by Sunniva Dee
He cradles my head tenderly and pulls me toward him until his face buries in my hair. With his nose, he runs a path down, freeing my throat and my ear of cover and leaving me open to him.
He kisses me there, wordless pecks at first, leaving dampness that cools in the night air. But then he laps, suckles—loves—I’ve bared my grit to him, and this is what he does; he worships me.
The world can’t be this ironic, can it? How can he be how he is? There must be a ruler up there with a magical finger pointing at me, now, saying, “There.” Zap! “Let’s see how she handles this.”
But then that ruler is gone. He’s gone, because Ciro is all there is. A benevolent moon lends shine to his skin. It glows as he lays me down and fans his hands open under my shirt.
Fears have the ability to melt.
I respond. I arch up for more. A thigh presses between my legs, spreading me open and rocking against my core. I moan. I seek his touch. We’re not close enough, not warm enough, and he knows when I can’t wait for him anymore.
He should have let me go, but as he pushes my pants down, as the harsh breeze of the ocean hits me down low, I realize what he’s doing.
Wordlessly, he argues with me in the way he knows best. Wave after wave of pleasure runs through me with the slickness he pulls, with each moan he draws, for each jerk against the sand.
When he presses inside of me, I whimper, and it’s our first time all over again. He’s hard. His width forces me open, demands that I take him, and tonight he doesn’t ask if I’m okay.
Tonight, he anchors my hips when anxiety tenses my muscles. Hotly, he breathes against my throat. He groans and eases inside of me so slowly he trembles.
“I don’t care,” I hiss. “I don’t care if it hurts.”
He doesn’t answer, doesn’t heed me. Slowly, he feeds himself into me until I lift off the ground for more. His stab is deep red desire, heat piercing through my abdomen. I squeal. He doesn’t ask if I’m okay, doesn’t ask, but I am so, so okay.
I’m a quivering mess when he stills over me. My eyes transfix on his face as sure hands move down until they clench around my waist. He holds me in position like he has plans.
My heart kicks into a frenzy. It’s “Flee! Now!,” but I am swollen and drenched with the most primal of urges. We’re joined to his hilt, and I start to contract around him.
Pained, he shuts his eyes. “Can you take more?”
My noise of consent makes me sound wounded. Pleasure and angst-ridden anticipation make me shake.
“Goddamn, you’re delicious,” he whispers.
He pulls out a little. I’m about to complain, but then he drives into me with such force that I rock upward on the sand, head off his jacket and grating against the ground.
I let out a Nngh, lose my breath but don’t have time to gather myself before he repeats it, faster, more, time after time, until that hot stab of pleasure piercing through me becomes a constant way-too-much!
I hold onto him, whining. My arms are around his neck and my legs circle his behind. The new orgasm takes me hard and runs off with me. He doesn’t even acknowledge it as he drives me toward the next without mercy.
“Oh God!”
There are no more words, just gasoline, more and more gasoline. It’s Ciro convincing me that I want this, that I can’t be without him. I drop my arms from around him, and I am alight with his fire.
I’m not sure if I come down all the way because he’s hammering into me, not allowing me to think. I am the flames he builds and builds and builds. I am senses only, and he has done this to me.
Faintly, I notice the sand digging under my nails. I’m clawing, wanting to ground myself. I can’t.
Ah how long can he keep going?
When I think that he slows down, it’s to turn me in his arms. With my back toward him, he lifts my hips enough to ram inside of me again, and I am gasping, pulsating. I am disaster.
On that beach, he flayed me open until I was bawling. It was my soul he exposed with the ferocity of his touch. Could a therapist have achieved what Ciro did?
It’s been a month since that night, and he understands what happened to us. It was in desperation, he says, a last rogue attempt at making me change my mind. But it was also him absorbing as much of me as he could before I left him one last time.
