by West, Sinden
By then I missed oxygen and a slight dizziness came over me as I fought down panic and headed for the surface again. My arms stretched out to reach for the side and the air, but a dark shadow covered the sunlight and my arms shot back to my body in fright.
But he grabbed me anyway. Aaron pulled me up out of the water. I gasped in air as he lay me down on the stone paving and I curved my nails into it, looking for something hard to clamp onto.
“You were under for a while. Not a good idea with a head injury.” He didn’t sound like he cared either way.
I reached for the back of my head and felt the dripping wet bandages that I had forgotten about. “I just wanted to see how long I could hold my breath for.” He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, only placing my discarded robe over my wet, naked body and helping me to my feet. “Do you ever swim?” I asked him.
“Of course. I live by the ocean.” He turned toward the house.
“Let’s swim in the sea now then.” He paused and swung his head toward me and my nakedness. “I don’t want to go by myself then, just in case.” I cracked a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll put a swimsuit on.”
He didn’t return my smile. “Sure. I’ll go get changed.” He headed back inside, while I stood there and rubbed my skin with the robe so I wouldn’t drip all over the floor. When I made my way to the bedroom, it was empty. I pulled out a white bikini and held it up. At least it would make my skin look tan. I changed quickly and grabbed two towels.
Aaron was waiting at the pool, staring down into the water. He wore only black swim shorts, revealing his defined chest with its eternal tan. He turned for the gate when he saw me, and I stopped as I saw his back. The scars that ripped across the muscle filled me with revulsion. How could someone so immaculate looking be marked in such a grotesque way?
But I swallowed and continued on when he waited, holding the gate open for me. The sand was warm beneath my feet and I dug my toes in, trying to remember when I had last been to the beach.
“Your house is so close. Aren’t you scared that it will flood?” I asked him as we walked down together.
“One day it will. It will all erode and everything will slip away like it never existed.”
The smell of salt and the soft breeze against my face made me smile. All of a sudden, I took off in a sprint, pumping my arms and legs until I hit the cool of the water and waves splashed against my legs. As I waded further, hard shells cut at my feet, and maybe a crab pinched at me, but I kept going until it was deep enough. Then, I dived underneath an incoming wave. Salt assaulted me, but I didn’t care. I felt clean — especially with the salt stinging the wound at the back of my head. Reaching the surface, I gulped in air, before diving down again, and soon my feet couldn’t touch the sandy bottom and I lay on my back and let the ocean rock me. Closing my eyes against the sun, I just stayed like that, clean and happy.
“Rachel.”
My eyes opened to see Aaron treading water beside me. “You shouldn’t go out so deep. You’re still recovering.”
“I feel recovered,” I said dreamily. “I feel reborn.” I paddled over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Besides, I know that you’ll rescue me, right?”
His forehead wrinkled. “Rescue you? More likely drown you.”
It took me a moment to realize that he was joking and I wrapped my legs around his torso so he was forced to support the both of us. “I’ll drown you first.” Then I leaned my face in closer, my lips near his ear. “I’ve got you now. What are you going to do?” I whispered playfully as my crotch ground against his.
His lips curved into a smile. “I can think of a few things.” His hand snaked down to the waist of my bikini bottoms and began to tease me through the fabric.
“Promises, promises.” I pushed away, onto my back and kicking. “Catch me and you can have me!” I yelled as I twisted onto my front and began to swim. I felt powerful as my arms cut through the water; no longer were they skinny and useless, now they were machines, driving me to win the race.
But he won, of course, grabbing me around the waist when my feet reached the bottom once more. I feigned disappointment, but in reality I was delighted that his arms were around me, trapping me. I made a show of struggling slightly, before giving up and wrapping my arms around his neck so that it was I who trapped him this time. My mouth pressed onto his lips that were cold and tasted like sea water. He kissed me back, his own hand running down to my bottom, cupping me and squeezing like he was restraining himself from ripping them off. Part of me wished that he would and I wondered if I should shimmy out of them and save him the trouble.
A dog barked and we broke apart to see an elderly woman walking it down the beach. She had a disapproving frown on her face. I let out a laugh and turned to see Aaron grinning.
“I don’t think we’re behaving like we should,” I told him, grabbing his hand as we walked out of the shallow water and onto the sand. I sat and pulled him down beside me. He stretched out, one arm over his eyes to shield them from the sun. I took that moment to let my own eyes rake over his body. His chest was smooth and hairless, the only interruption in that gorgeous golden skin were the stunning array of muscles that gave him the illusion of being as perfect as a work of art.
I ran my hand over them slowly, enjoying the hardness.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a sleepy voice.
“Admiring you. Don’t get a big head or anything.”
His body moved as he chuckled silently. The woman with the dog had turned back now, and was preparing to walk past us again. Grinning, I ducked my head down and began to lick at the salt and the water on Aaron’s abs.
He let out a more vocal laugh now. “We can always go into the house if you’re that horny?”
I paused in my licking. “No. I want to give that sour old woman a show.”
“By all means, go ahead.”
