quintessence.

by Buhl, Sarah

  I sat on his bed and he sat next to me. He put his hand to my hair and pushed it over my shoulder to drape behind me. He breathed against my neck before kissing it and he continued in that manner—a breath warming my skin, then a kiss.

  He rested us both back onto his bed and lying on his side, he pulled me toward him as he cupped my breast and rolled his thumb across my nipple and kissed me.

  It was perfect. My chest ached with every one of his touches. I knew him. I knew I knew him. I heard many stories of people finding their other and in all honesty, I thought it rubbish. That couldn’t be possible. I mean, I knew people loved each other, but I didn’t know someone could ever make me feel this much just by being near them.

  He did that.

  His mind did that.

  Every part of him did that.

  We knew ourselves and we knew each other—without words we did.

  He rolled on top of me, and again in his gentle manner, he pushed my knees apart with his. He released his kiss of my lips and trailed kisses once more down my neck. He pressed the warm breaths into my breasts and nipples. It was a contrasting gentle and loving pull with each suck and I thought I would shatter from the emotions and sensations he formed in me.

  He massaged my sides as he moved his kisses lower. He bypassed where I thought I wanted him to kiss, but after his lips pressed into my hip he moved them down my thigh. He sat up and looked down at me as he continued moving his hands down my calves and to my feet. He guided my ankles in until my thighs folded out around him and then he lowered himself onto me.

  He let his hot breath move along my thigh until he found the spot I longed for his breath to reach. Then, with expertise I didn’t know existed, he took me with his mouth and sent warmth deep to my soul with every one of his touches. It wasn’t simple, it wasn’t just an act. What I had done earlier for him, wanting to show him how much I wanted him—I hoped he had felt what I was feeling from him, by every taste of me he took. Karl cherished me as much as I did him.

  I squeezed his bicep on a groan. “Karl,” I whispered. “I need you up here. I want you and I need you up here with me. I need to see you.”

  He gave one last pull and touch of his tongue before kissing up my abdomen and resting himself between my legs. He lowered his forehead to mine and kissed either cheek. I raised my leg to his side and rested my elbow on it as he reached between us and we met each other. His movements possessed a slow intensity as he kept hold of my eyes with his. I felt the depth of his attachment in the tender way he watched me. The love and understanding he held in his eyes filled me. Every part of me I had lost during the past months he gave back with the assuring smile he let form on his face. He enjoyed himself and my own smile formed in response. He raised himself up and held onto the leg I had lifted to his side. The rolling in and out of his hips meeting mine was everything in the universe in that moment.

  This was making love.

  With every movement Karl showed me how much he loved me. I felt that love ripple through me and it made the physical representation all the more heightened. I lifted myself up to meet him and wrapped my arms around his neck, bringing our lips together.

  The dance of his hips sped up and my body shuddered at the feeling. I arched my back, which brought my breasts to his face and he then took one after the other.

  I lost myself.

  I didn’t lose myself to him, but to us. Together, we were creating something beautiful and whole. It was an entity itself.

  He put his palms on my back and held me tight to him as I felt him grow more inside me and he moved with more heightened intensity. He met my eyes as he met his release and I climaxed into mine.

  And then we didn’t move.

  We held tight to each other in the exact position we finished in and kept hold of each other’s eyes even tighter. We didn’t smile at each other, but I knew I held an intense assurance in my eyes.

  This was it.

  “I’m afraid to look away from you,” I whispered.

  “Me too.” His hair was matted and sweat filled, and I knew mine was as well as he pushed it behind my ear.

  “I’ve never felt anything like that before,” I said, pulling my lip in.

  “Me neither.”

  “This is different,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “It was soul consuming,” I said, letting a smile fill my face.

  “Like there was no longer any separation between us?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said pulling his arm on a squeeze, which brought him closer to me. “It’s as if we just are.”

  “Yes.” He kissed my cheek and pulled himself from me, laying me back onto the bed. He lay near my side and wrapped himself around me as he pulled the blanket over us. “We’re beautiful together.”

  “I love that,” I said.

  “What’s that?” he asked, running his nose along the back of my ear.

  “You didn’t compliment me, you complimented us.”

  “Of course I did.” He echoed my phrase back.

  __________

  I woke the next morning before Karl. It was colder in his house because the stove had gone out in the night. I smiled at his sleeping figure. His hair flared around his head and he lay on his side, exposing the scar that fell down his body. I didn’t know what had caused it, and I assumed it happened overseas.

  I leaned down and kissed his shoulder where a light scar traced across his collarbone. I let my finger trace along the scar on his abdomen and leg, before sliding from the bed and making my way down the ladder. I remembered how he started the fire, so I made a fire before using his percolator to make coffee.

  I sat on the floor next to the fire and noticed a box sitting near the bench.

  I picked it up and lifted the lid and when I looked inside, I felt my heart sink. Guilt filled me at how much this box hurt compared to the one he showed me the other day. I tried to make sense of this one, but didn’t quite understand it. The image was of Karl himself, sitting inside a room on a hospital bed.

