with my hand, trying stop him from hurting himself. Thus far, he's bounced back quick, but then, none of his revelations have been quite like this. I think of that poor girl, and I hope she didn't suffer long, that somehow, she knows that Ty didn't mean to abandon her there. They're both victims, Ty and that poor girl. I wish she were here, so she could forgive him, and maybe then he could move past this. For now, I'm afraid we've hit a dead end, that Ty is going to revert back. I pray that I'm wrong.

  “Tyson Monroe McCabe,” I say, but he isn't looking at me. His eyes are facing me, and they're open, yes, but he isn't seeing me. He's seeing that girl and he's wondering how much she suffered, and he's blaming himself for everything. But he's not a bad person, not my Ty McCabe. It's not just because I love him or because I feel sorry for him, not because he's my twisted, melted, bloodied, bandaged, fucked, mangled, burnt, screwed, slaughtered other half. It's because I can see it in his face. If he could go back in time, he would change everything, even if it damned him, even if he suffered for it, he would. “Regrets are the most important tools in the world, Ty McCabe. If we didn't regret then mistakes would be nothing but a series of unstoppable accidents. We can regret something, and we can learn from it. Once we do though, once we understand why we regret something, we have to let it go. If you keep it, it will burn you. If you let it fly, it will become something else, something not quite as ugly or as perverted, but rather something new. That energy can rejoin the rest of the universe and be reborn. That's the whole point, isn't it? Change, rebirth, life.” I grab Ty's hand and put it on my belly. “You can't check out on us now, McCabe. You started something new, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you leave it unfinished.”

  My lover turns to me, eyes cloudy and he blinks, once, twice, three times, and then he's pulling me onto my lap and kissing me. He kisses me mouth and my cheeks and my forehead and my nose. He lays me flat on the wooden floor of the porch and pushes aside the fabric that separates us, drives into me, and fucks me right there in front of the neighborhood, hidden only by a bit of hedge. He takes me hard and fast, and I know that he isn't all there, that he's trying to dump his pain and sorrow, but that's okay. He took mine before, more than once, and now, I'm ready to take his. I said that recycling was a good thing, and I meant it. I will recycle Ty's memories into new things, better things, and he will do the same for me because that's what soul mates do.

  When he's done, when he rolls off and slams into the wood, puts his hands to his face and screams, I let him. In fact, after a moment, I scream, too, and we come full circle. We come from being crazy college kids screaming in the middle of campus to lovers with a kid on the way, a house full of memories, and a dog who shares a name with my mother but who will forever “wear it best” so to speak because she loves unconditionally. We come full circle and I know that after the storm, there will be a rainbow.

  28

  Days pass before Ty is comfortable enough to continue on with his story. I don't push him. What I said before still stands. If he breaks himself into pieces for me, I will never forgive myself and he may never recover, so much as I need to hear the end of this, to finally lay it to rest and give it closure, I wait.

  Noah gives us permission to stay as long as we need, ponying up money for the hotel, for the car, for the dumpster that Ty and I have to rent to clean up this damned house. I know he doesn't like to accept money from my ex, but he does it because that's the smart thing to do. We can save what little money he does have for the baby's things, for the nursery that lies hidden somewhere in the garbage up the stairs. Ty promises Noah that he'll pay him back when he strikes it rich. I don't know when that will be or how he'll do that, but I believe him. I believe him enough that I drag out bottles filled with yellow liquid. There's a whole mountain of them next to the bathroom that doesn't work, that has no running water, hasn't in years from the looks of it. Inside these plastic containers are piss. Urine. Pee. Wee. Whatever. Ty's mom really lost it there in the end. The sight of them sent him spiraling into a fit of rage wherein he took out a whole box of china to the yard and smashed it against the fence. I let him. I let him, and I took over, wearing nothing but a shirt tied around my face to block the smell. I only do it when he's not looking because he asked me not to. He's worried about the baby which I understand, but I'm more worried about his sanity, so I do it.

  “I knew the bitch was nuts, but fuck me,” Ty says as I surreptitiously hide the jug of piss I'm holding behind my back and crane my neck to see what he's uncovered in the downstairs bathroom. In the toilet bowl, which, of course, is long dry, there's a mountain of brand new toothbrushes. They're all still boxed up, wrapped in shiny plastic. Ty digs them out, cringing even though he's wearing some heavy duty gloves and throws them in the black trash bag to his left. “When I was a kid, she always bought toothbrushes when we went to the store. I mean, like lots of them. She used a new one every Goddamn day. But the amount I've found thus far defies logic. And to store them in the toilet bowl?”

  “Hoarding,” I say, thinking about what I've read on my phone in the few, quiet moments Ty and I spend together at the hotel. For the most part, we get up, we fuck, we eat, we clean, we eat again, we fuck, we sleep. Five days now we've done this same routine. “It sort of defies logic. It's a mental disorder.”

