Avery’d moaned as I kneaded that muscle and moved onto the one on the opposite side.
My hands were warm now, lightly pulsing from all the friction. I was starting to sweat just a bit.
It was good. I cleared my throat, I’d been hoarse from all the crying. She was helping me to come back and feel loose.
If she went to see Skylar she needed someone, someone more helpful. That didn’t take me long to realize at all. I wanted her to talk to her if it was more helpful than talking to me. I knew I was a difficult person to talk to. It didn’t make me feel good to know. But I wanted her to feel better in any way.
“She said they hooked up but she didn’t give me any details. She seemed happy about it though.”
“She told me Nat was careful with her,” I swallowed, remembering our talk and reciting it back. “She said she hadn’t ever felt that way before. Not about sex anyway.”
I pushed my hands up one of Avery’s sides and heard her let out a sigh before I moved on to the next.
“I’m glad. Sky deserves some happiness and so does Natalie. Have you talked to her about it?”
“Who? Natalie?” I asked.
I hadn’t…
I probably wouldn’t…
“No,” I said, pushing my hands down Avery’s back again slow and hard. “No need.”
I already knew a hook-up like that could mean something just as well as nothing. For Skylar it was new. For Nat it wasn’t. I had no delusions about what they were. They couldn’t be much after only one day. Even Avery and I took several days to wake up to each other. If something was there Nat would tell me soon enough. Until then, I had no need to rush to her and see how she was. Things with Skylar were different.
I didn't really feel like talking to anyone right now and Nat didn’t need me prying or asking her about things like that.
“You’re really good at this,” Avery said.
“Any sore spots?” I asked.
“My right shoulder. It’s been really tight the last few practices.”
“K,” I said, moving to place extra attention there. I’d already tried to massage that for a while. It was sort of stubborn. I didn’t want to hurt her.
“You might have to really push it though. It always likes to get tensed up for days. You can’t hurt me. Promise.”
“Right,” I said, trying it her way and pushing into the knot with both of my thumbs and the weight of my upper body. I knew if she’d done this to me it would hurt.
When she groaned happily my mind flashed back to our date-night and how perfect it was.
“You feel so good, baby,” I said, nearly taken now.
“Thank you.” She switched the position of her head a little and sighed. “Your hands are magic.”
Watching my fingers work her soft skin was entrancing. It wasn’t like the piano. When I watched my fingers move on the keys, if I didn’t make myself concentrate, my eyes stopped seeing and things blurred. Touching her was different. It was almost like my vision slowed down for it.
My hands were starting to get sore. I laid down ontop of Avery’s skin and let my fingers slide down her arms to find her hands and hold them with mine.
“Mmmmm,” she hummed.
I kissed her back a few times before laying my head down and letting out a deep sigh.
When I closed my eyes I remembered the sand.
I let my hand slide up her side and move to my face as I forced her to touch it.
Her muscles moved under my cheek as she shifted. She was strong.
I moved my hand up to her neck and let my thumb push in at the base and rub up as I pushed my body up on hers just a bit and let it fall again.
I let my other hand slide in under the hem of her jeans and touch her skin as I breathed.
I was too turned on not to do it.
“Will you touch me now?” I asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
We changed positions and she started to move her hands over my back until she got to my bra and unhooked it. She pushed the ends of the straps away and then grazed her fingertips along my shoulders and down the sides of my body until she got to where her legs were over my body.
“Turn over,” she said, moving off of me so I could.
I did what she said, somehow nervous for no reason.
It was weird to have touched her for so long without her touching me back. I realized that now.
She moved back on top of me at my waist and looked down. She didn’t say anything but she was still talking. Her eyes told me stories. Some were sad and a few were happy but they made her up. She wanted to tell them to me. She wanted to give me everything.
Her hands moved over my stomach and up, sliding to the side of my breasts and around to tickle the skin of my neck. She let her fingers roam up my face, past my forehead, and into my hair. I gasped and arched my back as my chin slid up and I took in air quickly. Her hands came back down over my ears and to my shoulders and went on, grazing over my collarbone on both sides and then down to my nipples where she stayed for a moment before returning to my stomach.
It was so much pleasure all at once. She came over me like a wave and I moved with her unable to breathe until she let me.
“You consume me,” I said, once I was able to form words.
“Because I want all of you. I want to taste every piece, over and over, until I know how to make you happier than you could ever want to be.”