“I wasn’t going to pursue you after that. When you cried, I thought I’d gone too far, and I steeled myself, preparing to lick my wounds alone.” He leans over dinner on the bunker balcony and directs my chin so his lips find mine.
I’d hurt for Ciro with his ignorant parents and sex-crazed drug-addict past. But suddenly, it was my own mud that exploded out.
“I lost it down there,” I say. “You were so strong, and I didn’t know how long you would keep possessing me. You even took over my brain. It made me see these things with crystalline clarity. And here I am, now. I’m taking my chances and cutting my losses.”
“Happy one-month anniversary.”
“Happy monthiversary, love.”
“I’ve got something for you.”
“Oh no, no, you don’t.” He’s going to flop to a knee with that ring again! I know he still has it. I’ve seen it in a drawer in the bedroom.
“Don’t look so scared.” He shoves a small jewelry box over the table while I shake my head.
“Come on, open it.”
“Can I open it in a few years?”
“No, it’ll go bad.”
I glance up quickly, oozing hope until I see he’s joking. I suppress my groan. Can I turn him down a second time?
Only crazy people ask other people to marry them after a month. Only reckless people accept, and I’m already way beyond my comfort zone.
With trembling fingers, I pry the box open. And inside…
Is a beautiful necklace.
“Yes!” I commit an unladylike drumroll with my feet.
“You like it?” He grins, already brimming with pride.
“Of course I do!” As soon as I saw the chain, I was so relieved I forgot to study the pendant. I look down again. And frown. A hibiscus rests perfectly poised between two flamingo lilies. They’re so beautiful. Really, they are, down to the last intricately veined petal.
“It’s platinum, and the crusts of yellow stones you see are diamonds. They’re small, but there was no way to make them bigger on the spadix without taking away from it.”
“Spay… dicks?”
“Yeah, the tails in the middle of the flowers.”
“Ciro. Baby.” I know I don’t sound happy anymore. I sound chiding, and that’s okay with me, because yes, my boyfriend loves sex and clearly also sexual symbolism. But come on. He wants me to wear his bunch-’o-dicks around my neck now? I’m starting to miss the engagement ring after all. “Enough with the dicks already.”
“Spadix. Not dicks.”
“Whatever, you always give me dicks.”
He frowns too, but in an effort to understand me. I huff. “The flowers. You drowned me in these flowers for about a month straight.”
“Not straight. It was three different periods.”
“Okay, a total of a month. Anyway, no need to play coy, here. Sam told me. See?” I point at his spay-dicks, the proud, yellow cocks standing at attention on the pendant. “I know what you were doing. You were besieging me with an army of flower dicks.”
There’s a moment of stunned silence before Ciro crumbles. I don’t know if I should laugh with him or slap him back to his senses. He starts to repeat my words, a few here and there between his guffaws, while I sink back into my seat with my arms crossed.
“Oh baby girl. You’re priceless. ‘Bunch of dicks,’” he repeats for the fifth time, and truly it’s not that funny.
A minute later, he’s apologizing, and I’m scowling. He loves me, he says. So much. It was cute, he says,
and he wasn’t ridiculing my interpretation of it, and no, he doesn’t at all think I’m totally deviant.
Unfortunately, he can’t keep a serious expression for long. When I’m about to get mad again, he pulls me into his lap and kisses me, and—funny how easy it is for him to suck away my anger.
“So what’s with the hibiscus and the flamingo lilies?” I ask afterward.
“I’m superstitious. I believe in giving the right vibes to the surroundings, to maybe harvest what you need in return.”
He nuzzles my neck. “Hibiscus has different meanings depending on the place and time, but it represents the perfect woman and perfect wife. Back in Victorian times, a man would give hibiscus to a woman to acknowledge her delicate beauty. So, you see, I had double reason to give them to you.”
I purse my smile under control. “And the flamingo lilies? Were they you?”
“Ha, no. I don’t feel like I need to represent myself.”
“Then what? Just flowers?”
