The Paper Swan

by Leylah Attar

  Damian had been way too insistent—the clinic, my finger, his stitches. Any excuse for us to separate.

  Maybe we should split up.

  The fucker! He was letting me go.

  As soon as it’s safe, I’m dropping you off at the mainland.

  Don’t forget this. He made sure I didn’t leave the seashell necklace behind.

  I ran back across the street, not caring that two cars narrowly missed me. The drivers honked and cursed at me, but all I could see was the door to the clinic. I flung it open and froze. There he was, seated on one of the plastic chairs, shopping bags at his feet, flipping through a magazine.

  I backed out slowly, not wanting him to see how panicked I was, how the thought of being cut off from him again was so painful, I could barely breathe. I closed my eyes and breathed.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

  Again.

  5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .

  Then I went back into the supermarket. For a while, I wandered around, still feeling overwhelmed by the sense of emptiness that had gripped me. I was in love with Damian, completely, utterly, desolately. I had told myself that as long as I stayed with him, he had leverage, a bartering chip to negotiate his safety. Without me, he was an open target. But the truth was, I wanted to stay with him for me, because he had always, always been a part of me. I wanted to stay with him so I could put together all the dented, shattered parts of him, because I could never be whole where he was broken.

  I found myself standing before the strawberries. Plump, flame-red strawberries with bright, green caps. I thought of the trampled cake Damian had never gotten to eat and decided I was going to buy all of them. I was going to feed him strawberries and he was going to fall in love with me.

  Yes. I loved when I came up with a brilliant, foolproof plan.

  I waited inside until the store started closing for the day. When the lights turned off, I headed to the clinic, carrying a shit load of strawberries. Damian wasn’t there. No one was seated in the waiting room.

  “Is anyone in with the doctor?” I asked the receptionist.

  “No, but we’re done for the day. Sorry, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  I stumbled back outside, lugging the strawberries behind me.

  He’d left me. It had been his plan all along—drop me off at the clinic, have them call it in.

  We think it’s the same girl. She came in with a severed finger. That’s what tipped us off. It’s been all over the news, how her father received a piece of it. Gruesome stuff. No sign of the guy.

  When that hadn’t worked, he’d made up an excuse to go in himself. Maybe he did get his stitches removed. Maybe he came out, saw me waiting with two bags full of strawberries and decided that leaving me was the best thing he could do. For both of us. And yes, that made sense. I should find the nearest police station and contact my father. I could be back in La Jolla tomorrow, in my sweet room that was twice the size of Damian’s island house, being fussed over and pampered and catered to. That made sense. Not this. Not me running down the streets that led to the harbor, hailing a cab in the mad hope that I could still catch him, clutching on to cartons of strawberries as they spilled all over the seats.

  “Stop! Right here!” I threw some bills at the driver, recognizing the dock where we’d anchored, and got out before he came to a full stop.

  I ran to the end of the pier just as Damian’s boat was pulling out of the harbor.

  “Damian!” I tiptoed at the very edge, as close to him as I could get, trying to catch his attention. “Damian!”

  He turned around.

  Yes.

  There was no clearer way for me to show him that I had forgiven him, that what I felt went way beyond the hurt and pain I’d suffered. I understood the why. I understood him. It was his turn now, to let go, to take a chance, to let me stand up for him, to let me stand with him, come what may.

  All you have to do is turn the boat around and come back, Damian.

  He heard me, even though I didn’t say a word. Our eyes met and I could see everything he felt. For a few, sky-blue, suspended moments, my heart and his were the same; they wanted the same thing. Then he turned back around and continued steering away.

  I let go of the stupid strawberries. I let go of the stupid hope that had swelled up in my chest like a big, stupid balloon. I let go of my stupid pride and sat on the stupid pier and let myself stupid cry.

  I had chased after Damian’s boat, just as he had chased after my car all those years ago. But this was different. This was no dry, dusty road. This was clear day, clear sky. Nothing had obscured me from him. He had seen me, and he had heard me, and he had chosen to keep going. Because where there’s hate, there can be no love, and Damian still hated my father.