  The man on the bed had an emaciated back, but I knew it was him as he looked out the window, staring into the light. Standing around his bed were several men dressed in uniform, one of which was Jackson. Sitting on the bed next to him was a woman. Her hair was almost jet black except for the blue he put into the painting to make it shine. I realized the woman was me and I wondered why he would put me in this painting.

  The image of me looked as pained as I felt now. What was the purpose of this painting?

  “I didn’t mean for you to see that.” Karl leaned over the side of the loft and smiled a sad smile down at me.

  “What is it?” I asked, closing the box, not wanting to know what it meant.

  “It’s my fear.”

  “Why would this be your fear?” I asked.

  “It’s my fear, because it represents my inability to help anyone. I feel like that inside, the way I look in the image. I feel at a loss because that could be me someday.”

  I lifted my brow in question.

  Karl scooted back from the edge of the loft and turned to climb down the ladder. When he reached the floor he sat in front of me and took the box, setting it to the side before he took both my hands in his.

  “You saw my scars last night.” I nodded for him to continue. I felt my brow furrow more and more and tried to stop it.

  He continued. “It didn’t happen in the heat of a battle. The debris from an explosion didn’t take Jackson’s legs or kill my friend. If we had gone to the gas station before the beach, we might have been in different places now. We weren’t drunk, we weren’t high, and we weren’t even on too much caffeine. No, we were driving to get cigarettes because Carmichael couldn’t go without them. He was driving. He was a great guy.” Karl kept his attention only on me as he told the story as if he needed to keep focus on something other than his story. He looked down at our hands and traced his thumbs along mine.

  “A truck lost control and came into our lane. The drive
r’s side crushed on impact–Carmichael died instantly and Jackson lost his legs. Lopez was behind me and he had a concussion. All the scars on the outside I have are from that accident. The car smashed into the side rail, which sliced into me. My scars aren’t from a grenade or a landmine; they are from the glass of that car and the metal that cut my side. Jackson lost his legs and Carmichael lost his life because a drunken asshole drove into our lane. In one moment everything can change. We were having fun, talking about being deployed, since we were preparing to be sent out again. I remember the exact sentence I said right before we were hit. I was looking back at Jackson and I said, “We will always be in it together.” Looking back on it, it seems almost too much to recall that sentence. When I came to in a hospital, I found out that Carmichael had died and Jackson lost his legs. I was helpless to do anything for either of them.” He let go of my hands to scratch his biceps, as if he tried to make light of what he just said—pretending it didn’t happen. I watched his expression as he went into his thoughts and I imagined he collected the memory to put it back into a mental box.

  I looked at the box sitting on the floor next to him as tears formed. I felt them pull me under and I looked down at my palms resting face up in my lap. “My god, Karl—” I opened and closed my mouth trying to think of what to say and I was speechless. He took my hand and kissed my palm. He let it rest back in my lap and toyed with it, running his thumb over it.

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” I asked. I saw fear on his face and I recognized it. It was the same unknown fear I held at times. I used it and understood it, but it was still there. No matter how much I tried to push it away it was there.

  He laughed a light laugh. “I tried to tell you last night. But, I should ask why didn’t you tell Toby?”

  I laughed to myself. “Don’t compare me to Toby, please.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you about it because I care too much for you and what you are going through. I didn’t want to muddy the water because I wanted to focus on the present. I’m with you because I love you and because I’m supposed to be with you.”

  “We are supposed to be together,” I said as a statement.

  He smiled. “Yes, we are.”

  40

  Karl

  Fall

  “Let’s focus on you,” I said.

  “No, fuck that. Let’s not focus on me. We’ve been focusing on me this entire time. I suck in looking past my personal space if you had this holding onto you and I missed it.”

  I sat up on my knees and pulled her head into my shoulder. “There is nothing you’ve done wrong and you’re perfect outside your space. Trust me. You get me and that’s all I could ask for.”

  With my eyes closed and my lips still pressed to hers I continued, “I want to make love to you again. You okay with that?” I said matter of fact with a grin.

  She laughed and pulled away from me to look at my face. “You’re so fucking cool. You successfully ended my anger by saying the perfect thing—yet again.”

  “Thank you. You’re kind of cool yourself.”

  I pulled her back to the floor with me and let her rest atop me. Her hair created a canopy around us and I pushed some of it back behind her ears. I pulled her toward me for a kiss and as I did she raised herself up and reached between us. She guided me into her and met my eyes. “Well, we both are still here, in the present, and no matter what happens tomorrow, next week or even in a few hours, it doesn’t affect us now,” she whispered, as she accepted me into her.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and lifted herself and then lowered with promise in her rhythm. She kissed me as I had tried to kiss her. “Karl, you’re my present—always.” That was the promise she gave.

  Her body clenched around me and a moan left her lips into mine. Running my hands down her arms, I held tight to her sides and met each one of her movements. I felt her desperation and knew fear held tight to her, just as it did me. I was fearful for her and myself. But the fear for me came from not being able to be there for her. That’s what scared me the most. I was afraid for her. I know she’d be fine, she was strong. I was strong. But, we were stronger together.