She hadn’t done much of anything but I already felt like she was doing what she said.
I was tender right now, delicate. I couldn’t fight her, wouldn’t stop her.
I wanted her everywhere but I knew I could break.
“I wish I had more hands. Every time I touch you I only feel what two hands can feel and I want to get it all.”
My center already ached as if she’d been inside me.
Having more hands would be too much.
“You have time,” I said, answering her.
“I do.”
She lifted off me again and moved down the bed, unzipping my skirt and then pulling it down with my underwear. It was a slow, continuous movement. So smooth, like a part of a dance. She moved back up, after dropping the clothing to the floor, to lay beside me.
Her hand made gentle strokes. Over my upper thigh. Down to my knee. It smoothed again, this time to the inside of my leg and back up. She didn’t touch my center but it felt like she did. She moved her hand back down to my calf and then back up in the same pattern, going lower every time until she reached my ankle and then switched to the other leg. It wasn’t overtly sexual but that’s why it affected me so much.
I wanted her to touch me so much that every small thing lit me up. As her hands took liberties on other parts of my body, I felt her inside. When I was emotionally weak it was a lot to take, I think she knew.
Small touches…
Already, it was hard to breathe…
“I love that no matter where I touch you- you feel it. It’s amazing.”
She was watching my face with wonder as her hands still moved in slow hypnotic caresses.
It was so easy for me to become lost in the moment. When she touched me like this everything else went away. I felt her too much and that pushed the rest out of sight or underneath. No noise… No clatter…
And when she talked and brought it up, I never knew what to say.
It made her happy while she was breaking me down.
“There’s a quote I came across. I think it goes something like: I’ve loved you since the beginning of everything. Maybe we’re from the same star. It reminds me of you but I feel like our star was very far away, not even in this galaxy and we still have this innate problem adjusting to this world.”
Was she talking particles breaking up? Matter perhaps… Or was she literal? Was our star a cocoon?
Were we alien? What did it all mean...
“It’s weird and vague so it probably doesn’t make sense,” Avery said. “I feel like we’re two souls crammed
into human form that were meant to be fused together but we can’t get all the way there because all this skin and muscle and bone is in the way.”
“The Origin of Love,” I said, thinking of the old myth and the much newer song.
“Hmm?”
I swallowed hard. My throat was still sore from before. But I knew I could recite the whole thing if she didn’t know it. It was a song but I didn’t have to sing. Maybe someday when I had more strength I’d play it for her. “When the Earth was still flat… And the clouds made of fire…” I began to recite.
It was an interesting song from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
I recited it in full.
It was a horrible story. I hated it so. It was violent and cruel. Another story of the gods that made me not like them. It was a separation story. In the story the gods cut creatures in two, which then explained why humans crave connection and why people feel the urge to make love.
I stopped there.
When I braved the elements to look over at her I noticed she’d been watching me and I felt strange.
I pushed her back and climbed up on her to sit again as I looked down.
“I think it’s true,” she said, her face soft and sad. “I feel it every time I touch you.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore I had to kiss her.
The rest of the song was playing inside my head but I couldn’t speak it. It would make me too sad, and I’d cry, so I kissed her instead. Her lips parted, asking me for more and I gave it over and over but such a kiss could only be sustained for so long and when it ended I ached.
“The legend is old. It’s Plato... But there’s more to the song,” I said, searching her.
What made certain people think the way that they do?
I never felt like I was born from a star or meant to be a part of a pair.
Finding Avery was magic but I didn’t feel the need for us to share a body. I liked getting to be separate forms, touching hers.
After fighting, I could understand why she’d want us to be one. We would fight a lot less if she had more control.
“It’s just a myth. Something made up to make people feel better about horrible things that happen or to give an explanation for feelings. Even though I want to believe it, I know that.”
Funny that… After all that talk. Just a myth…
It was more to her, obviously, and she felt it inside.
There was nothing wrong with thinking that. It just wasn’t what I thought and that was perfectly okay.
We hadn't talked much at all about our thoughts on the things most people find important.
Things like this? They were Avery’s religion. Knowing this was important to me.
Her eyes were dark and serious. “Terrible things happen and all you can do is try and find yourself in the mess. That’s hard when your head is in one spot and your heart is five miles away.”
I laughed. She was sweet.
