by CD Reiss
I felt something cold and wet on my butt. A lotion or cream. His hands were everywhere, spreading it over his cock, my ass.
“Quietly now.” He pulled me up and put the head of his dick on my anus. “Down at your own pace.”
I lowered myself onto him. It had been a long time, and I was tight, stretching around him. I whimpered, rose, dropped again.
“You’re so fucking hot. So tight. I love it when you stretch open for me.”
Without crying out, I jerked down, impaling myself on half of his length. I stopped and breathed heavily, getting used to his size.
“I love it when you hurt for me.” He reached around to rub my clit, and I bore down on him until he was buried. “Fuck it, Greyson. Fuck it silently, and I’ll let you come.”
The pain was gone, leaving only the feeling of being stretched to my limit for him, pushed against boundaries, doing more than I thought possible. He rubbed me furiously as I fucked him, and we came together in a silent whirlwind.
I leaned back, and he cradled me in his arms, whispering, “I wish you hadn’t come. I’m so glad you came.”
Chapter Thirteen
CADEN
When I’d hurt her and she cried, the buzz had sighed, draping itself over me like a bedspread thrown wide over a mattress. I held it on a leash but let it get its satisfaction.
The raw potential of the Thing had rumbled behind a thin wall. Pure, uncontrolled rage. A hunger for destruction. Tearing her apart, destroying her, all those were figures of speech until I had to hold back what it wanted.
The leash was strong enough, but for how long?
We both needed a shower, and mine was down the hall. I was off duty, and leaving the hospital compound was generally overlooked if it didn’t interfere with work and I showed up for emergencies.
So, I took Greyson back to her place on the Blackthorne compound.
The cracked stucco building behind an eight-foot cinderblock wall had four doorbells and a keypad. Behind the iron gate was a small yard with swinging lanterns strung between the house and the perimeter poles over a beat-up table, with half-used candles and two plastic cups, surrounded by mismatched but functional chairs.
“I’ve only been here once,” she said in the dark, “so give me a minute.” It wasn’t dark for long. Motion-sensor lights flicked on when we passed entry doors. “This is me. Number three.”
The door was a hundred years old, but the keypad next to it was brand new. She waved her card past the laser. It beeped and clicked open.
“Oh, hi!” A woman’s voice came from behind, and I spun around to get between Greyson and whatever danger my brain had decided was creeping up behind us. It was a woman in her late twenties with a blond bob and bangs. “Sorry about the mess.” She picked up the plastic cups, and I relaxed.
“It’s fine,” Greyson said. “Dana, this is my husband, Caden. He’s over in the hospital.”
“Nice to meet you.”
We shook hands. Her nails were manicured. That wouldn’t last long.
“Ferhad came by. He put an envelope under your door.”
“Thanks,” Greyson said. “See you tomorrow.”
“Bye!” Dana said merrily and skipped off.
“She could stand to cheer up a little,” I said.
“Don’t give her any ideas.” My wife leaned into the door, pushing it open.
As promised, a white envelope was on the floor.
Our first night in Baghdad, I stayed in her apartment. It was on the upper floor and came furnished with linens and sheets, like a hotel.
With the anger placated, I felt more in control. I didn’t have to lock everything away to keep it quiet. Before I’d given her pain, my emotions had been locked away. Afterward, I faced the fact that I was upset that she’d come, and I was also relieved to see her.
With her, even insanity felt controllable. With her, I was strong enough, good enough, capable enough. She made a shitty world come up flowers and rainbows. She didn’t erase the cruelty and ignorance, but when she was in the room, I couldn’t deny that as ugly as shit got, beauty and perfection existed. The Universe with a capital U had something to aspire to.
She sat between my legs in the bathtub, her back to my chest. Her trapezius muscles were beat to shit where I’d bitten them.
“Dana’s licensed to administer meds but not prescribe.” Greyson told me about her job. “And she needs MD oversight. So, we’ve written up all the scripts in case of emergency.”
I kissed her shoulder. “This might hurt when you lift your arm.”
She leaned back against me. “It’ll remind me of you.”
“So what’s the point of the shots?” I asked.
“It’s for soldiers who’ve done the treatments you did.”
“Really?”
“It reproduces the effect of the breathing exercises. Opens the doors of the mind so memories that cause mental trauma can be detached from negative emotions. If it works, it’s years of treatment packed into a few days.”
“And you believe this works?”
She sighed and leaned her head back against my shoulder, stretching her beautiful body against me. She pointed her toes against the far wall. “I don’t know. I know how it affected you, and there’s a sense to it.”
“You know how it affected me, do you?”
She turned, kneeling between my legs. “You never told me the breathing was so hard on you.” Her lashes were blacker when wet, stuck together like pen marks around her chocolate eyes.
I wiped a cluster of bubbles from her cheek. I shrugged. “I said I’d do the treatment. That means I do the treatment. If I complained, you’d either tell me to stop or feel guilty about it.”
“You didn’t tell them about your father.”
“They didn’t ask.”
“They didn’t ask about childhood abuse?”