“Not just flowers. From the beginning, I wanted to be the one who made you happy. I wanted you to look at me and smile with that gleam in your eyes, and I instantly knew that I couldn’t allow you to lack for anything.
“I want you to have everything you want. All you need is to point, and it is yours. That’s why the flamingo lily was perfect for you. It symbolizes abundance and happiness.”
Gah, Sam and his stupid twisted mind. I gave the sorority girls my perfect-woman, abundance-and-happiness flowers too! I want them back now.
I force a hot-cheeked smile and am rewarded with a chuckle. “Plus, they’re both red,” he whispers. “A deep, deep red, the color of love and passion and undiluted lust and a hell-of-a-lot of desire. I always want to fuck you senseless.”
“You ass. You almost had me crying, there, and bam, you ruin it.” I grin.
“Wait, I have another gift. I bought us a Bobo-the-Clown nose.”
“Noo!”
The call doesn’t come in the middle of the night this time.
I’m cleaning my room. I’ve spent hardly any time at my own house over the last two months so it’s dusty here. It’s three in the afternoon on a perfectly fine Wednesday.
“Hey, Mom.” I pull a wet cloth along the bookshelf, appalled at the layer of grey fluff I amass. “What’re you up to?”
Labored breathing answers me.
“Mom. Hello?”
“Savannah?” She says my name like she wasn’t the one calling.
“Mom, are you okay? Where are you?”
She must be walking, because I hear the rhythm of her footsteps in her voice. Cars, lots of cars around her, honking.
“I don’t know!” There’s panic in her voice. “I don’t want to be here. I was stopping them. They got mad.”
“Who were you trying to stop?”
“The cars, of course. They could hit the mountain lions.”
“What?”
A prolonged honk drowns her out, but then she’s back, hiccoughing with fear.
“Are you on the road somewhere?”
No answer, just hiccoughing.
“Did you just nod, Mom?” I try.
“Yeah.”
“Get off the road. Get to the side. Please, Mom! They’re going to hit you. I’ll come for you, okay? You can’t stand in the middle of the road.”
More cars, angry drivers careening by on honks and revved engines. Mom yelps.
“Are you okay?
“Listen to me.
“Listen to me!”
I start to hyperventilate. If I lose it too, who’s going to save her? One of the angry drivers? What happened to compassion? Can’t they see she’s not well?
“Yes?” Her answer is tentative.
“Are you walking to the side?”
“But the mountain lions.”
“They’ll see you at the side of the road and won’t pass you,” I say. “You’ll be like the school traffic guards.”
“Yeah...” She’s walking again.
“Are you on the side of the road now?”
“Uh-huh, by the ditch.”
“Where are you, Mom? Think.”
“By the waves.”
“The ocean?”
“I’m on PCH.”
I call Ciro on the way down to the Pacific Coast Highway. Mom’s right where Topanga Canyon hits PCH. She’s still on her feet but low on her haunches. Cars blaze by her without a second look, and she holds her hands in front of her face, trying to breathe.
My mother, she looks like someone who could hold up a sign and beg for scraps. Everyone is someone’s mom, daughter, son, father, I think now. I vow to always be the one that stops.
I’ve got her in my arms when Ciro parks next to us. She’s thinner. I hadn’t noticed. I cry with relief that she’s not hurt.
“What were you thinking?”
I get no answer.
Ciro insists we take her to the ER. She’s too confused to object. It could be the sun. It’s hot today, and depending on how long she stood there...
We’re allowed in with her. When the physician is finished with her vitals and calmly tells us she just needs fluid, he adds that he wants a colleague to see her too.
The colleague is a psychiatrist.
The colleague thinks my mother is in the middle of a psychotic episode.
The colleague orders her hospitalized.
I am floored, can’t take it, have to take it.
It’s a day to bawl, especially when they’d rather I not stay with her right now. More fluids is all. Some meds to get her out of it. “She’ll get to rest up a bit. Why don’t you call tomorrow?”