I let my tongue drag down lower, pulling at his swimming shorts to reveal the dark line of hair there, then pulled them lower to reveal a cock that was still soft. I enclosed my mouth over it, ignoring the barking of the dog, ignoring everything except my purpose of giving him pleasure.
And I liked it. I liked it hardening in my mouth; I liked the way that he didn’t push my head down so I would gag and cough as my throat bruised. It was almost fun, or more likely, I enjoyed the fact that old woman knew what I was doing.
And I enjoyed it when I heard him hiss with pleasure and thrust up just slightly. Cold Aaron was warming up underneath me and it felt like a triumph. I worked him in and out of my mouth, massaging him with my tongue until he exploded down my throat in a hot, salty eruption that I gulped down quickly, not releasing him until I was sure that every drop was gone.
Finally, I slid my mouth from him slowly before looking up at him and licking my lips.
“Happy?” I asked.
He looked down at me, lifting his head up slightly. “Are you?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was actually…it was actually fun for once.” Then a thought occurred to me. “Do we do this often? Exhibitionism?”
He lay back down, turning over onto his front and resting his chin on his hands. I lay down beside him, adjusting my suit to make sure that I was still covered.
“You’re pretty private. You like to keep to yourself a lot.”
I frowned at him. “Me private? Talking to you is like talking to a stone wall.” I gave him a shove so he knew that I was joking, and he grinned. Part of me wanted to tell him that doing that out in the open turned me on; I liked the idea of people looking at me, wanting me, envying me with the penis of this beautiful specimen in my mouth.
Then I looked at his back, with its terrible history of scars, and my jaw tightened in disgust. But I swallowed, and reached out to trace the path of one. He stiffened underneath me and I stopped in my movement but didn’t remove my hand.
“Do they hurt?”
He shook his head, his eyes firmly on the sand in front of him.
“Th
en can I…?”
“You never wanted to before.” He gave a slight shrug and I took that as a yes. Once more, I let my finger follow the lines as if they were a labyrinth that would take me to a thousand dead ends before finding the treasure that lay in the center. The grotesqueness that they had inspired in me prior disappeared. Instead now I saw them as more of an artwork, something unique and abstract, each one having its own detail and beauty.
“Do you know who Janus is? You probably don’t if you don’t like to read much, but he’s the Roman god of doorways, beginnings, and transitions. He’s always depicted with two faces.” I let my hand slip to his side and then underneath him, touching the side of his stomach. “You remind me of him. This, right here, this is perfect.” My hand slid back up to the brutal scars. “But this…it makes you interesting. It’s like you’re two different people. Your face, your front, it’s like you’re this male model, but your back…makes you dangerous like there’s something lurking in you.”
Slowly, my hand moved up his neck to stroke his hair and then down to his cheek. His head moved suddenly and quickly, catching my finger in his mouth between even white teeth. I gave a gasp of surprise, then relaxed as he drew my finger in, replacing the teeth with his tongue just as I had done to him not long ago.
“That feels nice,” I said softly, then I bit my lip. “It’s turning me on. Is that what you’re trying to do?”
He released my finger and sat up, getting to his feet and taking my hand. He said not a word to me as we went through the gates, past the dark pool, and then through the glass doors. Sand and water dripped from us as we crossed the white tiles, turning down the hallway that led to the downstairs bathroom. He wasted no time turning on the shower. As steam filled the room, he stripped my wet and sandy bikini from me, letting it fall to my feet in a soiled mess that was no longer nauseating white, to the once pristine tiles that were now marked by the sand that we had tracked in.
His hand went to the back of my neck, pulling me forward in a forceful grip and his mouth landed on mine in such a way that there would be no turning my head away. He bit my lips and sucked on them. Any restraint that he had kept on the beach had now disappeared but I didn’t care. I was just as hungry as him, matching each forceful act the best that I could. When he pulled away, my lips were still searching for his.
“I want you clean.” He propelled me to the shower, feeling the temperature then pushing me under the water. Dragging his shorts down, he stepped under the spray, closing the glass door behind him so we were trapped together. His eyes raked down me, intense and lustful, before he grabbed the bottle of body wash and pumped soap into his hand. Those hands grabbed at my breasts, squeezing tantalizingly as the water turned the liquid to foam while my nipples hardened in spite of the heat. I looked down to see the soap wash over my stomach to inbetween my legs, and his hand followed. Fingers reached up into me and I felt myself thrusting against them, wanting them harder and higher.
But he didn’t give me them. Instead, he looped his arms under my thighs, lifting me up, legs spread, displaying everything for him.
He just stared at me for a moment.
“Am I clean enough for you?” I managed to ask, dying for him to be inside me.
He just grunted, before moving against me and sliding his cock right into me. It was so deep that it nearly hurt, but I was so wet with fucking desire that I didn’t care. The pain, this time, was good pain. I was feeling all of him, and it was like he had all of me this way. I loved being opened like this, displayed like this. I wanted this gorgeous man to screw the hell out of me because he was not like the others. He was not some seedy, older, desperate man who saw only the tight piece of forbidden ass in front of him. Aaron wanted me.
I shrieked as he pounded into me, before calling to him to continue, harder and faster. I held onto his shoulders, my nails curving into his flesh as I tightened around him and cried out as he brought me to climax.