  “You have no right to punish me for it!” I chucked a strawberry after the boat. It was getting smaller and smaller by the minute. I was about to throw another one after him, but he didn’t deserve any strawberries so I stuffed it into my mouth and wiped my tears.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. It was an elderly lady wearing a sheer, fringed kimono over a tube top and long skirt. Her fingers sparkled with chunky cocktail rings.

  “I missed my ride.” I felt an instant kinship with the big, busty woman. She jingled and jangled from all the colorful necklaces and bracelets she was wearing.

  “That one there?” She pointed at Damian’s boat.

  I nodded.

  “It’s not too late. We can still catch up. Ken and I were just getting ready to leave. Hop on, we’ll give you a ride.”

  I followed her to a small sailboat on the pier.

  “I’m Judy, by the way. And this is my husband, Ken.” She gestured to a man with a large, kind face.

  “Nice to meet you.” I shook hands. If they thought it rude that I’d omitted my name, they didn’t say anything. They seemed like nice people, and I didn’t want to lie to them, but I wasn’t taking any chances, in case they’d heard the news.

  “Nothing like a lover’s spat on the high seas,” said Ken, after Judy explained the situation.

  “I didn’t say they were lovers. Please excuse my husband.” Judy turned to me. Her blond hair was so bright it looked almost white. “All this sun is getting to him. We don’t get much in Hamilton.”

  “Hamilton?” I asked, as we cast off. “Where is that?”

  “In Canada. We run a little vintage store, but we sail a fair bit and sometimes we find all kinds of local knick-knacks to take back.”

  “She’s wearing half of them.” Ken winked at me. “If we sink somewhere off the Pacific Coast, it’ll be from all of her shopping.”

  A fellow shopper. No wonder I’d felt an instant connection.

  “Would you like some strawberries?” I asked. It was all I had to offer for their kindness.

  “Oh no. We get plenty of those. Out here, it’s all about guava and mangosteen and pineapple,” said Ken. “And truth be told, it doesn’t look like you have enough to go around.”

  Judy and I laughed. The wind had picked up and the sailboat was moving swiftly towards Damian.

  “I’ll signal him down,” said Ken, when we caught up.

  “Thank you,” I replied. The boats were bobbing side by side. Ken started lowering the dinghy.

  “No need,” I said. I was almost afraid for Damian to see me. I didn’t know what I’d do if he took off again. “I can take it from here.” I jumped into the water.

  “Well then. Don’t let us keep you!” Ken shouted after me.

  I climbed up the ladder to Damian’s boat and stood on the deck in a big puddle, feeling a bit like a drowned rat.

  “Don’t forget these.” Judy tossed the strawberries over. Two big bags full.

  “Thanks!” I waved as Ken and Judy took off.

  When I turned around, Damian was standing at the other end of the boat, looking like hell and fury, bundled up in a white cotton shirt.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” />
  “I’m going with you.”

  “I don’t want you, Skye. I thought I made that clear. Are you so ridiculously spoiled, so used to getting what you want that you can’t get that through your head?”

  Oh God, this man. This fucking impossible man. I had just left everything behind—my freedom, my cushy world, my father—for this man. I had tracked him down in the middle of ocean, jumped into the sea, climbed on board, all so I could love him. If he would only just let me love him.

  But no. He was doing what he always did, shutting me out before I could shut him out, because that’s what he expected from the world—hurt, betrayal, callousness. He wasn’t even going to give us a chance.

  “You’re a fucking coward.” I picked up a strawberry and flung it at him. It smacked him in the face, leaving a pink stain.

  I chucked another one at him. And another and another and another, until he was covered in splotches—his face, his shirt, his arms, his neck.

  “I hate you!”

  I did. I hated that he could just stand there, unflinching, uncaring, unyielding, and watch me fall apart.