Tomorrow.
My mouth opens, because surely she’s not psychotic. That would be crazy. That would be that my mom was crazy.
But then my boyfriend is there, pulls me in, hums against my ear, rocks me. He answers the doctor’s remaining questions for me. He guides me outside. When it’s time to choose a car, he chooses his own and tells me he’ll send someone for mine. There’s no reason to object.
At his house and in his arms, the stress leaks out, the numbness over almost having lost her. And then he whispers against my ear that she’s safe, that nothing can happen now, except good things that will only make her feel better.
When he feeds me warm milk with sugar and cinnamon, my muscles ease into limpness, and in the end, I fall asleep in the smooth silk of red sheets that carry with them the scent of love.
Ana and I sit at Starbucks, both wiggling pens between our fingers. She’s doing a crosswords with her Chihuahua leaning drowsily against her stomach. Me, I’ve got Princess, Dolly, and Ralph all snoozing around my feet. Dolly and Ralph are their actual names, I’ve learned. I finally asked Mr. Dakapoulous. There’ll be no more Daisy, Dixie, or Rough from now on.
My pen is poised over my class notes, ready to scribble and circle some more. In an hour and a half, I’ll be taking my final exam in Principles of Marketing. I don’t feel great about it, but I’m ready. I’m going to try.
My attention hasn’t been on class lately. Mom wasn’t cooperating in the beginning and spent days without taking the drugs they prescribed her at the hospital. Dr. Sawyer tried to convince her. Ciro and I did too, to no avail, and because she wasn’t a threat to herself or others, it took excruciatingly long before they had me sign off for her to get treatment against her will.
“Are you eating that?” Ana asks sweetly, a long bubblegum pink nail quivering over the cake-batter lollipop on my plate.
“Ew, no. The stuff’s gross. I don’t know what I was expecting.”
“I’ll relieve you of it.”
I beam, faking grateful, and she shoots me a flirty wink. I don’t think she knows how seductive she comes off.
“How was your mom this morning?” she asks whi
le she nibbles on the glazing. Then she fans a handful of fingers in the air, adding, “Sorry, you can tell me later. Go ahead. Study.”
“It’s crazy,” I say. “They’ve only had her at Bliss Gardens for a month, but she’s already a version of my mother I don’t even remember. She’s calm. She literally asks questions about my day and listens when I answer. Best of all, she’s not spending every waking hour trying to leave the Valley anymore.”
“Nice. You think she’s cured?”
“No, that doesn’t actually happen.” I let out a sigh. It hasn’t been easy to come to terms with her having a diagnosis. A big one too.
“Apparently, if you have schizoaffective disorder, it’s a lifelong thing. You have to take your pills every day. The doc says one of the side effects of her psych meds is that she sleeps well at night, which was always a big issue for Mom. He thinks she’s ready to be discharged.”
“Really?” She drops her lollipop and pets Bella on her apple head while she studies me. “You don’t look happy. Don’t you agree?”
“I guess? I’m just scared. I mean, what if I lose track of her again?”
“God. Yeah.”
Five minutes later, we stroll out to our cars. Ralph has decided he wants to go with Bella, so there’s a bit of a struggle before I have him muscled into my car between Princess and Dolly. He looks heartbroken, which makes Ana laugh.
“So, celebrating tonight?” she asks.
“Yep, even if I do horribly.” I flash her a toothy grin. “You’re both coming, right?”
She nods, and one of her bangs loosen. Pigtails should be X-rated on my friend—Aaron isn’t the only guy who’s been eyeing her today.
“Yep, my man needs to learn how to cook. He still thinks Ciro creates those crazy meals himself. It works in my favor that he doesn’t know about the chef.” She flashes a devious grin.
“Housekeeper.”
“She’s more of an all-in-one, I’d say.”
I smile, because she’s right. Mrs. Brandt really is everything in Ciro’s house.