  We.

  Us.

  But we remained her and I.

  She put her hand on my face and running her thumb across my lips she put her other hand on my abdomen and lifted herself once more before lowering back down and continuing her rhythm. She danced around me and she held the same undiluted grace in her movements as in everything she did.

  We finished as fast as we had begun and it felt almost primal—this connection—this need.

  “I said before I wanted you to want me, but I was lying to myself. This is much more than a want. It’s a need, but not in how I thought before.”

  She let go of me and wrapped herself around my body as she lay next to me. “I know. It hurts.”

  “Yeah, it does.”

  We lay there for a good while before reality met us. It knocked on the door and brought us back to the time after the present. That moment that always happens once the present is accepted. It moves into the reality of facing the things that must be faced. It’s easy to live by the moments and the present when separated from all that waited on the horizon. A throat cleared just outside the door after the second knock and I lowered my arm from my eyes and saw Gabe standing on my porch.

  Margaret sat up, and in a nonchalant manner, picked up her sweater and put it on before walking to the door to let him in. I laughed at how Gabe didn’t even acknowledge her nudity. She returned to our spot on the floor as I pulled my boxers from the previous day on. I also pulled on some socks because as fun as it was to traipse around in the nude, my feet were cold.

  “What’s up?” she asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.

  “Hi Karl,” he said with a nod.

  “Morning.” I smiled and lifted the coffee to him in offering. He nodded, and I poured him a cup.

  “Well, we’ve tried calling your phone Maggie, because we knew you’d be together, but it keeps going to voicemail.” He took his cup of coffee from me and leaned back against the side of my countertop and looked to the ceiling before looking back at us. I noticed then there was something different about Gabe. Gabe was always light and sure of himself. He was now heavier as if something pulled him down to Earth with the rest of us. “So, we just came out here—Pike, Blake, and I.”

  He set his cup on the counter without drinking it and looked less sure of himself as he squatted on the floor in front of me. “I’m so fucking sorry. I didn’t want to be the one to say this, but Pike’s out there for you; he’s waiting around the side of the house, and you need to go talk to him.”

  I threw my boots on, grabbed my flannel and jumped off my porch. I met Pike and Blake both standing without expression, both trying to hold their own nervousness in.

  “There’s been an accident. It’s bad this time. It’s Jackson.”

  Words that held a weight that pulled at me time and again came from Pike’s mouth, and I knew it had to be bad for him to hunt me down. As much as I wanted to believe Jackson would always be fine and we’d always be in it together, in the back of my mind, I knew something would happen.

  My vision blurred, and I fell to my knees in the snow as my body filled with emotions clawing to get out of me. All the things I boxed up and tried to keep in a place that was manageable came back in one swift statement of two words. Now the emotions strangled me, trying to get out.

  It’s Jackson.

  It’s Jackson.

  It’s Jackson.

  “He’s at the hospital. Sabrina was trying to reach you. She said she needed you there. Jackson needs you there.”

  Her light footsteps came near me and stopped as she wrapped herself around me, holding onto my waist and breathing her warm breath into my back. She had her clothes on now, and I laughed as I remembered I didn’t.

  I laughed.

  It was an inappropriate reaction—but who cared about appropriateness
? It was a constant fight to hold it together—fighting to live was a lesson itself. Every day brought me closer to giving up for a time. Not living—just existing. Jackson has lived his life chasing a freedom he couldn’t understand. I thought he was getting better as he helped out with Regina and the others, but seeing the beauty of life pulled him back under toward his fears. Sometimes, when life is filled with so much crap, any good part is reduced to a grasping of the wind. It drifts through hands that can never hold tight to it.

  He had lived the last few years driving his demons away with adrenaline. He did it because it reminded him he was alive. He said that once—that he wanted to hold onto good memories but they always fell through his hands. So, he chased the good memories and drove away his demons.

  “What the hell, man,” I said, looking at my knees that grew red from the bite of the snow they rested in. I sat back on my heels and looked down at my hands while flashes of blood and trying to help Jackson came to mind.

  I looked out over the field and trying to write the memory to mind. I wanted to see how beautiful the snow looked under the bright sun. I wanted to remember how wonderful it felt to have Margaret’s arms wrapped around me.

  I didn’t want to remember the fear I felt.

  “I need to go see Sabrina.” I lifted my arm and put it behind me to release Margaret from my back. I pulled her around to the front of me and held her as she held me together.

  “Okay, you need us to stick around?” Pike asked.

  “No, it’s okay. Thanks for coming out and letting me know.”

  I stood from the ground and kissed Margaret’s head before walking inside to get dressed.

  41

  Margaret

  Fall

  I looked back at each of the men standing behind me. The three of them were an odd group, but they were each remarkable because of their obvious love for Karl. I stood from the ground and turned to them.

  “Thank you,” I said, stepping to Pike and giving him a hug. “Thank you for coming out here to tell him.”