  “You hear me?” I took a handful of strawberries and smashed them into his chest. “I hate you!”

  When all the strawberries were gone, I started pounding him with my fists. I wanted to pulverize every single memory I had of him. I wanted him to hurt the way I was hurting. I wanted him to sob the way I was sobbing. I wante—

  Damian grabbed my hands and pinned them behind my back. His lips found mine and he latched on with a hunger that left me breathless. He was an ocean of want and need. All the raging, submerged currents that he’d kept at bay unleashed themselves on me. I tried to keep afloat, clutching at him, but I didn’t stand a chance. My hurt, my anger, my tears were tossed aside by something deeper, something vast and true and powerful and endless.

  It was a kiss that had sneaked in through an open window, a kiss that lay folded in a paper giraffe, in the silences between 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, in the pits of mini mangoes and here, now, at last, it was set free. And the rightness of it, the feeling of longing and belonging, made me want to hold on to it forever. I wanted Damian to keep kissing me, keep kissing, keep kissing, until every other kiss had been erased, until this was the only kiss.

  My top was soaked, my pants were soaked, my hair was soaked, but Damian’s mouth was like strawberry wildfire—hot and sweet, and completely out of control. All the intensity with which he’d pushed me away was pulling me right back, fusing my lips to his. It was almost painful when he let go.

  “Don’t cry, güerita.” Damian’s thumb swiped my cheek. “Hit me, slap me, punch me, but don’t fucking cry.”

  “Don’t fucking leave me then,” I said. Was he really looking at me like that? Was he really breathing so hard? “And I’m not güerita anymore.” I tugged at a strand of dark hair. “I’m not blondie anymore.”

  “Oh, but you are.” Damian smiled.

  I punched him because he’d seen me naked and I knew exactly what he was thinking. When he wrapped his arms around me, I hid my face in his chest and felt like I had come home.

  When we got back to the island, Damian made real ceviche while I showered and changed.

  “Show off,” I said. He really was a good cook. And a great kisser. I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. Those lips had blown orange seeds through a straw at Gideon Benedict St. John, but now there was an eroticism to them—every time he spoke, every time he took a bite. They were all I could see. And I wanted them on me.

  “What happened to your face?” he asked.

  “Your beard.” I snapped out of it long enough to answer his question. The hot shower had turned my chin and upper lip red from where his beard had chafed my skin.

  Damian grinned. Leaving his mark on me seemed to appease some Paleolithic, cave-dwelling part of him.

  His grin did things to me too. I wished he would lean over and kiss me again.

  He did lean over. To pick up my plate. And then he proceeded to wash the dishes while I put things away. I wished he’d hurry up so I could throw my arms around him again, but he was taking so darn long, scratching an imaginary speck, then washing the damn spot again, then drying, all the while keeping his eyes on the task.

  He was avoiding me, and when I finally clued in to why, I wanted to kiss him even more. Damian wasn’t doing the dishes. He was wrestling with something he’d never felt before. He was feeling shy and it was something completely foreign to him. He had never allowed himself to like a girl, never been on a date, never felt butterflies in his stomach.

  I felt a stab of tenderness that was quickly overcome by the urge to jump him. I cleared my throat in an attempt to dislodge the treacherous minx that was quickly taking over.

  “Why don’t you go change? I’ll finish here,” I offered. He was still wearing his strawberry splattered shirt.

  He jumped on it, like I had just thrown him a life raft. Anything to get away from me. I finished up the rest of the dishes and turned off the lights.

  We bumped into each other in the hallway. He was coming out of the bathroom and I was going in. The first thing that struck me was his clean-shaven face. Bye, bye beard. The stitches were gone too. No baseball cap. It was like he was showing me his face for the first time—the ridges where the boy I once knew had hardened to a man, the places he’d stayed the same. The second thing I noticed was his skin, still warm and wet, bare except for the sweatpants that didn’t look so ugly when they hugged his hip like that.