  “No shit,” Ty says as he shoves a questionable bucket into his bag. It's stained with … matter that I'd rather not discuss. “Psychotic bitch. Pedophile fucker. Useles
s whore.” Ty rants like this pretty often when we're here, and to be honest, I get it. I mean, this place is fucking sick. I try to think up something to distract him.

  “At least you had toothbrushes. My mom made us use miswaks.” Ty is in a pissy mood, shoveling old clothing into his bag, but for this, at least, he pauses. “You'd think a Midwestern girl would be chill with Colgate or Crest or some shit, but not my mom.” I sigh. I really do hate that bitch.

  “'Kay,” Ty says, standing up, brushing hair away from his sweaty head with the back of his hand. “What the fuck is a miswak?” I laugh and turn away so that I can get the piss jug into my garbage bag before Ty sees.

  “It's a stick with fibers on the end. You chew it, and it's supposed to clean your teeth better than a toothbrush.” Ty laughs which is a nice sound to hear. When we're in this house, he rarely laughs. I think the garbage sucks the joy right of him. I don't blame him for that, but if I find out that it's more than just the trash, if it's the house itself and the memories attached to it, I will drag his ass out of here faster than you can say sex addict.

  “Sounds hot,” Ty says as he strips off his gloves and glances over at the staircase. We've cleared it all the way up the top floor, but we haven't ventured any further. Ty is worried about the structural integrity of the building, or so he says. Honestly, I think that's a load of bullshit. I think that if I wasn't pregnant, he'd have dragged me up there right away, just to see the state of it. I mean, it's cute and all that he wants to protect me, but I've already told him twice that I am not going to break if he touches me the wrong way. I could probably get hit by a taxi cab and give birth to twins or some shit. “Did she make you stuff sea sponges up your cunt when you were on the rag, too?” I snort and wonder how the hell Ty gets these ideas in his head.

  “You're a weirdo.”

  “I read an article about it once. It's supposed to be real good for your kitty cat.”

  “Fuck off.” I follow Ty's lead and strip my gloves, toss them in the garbage bag and make my way outside onto the porch. The snow here is virginal, white and pretty as fuck. In the city, it's gray and slushy. I admire the contrast though I must admit that I prefer it here. It's quiet, it's serene, it's safe. I can see this house being perfect. I can imagine the fireplace roaring and Ty's hot body atop mine. I can even imagine holding a baby (though that's a bit of a stretch) on my lap while I enjoy the upstairs balcony that I haven't yet seen though Ty tells me has the best of views.

  “How about fuck on?” he asks me as he wraps his arms around my waist. I'm not complaining, but Ty's been extra clingy lately, very touchy-feely, like he can't get enough of me. It's a distraction technique, a tactic to forget his pain which is fine, but that which I know I can't nurture for an extended period of time. Still, how mad can I be with tortured, tatted, pierced bad boy McCabe nibbling my earlobe?

  “Maybe after you get me a cup of coffee,” I say as I stretch my arms above my head. I get more and more tired everyday. Beth says it's because I'm 'cooking' the baby in my belly right now, forming a whole human being out of a cluster of cells. She says it's actually not so bad later on. I don't believe her. Beth doesn't even have stretch marks. Never trust a mother without stretch marks. Ty kisses my shoulder and moves off the porch and into the snow, promptly falls onto his back and makes a friggin' snow angel.

  “Be spontaneous with me,” he calls as I tuck my woolen coat tighter around me and descend into the powdery white fluff that is too picture perfect for words. I lay down next to Ty, and he starts to talk.

  29

  Let's end this now, Nev. I am so tired of carrying this around. I want to get rid of my pain and break out of my cocoon, spread my wings and fly free. I want to be like one of the fucking butterflies that are etched into my skin. I want to change, to know that I'm different inside and out, and then I want to grow old as fuck with you. I want to see your face tell a story with wrinkles and know that you're just as beautiful then as you are now, maybe even more so because I know that every day I spend with you, I get more and more attached. Even now, the thought of being separated from you is un-fucking-fathomable. If you die, I die. Literally. I will slit my own wrists, do it up Romeo and Juliet style. Call me unhealthy or obsessed or whatever, but it's true, and I won't apologize for it. What I will do is tell you the rest of this story and be done with it.

  So, I failed that girl in the worst way possible and ran to San Francisco with twenty bucks in my pocket and a broken heart in my chest. I thought about starting over there, but it wasn't long before necessity and old habits took over my better judgment and sent me back to the streets. The going was tough though, tougher than back home. There weren't as many people willing to pay for it, so I slept on a park bench for a few weeks until I had enough money to travel. Then I took a bus and got off at the last stop, right outside a university in a city I'd never heard of.