She was working hard to be nonconfrontational, but some things were confrontations no matter how you phrased them.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want to know why you didn’t tell them.”
“I wasn’t abused. My mother was.”
She bit her lips back as if that would confine what she wanted to say. I knew what it was. Abuse of the mother is abuse of the child. But I didn’t agree and I wasn’t arguing about it.
She put her hand on my chest. “I’m on your side.”
“I know. But it’s my life. I’ll characterize it the way I want. And not to change the subject”—I help up my finger—“you should have stayed home.”
“It’s my life.” She repeated my words, then bit her lower lip against a smile that demilitarized the entire subject.
I put my hands on her hips and pulled her to me. “It’s our life.”
I sealed my answer with a deep kiss.
The prayer chant woke me at dawn. Greyson was next to me, her hair spread over the pillow like a veil.
“I never thought I’d hate prayer,” she said, eyes still closed.
“I have to go anyway.” I kissed her cheek. “I’m on rotation.”
She got up on one elbow. “I’m sore everywhere.”
“Good.” I got out of bed and put on my pants. My dick had its own sore spot after entering her so many times the night before. That was good too.
She sat with a groan and stretched as I got my shirt on. “You’re doing the walk of shame.”
“I’ve never been less ashamed of anything.”
I kissed her. When I tried to pull away, she held me back.
“I love you, Caden.”
“I know you do. No one would do such stupid shit unless they were in love.”
Chapter Fourteen
GREYSON
There were a few cups and plates in the cupboards but no coffee. Without a commissary, I’d have to get it at a local Green Zone vendor.
The envelope was on the table by the front door. Flipping it over, I saw a sticker over the flap. CONFIDENTIAL. I tore it and slid out the stapled pages.
CLEAN MINDS PROJECT
List of subjects.
The cover letter gave instructions for use of BiCam145. Each was marked with the name and serial number of the recipient. No substitutions. No transfers. No changes in dose. To be administered by the psychiatrist or physician’s assistant on staff after a traumatic event. Subject to be monitored closely afterward. Surveys given before and after. I knew all this already.
Under the letter was a list of names. I flipped to S.
Caden was there with an asterisk. So was Yarrow. The back-page footnote was clear.
*placebo recommended.
There was a quick, demanding knock at the door. Maybe Caden had forgotten something? I peeked out the window.
A dark-haired, fully-armed man in US Army-issued camouflage. His back was to me, but I’d have recognized that cocky posture anywhere.
I whipped the door open and leapt into his arms. “Jake!”
He held me up as if I was twelve all over again and he was my strapping big brother. “Punky!”
He spun me around.
“Oh my God,” I said when he dropped me back to the floor. “So long. It’s been—”
“Since your wedding.” He smiled, drinking in the sight of me like a thirsty man. “I missed your crazy ass.”
“Come in!”
“I only have a minute unless I want to go AWOL.”
“I have to get to work. Come, come.” I ushered him in and closed the door. “Sit. God, you look like such a man.”
He had always been handsome, but he’d earned some toughness around the cheeks and a few lines around his eyes.
“You look skinny.” He clearly didn’t approve.
“Don’t get me started. Tea? There are mint leaves growing in the front. I picked a few.”
“Sure. They set you up nice.”
“Perk of the job.” I filled the teapot and plugged it in. “You should see the office.”
“And you don’t get bossed around as much.”
I stuffed leaves into two glass cups. “Oh, there’s plenty of bossing around. I heard you got your silver bar?”
“Again.”
Jake had been demoted back to butterbar twice. He followed orders but had a habit of doing it in whichever way he found personally appropriate.
“Well, you’ll keep it this time.” I sat across from him while the teapot did its work. “How have you been? And get right to it.”
“You never liked small talk.”
“Not from you.”
“Are you going to psychoanalyze me?”
“Yep. And we have about fifty minutes. No charge.”
He leaned back in the chair, legs spread, hands linked over his chest. “I shouldn’t have taken this deployment. It was stupid.”
“Why?”
“I could ask you why you came back.”
“You could. You first though.” I was on the edge of my seat, not for the answer but for the comfort of his voice.
“Remember that time you called me from that punk club? The Spot or something?”
I did but barely. I’d been drunk, eighteen, and frightened our parents would be mad. He’d picked me up and taken me home.
“The Red Spot, and it wasn’t punk. It was New Wave.”
“The night before you enlisted.”
A wave of panic went through me, as if talking about this was a toxic sea I was being asked to jump into.
“Let me check on the tea.” I bounced up. The electric pot was already hissing. “Sugar?”
“No, thank you. Do you know, I’ve never felt as useful as that night? Every time I come here, I think I’m going to be doing something I can be proud of, and I’m wrong every fucking time.”
I poured the tea. “You’re useful. You just can’t see the big picture. None of us can.”
“Maybe the picture’s too big for me.”
I was supposed to listen without judgment or direction, but I could still feel the sulfuric sting of the toxic sea and changed the subject. “What about a woman in your life?” I poured hot water over mint leaves. “Anyone?”
He shrugged. “This and that. How’s the moms and dads?”