  “I—”

  “You—”

  We stepped away from each other, aware of all the places our bodies had just touched.

  I don’t know who moved first, maybe him, maybe me, but we were zigzagging through the hallway, our lips locked, my back against the wall, then his, banging and colliding in the narrow space until we got to the bedroom.

  Damian picked me up and carried me inside. His bare arms felt like heaven. We fumbled to get under the netting, neither of us wanting to stop kissing, but it was tucked under the mattress, sealing off the bed. When Damian knelt on the mattress, with me still in his arms, the whole thing ripped from the top.

  “Problem solved,” he said, tearing through the gauzy folds as he deposited me on the bed.

  I would have laughed, but he slid his body on top of mine and I was lost. Limbs measured up against limbs, palm against palm, familiar yet so different. My t-shirt and panties came off, his sweatpants kicked to the foot of the bed. I lay on my side, shuddering when his finger dipped down my back, tracing the indentation of my spine. Hooking my ankle around his, I rubbed my toes against the sole of his foot.

  It was discovery and wonder, a stirring of the senses, a medley of sighs. We were skin-to-skin, and then apart, touching and exploring until the distance became too much to bear. He was on his stomach and my lips were skimming across the broad expanse of his shoulders and back. I had barely tasted his skin when he growled and turned over. Damian was a take-charge lover. He knew when he wanted it, where he wanted it, and how to make it happen. I was spooned into him, enraptured with the feel of his rough thumb on my nipple.

  “Still crooked,” I said, taking his thumb into my mouth.

  The reaction was instantaneous, a rush of throbbing, inflamed blood to that very male, insistent part of him.

  “Skye . . .” He moved away from me.

  “What?” I wasn’t done sucking his thumb.

  He forgot what he was saying, and just lay back, watching me. “That is not helping,” he groaned.

  “How about this?” I moved on to the other thumb.

  “Fuck you.”

  I giggled.

  “Skye . . .” He tried again.

  I moved on to the tip of his cock, teasing it with my tongue. His hips shot off the bed.

  “Skye!” He yanked me away by my hair. “I don’t have any condoms.”

  “I think I saw a mini sombrero in the living room.” I went back to what I was doing. His head flopped back on the pillow and
his fingers threaded through my hair.

  “What do you mean mini?” he growled.

  “I take that back,” I mumbled, relishing the feel of him expanding in my mouth. He started thrusting his cock through my lips, retreating, advancing, an inch at a time, until I couldn’t contain him, all of him. The sounds coming from him were making my thighs clench as my need started overtaking me.

  “My turn,” he said, flipping me over.

  It was oddly tentative, his lips on that most private part of me. And I realized that this was where it was different for Damian. He might have fucked a lot of women, but he’d never made love before, never thought about giving the same pleasure he received. And his baby steps—his hot breath, his tongue, his mouth—nudged me towards the sweetest release. When he slipped his fingers inside, first one, then another, I thought I was going to lose it.

  “Damian.” I grasped his shoulders. I wanted him inside. “Stop.”

  He paused, taking in my flushed face, the rise and fall of my chest, my taut nipples, begging for his touch.

  “If you can’t take, don’t give,” he said, sucking on my hot little button like I’d sucked on his thumb.

  The fucking tease. His fingers continued their maddening dance, and just when I thought I was about to explode, his cock slid into me, full and hard. It was pure possession, unbridled and complete. The pleasure came, swift and explosive. I clung to him, unable to suppress the cry of delight as wave after wave of electric fire scorched through me. He held still, one hand cupping the back of my head, the other on the curve of my hip as I came in tight spasms around him.

  “Again,” he said, when I lay replete and breathless under him. “With me this time.”

  He started a relentless, masterful rhythm that carried me to new crests of passion. As he fueled my desire, his own grew stronger, his body moving with mine in exquisite harmony. I rose to meet him, stroke for stroke, feeling a sense of completeness that I had never known.

  Ban

  Eban.

  Esteban.

  Damian.