  I started working the streets on my own, relying on men while I was young and then, as I matured, I found that many of them were less interested in me, so I switched back to women. I changed from prostitute to escort and back again, more times than I can count. I lived in beach side manors with ladies who had too much money to spend by themselves, whose husbands had hordes of their own mistresses. I was an emotional tool as much as I was a physical one. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd take a couple hundred bucks cash and I'd fuck chicks against alley walls, in the backs of clubs, bathrooms. I know you don't want to hear this, Never, but I have to tell you. And if you think about it, this story really does have a happy ending because I found you. Let me keep going because I'm almost done, and then I'll never speak of it again. I won't want to, and I'll beg you not to. If there's anything you want to know, ask me now because then I'm done with this shit. I'm going to forget it completely, let my mind heal over the wounds and scab. I want to forget the sounds that people in pain make when they're trying to escape. I want to forget about the day that I stopped taking money for sex, went to work at the grocery store, and continued to fail myself. I sought out girls that mirrored my own pain, ones that I actually found attractive for once in my fucking life, and I was a fucking dick to them.

  I had a lot of one night stands and quickie flings. I made people cry, broke hearts that were weak, and I felt good doing it. Misery loves company, right? I'm not proud of it, but it's true. Even you, Nev. I spotted you from across that room, and I knew that you were a bomb waiting to explode, a girl whose past was hotter than hell, a burning abyss of loss and anger and pain. I went up to you intending to do what I always did, and then I saw your eyes. Maybe you don't believe me because I didn't act like it, but I was affected by your face, your mouth, your skin, the sprinkle of freckles on your upper back. Never, when I asked you to go dancing with me, I had no idea what words were coming out of my mouth. When you responded back to me, I could tell that you didn't feel the same way, that you still wanted to use me to satisfy your own aching, emptiness. That's why I rejected you at first.

  Then I saw you at that convenience store and everything changed. I wanted to save you, to get to know you. Something inside of me called for something you had inside of you. Everything that happened after that, I consider a blessing because it brought us together. You were the reason I wanted to change myself once and for all. After we fucked the first time, I knew I could never touch another woman and be happy. I needed you. I wanted you. I still do, Never, and that will never change.

  30

  “You believe me, don't you?” Ty asks as he rolls over and lays himself across my chest, presses his head to my breasts and breathes out a deep, deep sigh, one that I can tell he's been holding in for awhile. Tears are running down my face, hot and wet, and I have to dash them away before I address Ty, before I tell him that I love the fuck out of him, that there will never be another man for me, just him, always him. I think briefly about Noah Scott, but I know that if I had chosen him, I would've been unhappy, always pining for that bit of molten heat that Ty possesses, that inner confidence that gives
his full lips sexy grins and his makes my body go up in flames at the simplest of touches.

  “Of course,” I tell him because I know he would never lie to me. We are way past that shit. Everything is out in the open now, and it feels so damn good. I would liken it to an orgasm of the spirit, this viciously peaceful awakening that makes the senses tingle and the world explode in light and color that washes away the darkness and lights up the earth with brilliance. “How could I doubt you after that?”

  “I could be full of shit,” he mumbles, sounding sleepy, like he can't bear to keep his eyes open any longer. “I could be lying to you, telling you what you want to hear.”

  “No,” I say firmly. “That's not true.”

  “How do you know?” he asks me, challenging my affection, my trust, as is his right. I have tested him over and over and over and each time, he's passed with flying colors. What makes this any different? At least he's not pulling out an old flame on me, making me go on hikes with her, inviting her and her dog over to his family's house to hang out. I am beyond cruel. Poor Ty.

  “Because,” I say to him as I push him off into the snow. “You never tell me what I want to hear.” Ty laughs and just lays there in his black coat and red scarf with his stupid holey jeans and signature combat boots. He looks like an ad for a winter catalog, a sexy one, one where the cover is the only page where the men are wearing clothes. I am one lucky girl. “You cuss too much, use my razor to shave your chest.” Ty starts to protest, but I hold up a hand to shush him. “You're inappropriate and dangerous as hell. You're exactly the kind of guy that mothers warn their daughters about.” I pause. “On the outside that is. On the inside, you have a soul that's desperate to love and be loved, to appreciated and be appreciated. You want to belong somewhere and you want to be something. We can all relate to that. You're not so different after all, Mr. McCabe.” He lays there silently for a moment and then sits up, scooting through the snow until our thighs touch. It's cold as hell out here but neither of us notice as snowflakes catch on eyelashes, ears, hair, as they float around like confetti and decorate our clothes with white polka dots. We're too busy staring at one another, readjusting, figuring out what it's like to be happy. When you live your whole live being miserable, it's a bit uncomfortable to switch gears, to stretch yourself open and feel something you've never felt before. Love sets broken bones, and yes, eventually, we will feel good again, whole, but for now, it hurts and that's okay. That is o-fucking-kay.