“Am I the head or the heart?” I asked, teasing her. Often times, she felt splintered. But I wasn’t holding her pieces even though I wished beyond anything else that I could find them all for her and give them back.
“The heart, always the heart,” she said, choosing for romance.
All those thoughts about remains and bones seemed very relevant now.
If there was a humane method that didn’t hurt or obstruct, I’d like to take her apart and label her pieces. I’d put a tracking chip on each in solitude before mending her back up and making her parts appear seamless and untouched. That way she’d be expertly catalogued and I could monitor her important ingredients, make sure they weren’t miles away.
Like the stars and the myth… That was all magic. These were things I couldn’t actually do. Besides, logistically it wasn’t necessary. Avery spent most of her time here with me.
“It’s a good thing I’m never leaving you,” I said. The heart was vital.
She always got like this when she was really sad…
“It really is. My parents would miss me if I was dead.”
My own heart squeezed inside me in protest of just that thought.
We’d had so much talk of blood and knives and pain…
“This is morbid but at least I’d make a good disembodied head.”
This was Avery’s talk and Avery’s way. A very real, and explainable, obsession with death. I pushed off of her and rolled onto my back.
“Sorry. It’s rude to talk like that,” she said.
She rolled over to look at me. “I’m all alive and I’m not going anywhere and I have really pretty eyes to distract you from stupid, sad thoughts. See?”
She blinked a few times and smiled that crooked half smile she had.
I couldn’t muster a laugh. I could barely smile. A lot of old stuff came drifting back.
I let out a sigh and bit my bottom lip. My head fell and I felt the space between her chest with both of my still hands as my forehead momentarily rest upon her collarbone.
I was trying to think of the last time we really laughed together like nothing could ever be wrong.
“Why’d you say it’d be easier to testify now?” I asked.
It’d been bothering me ever since she’d said it. But I couldn’t talk then. I wasn't even sure I could talk now but I needed to try.
“Because the letter pissed me off and I feel different now. I guess it tipped my determination over my fear.”
“Different how?” I wondered. Why was anything different? I wasn’t different. Who cared if he loved me. What did that even change?
“He’s human,” she said. “Not some immortal monster like in my dreams. Reading his words made me believe that. I knew it before that. It was a fact, sure, but my memories and imagination still had this hold over how I perceived him. Not when I first read it of course but afterwards when I was through freaking out.”
“Only a human could be that contradictory,” I said. There weren’t other animals like us. To reason is to grant the possibility for delusion... Insanity.
“Exactly,” Avery concurred.
All the times I talked of him then she hadn’t believed or heard. I know she couldn’t. But why would a stupid letter push her over when my words were embarrassingly truthful and right there.
I was angry.
I hated the delay.
“I’m glad you know that now,” I said. No matter how, her knowing was the most important thing.
I hated feeling invisible though and like my problems weren’t valid or real. She was the only person I needed to see me and believe me and she couldn’t.
How was I supposed to feel good knowing that?
I couldn’t change what she had been through. I also couldn’t change what she could think.
In a lot of ways I just felt like some pawn. His pawn.. Her pawn…
“I can’t help how this happened. It was never just about the letter. Like anything else I’ve learned it’s all down to repetition, hearing it over and over, and then there’s a moment or an event that makes it click. The letter was a physical representation of him.”
An event…
She just needed to hear him talk like she did. She needed it to be fresh. She needed it to be new. And, of course, it wasn’t allowed to come from me.
Like usual, I wasn’t really important enough… In theory, yes. In practice, no.
“I’m just glad it clicked,” I said. “He’s a stupid man. That’s all. Very human. Very stupid.”
“Olivia,” her jaw tensed.
“What?” I asked. I was being insensitive probably. I couldn’t understand what she went through. But I was being honest. I was glad. I was glad she got it through that he was just human and I could very well just kill him. That was a breakthrough I wanted her to have no matter how it came about. But how it came about did hurt me.
“You’re the one that told me. Without that, the letter would have sent me over the edge.”
“Why does it feel like you’re mad at me?” I asked. Where the hell wa
s that coming from?! I hadn’t said or done anything. She was like… Reading my thoughts.
“I’m not mad at you. I’m hearing what you’re not saying and it makes me upset that you don’t think you matter. If that was true, I wouldn’t be here.”
These were the kind of thoughts she shouldn’t be able to hear.
Paper Dolls Page 5