Afterward, once he had caught his breath and lowered me down onto my shaky legs, he washed me. He was gentle this time, lathering the soap and rubbing it into every inch of me so that there was no part of my skin that was tainted by sand or semen. I closed my eyes under the warm spray and his seductive touch; the way he massaged me made me want to sleep, but it also made me want to fuck again.
I made no move though, merely letting him take me from the shower once he was finished and standing in front of him as he rubbed every inch of me with a towel, drying up the water on my skin that was flushed pink from the heat and the sex. I felt like a doll, but with the extreme care that he took, I also felt coveted.
It was a nice feeling.
Chapter Nine
After he dressed me in a cute summer dress (white, white, always white) I sat on a bar stool and watched him prepare food. He had, first, meticulously mopped the floor, cleaning away the water and sand. He hadn’t wanted any help.
“I need new clothes, something with color,” I told him as he used a knife to cut a cucumber.
“I like you in white. You look good in white.” He didn’t look at me as he expertly sliced the vegetable before layering it onto bread.
“No I don’t. I’m too pale. I like color. Yellow. I look good in yellow.”
“Sure.” He slid the plate with my sandwich on it toward me. I had managed to find a vase for the flowers, but they drooped slightly now, and they didn’t really seem to go with the décor. Everything here was shiny and hard, those roses with their pastel colors looked tiny and defenseless. They were too soft. “We’ll go after you rest this afternoon.”
I made a face. “I’m fine. You don’t need to listen to that nurse. Besides, I’m sure she’s a drunk and doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
He shrugged noncommittally and continued eating.
I did sleep, after we fucked on the kitchen counter. Skirt pushed up, he gripped my thighs as he kissed my neck and pounded into me. I had thrown my arms around him, amazed at how much I liked to touch him. The power of youth was intoxicating when all I had known before was really underdeveloped highschoolers and old men, desperate to suck away my youth in their clumsy touches and guilt ridden moans.
There was something about Aaron as well though. Desperation wasn’t the right word for it, but there was an urgency to his touch that wasn’t normal, and it pleased me. His want for me made me nearly forget that I didn’t have a clue as to why I was really here, or where my mother was.
Nearly.
But not quite.
After we screwed, he took my hand and guided me up the stairs to the bedroom. He stripped me naked before forcing me into the bed despite my protests and tucking the sheets in around me like I was a child. I half expected him to kiss me on the forehead, but he didn’t. He merely said, “Get some sleep,” before leaving the room.
I had every intention to covertly search for my phone again, but I was too comfortable in the bed, content almost, and sleep came easily to me. I dreamt of the man who told me about Janus. His eyes were wide and his mouth gaping like the classical theatre masks of which he was so fond. Replicas had decorated an entire wall of the living room in the house that my mother and I had descended on. I had seduced him there, right in front of those masks. I wished that he had died there instead in my bedroom.
I didn’t wake up in terror. My eyes opened to the white ceiling, old memories seeming like they were yesterday. There should have been horror taking hold of me, but instead, there was just fact. It was something that I barely thought of and considered anymore.
Aaron came in when I was in the shower. “How do you feel?” he asked as he leaned against the wall, watching me. Through the steamed up glass door of the shower, he looked like a dark figment, nearly a shadow.
“Great.”
“Any memories back yet?”
“Nope.” My hand brushed over the part of my head where my head was shaven and I cringed, glad that I couldn’t see it. “I’ll be out in a moment and then we can go shopping.”
He pushed off from the wall and stood up straight. “Nah. I’ll see you downstairs.”
“Okay. Could you have another look for my phone?”
He gave a nod before disappearing through the door. I turned and continued washing the soap from me. This was odd, my feeling this way. I was acting like some horny girl who only thought about sex. Or was it Aaron I wanted?
When I had dressed and covered my hair, he sat at the table looking at a phone, his eyes flicked up to me. “Ready to go?”
“Yeah. Is that my phone?”
“Here you go.” He held it out to me and I nearly dove to grab it from him. Eagerly I opened the Contacts list, but the only name there was: Aaron. There were no photos, nothing. I was either the loneliest person on earth, or everything had been wiped.
“What’s this?” I lifted my eyes to find him watching me. “Don’t I have friends?”
“You’re private. Let’s go.”
But he made no move to leave and we just stared at each other for a moment before I took a breath. This wasn’t right, nothing was right, but I would let it go for now. My lips turned up into something smile like. “Sure.”
He still didn’t move, then he sighed. “Look. I don’t know who the fuck it was that hurt you so for the time being, I want to keep you close. And I wasn’t lying, you are private. You don’t let people in.” Like he could talk. “Just trust me, okay?” he continued.
I clutched the phone. “Okay,” I said quietly. “It’s just that you have no idea how weird this is for me. It’s like there’s this huge fog over my brain and it’s so frustrating that everything that’s happened over the past few years has just disappeared. I’m a grown-up and I don’t even know how I got this way.” Tears pricked at my eyes and I tried to sniff them back, my lips twisting into a smile to try and keep this emotion at bay. “And apparently I’m a loser with no friends.” I managed to laugh sadly.