“We did a little reminiscing when they came to visit. I found out about the talk you had with Scott Verehoven’s father.”
A smile spread across his face. “Yeah.”
“That was gross, Jake.” I handed him his glass.
“But I felt useful. See, that’s the key. I wasn’t looking for shit that wasn’t there or securing a road we’d lose in a month. I could rescue a damsel in distress.”
“Really, Jake?” I tucked myself into the chair across from him, cradling my glass. “That’s sad. You could have let the lawyers take care of it.”
“Fuck the lawyers.” He blew on the tea. “We take care of business. It’s the Frazier way”
That was how I’d found myself in Baghdad. Just taking care of business. That was why Jake had been bumped down to butterbar twice. We were a family of people completely unsuited to the military, yet there we were, three generations in.
I raised my glass cup. “To the Frazier way.”
He clicked his cup to mine. “The Frazier way.”
“I missed you,” I said.
“I missed you too. Now tell me what the fuck you’re doing with Blackthorne? You came for your husband?”
I sighed. We had thirty more minutes, and I feared we’d spend it talking about me. “I did. I came for him. He didn’t want me to, but I did it anyway.”
He knocked his scalding tea back in a single gulp before clicking the glass on the table.
“That’s how we roll,” he said, and I knew that as much as he didn’t approve of my decision, he’d never deny it was the right one.
Days went by without word from Caden. If I put my cheek to the window in my office, I could see the hospital. The soreness in my shoulders and between my legs faded. Whenever I saw a Blackhawk land on the pad by the hospital, I wondered if he was on it.
I counseled my fellow contractors in the mornings over marital and money issues. The afternoon’s paperwork was ten percent less odious than the army’s and geared more toward ass-covering than record-keeping.
The BiCam145 serum inside the “latest and best” syringes had been filed away in a refrigerator, but it weighed on me. I wanted to see if it worked. Through my work counseling Blackthorne’s patients, I’d unknowingly had a small part in its development, and I felt responsible for it.
Ferhad’s lunch tray was pushed to the side. He ignored Dana and me in favor of the little notepad he carried on his clipboard. He was a poet and could write it in the middle of a conversation.
“This is terrible,” I said, dropping the rest of my chicken salad sandwich onto the plate.
“I hear it’s harder to get food and stuff into the Green Zone since the bomb attack,” Dana said before finishing the last of her sandwich. In addition to being a font of good cheer, she was a first-class news-gatherer.
“Everyone’s on edge,” Ferhad said, pencil still moving. “Zone isn’t as green as it used to be.”
“The Zone’s always greener on the other side of the wire.” Dana giggled at her own joke.
“They strapped bombs to a child.” Ferhad put down his pencil. “If the doctor trying to help him didn’t speak Arabic, another dozen would have been dead.”
“He—”
—doesn’t actually speak it.
No one needed to know what Caden spoke or didn’t.
“What does dujon mean in Arabic?” I asked. “I speak a little, but I’ve never heard it.”
“I don’t know if it’s Arabic,” he said.
“Oh.” I glanced at Ferhad’s poetry. “I thought you were writing in Arabic.”
“This is Sorani. It’s Kurdish.”
“Ah, I’m sorry to assume.”
He waved it off. “It’s a fine thing. Dujon”—he said it with a different inflection—“is Kurdish too. It means ‘I’m pregnant.’”
That night, I reconstructed the conversation where Caden had mentioned the word. He had been talking about the suicide bomber, but I was sure he’d said it was a boy.
Who had been pregnant? And when?
Maybe Caden had gotten the word wrong and I’d made it worse. Maybe it was a different word altogether. There might have been no mystery there, but it nagged at me. Right next to the place where I doubted I should have come to Iraq at all.
I wasn’t watching over my husband. Wasn’t caring for him. I still missed him. I still didn’t know if he was in danger, and even if he was, I had no way of preventing it.
In the middle of the night, I curled up inside myself, wondering if I knew what I was doing at all. I assumed I was wide awake until the phone rang.
“Dr. Frazier. This is Colonel DeLeon.”
I shot up to a sitting position as if I’d been administered a day’s worth of cortisol. “Caden?”
“No, no. Hold up.”
“What?”
“It’s not Caden. Old Asshole Eyes is just fine. I’m calling you as the psychiatrist on staff at Blackthorne.”
I put my hand to my forehead and tried to think calm thoughts. “Okay. Sorry. Go ahead.”
“I have two patients here. Just got pulled out of a fire this past morning. Both their files got a big note on them. I’m supposed to call you guys if they’re showing signs of traumatic stress.”
“Right. Yes.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Can I have their names?”
“What’s this about?”
“They were part of a DoD-sponsored protocol. I’ll bring releases.”
“You better.” She gave me the names.
I handed DeLeon the releases and a pamphlet describing how I didn’t have to tell her shit either because or in spite of the fact that Blackthorne was paid by the Pentagon.
She stuck her tongue in her cheek as she flipped through the pamphlet. “This is bullshit. You know that, right?”
“If I were in your shoes, I’d say the same thing.”
“What’s in the case?”