“His name was Gareth,” Thom said eventually. “Gareth.”
It felt like a shard of glass was stuck in my heart, cutting more with every beat.
He barely managed to Tell Of the last bit: “He used to say, ‘I’m going to fill this boy up with Godliness.’”
Thom was done talking. He pushed the hideous piece of wood and plastic aside, away from sight, and began to play the piano with my arms still wrapped tightly around him and my head pressed against his shoulder. He played a song in a pentatonic scale, something that wandered out from his fingers. He played the saddest music, until we’d both stopped crying and our hands had become steady.
When we got up to continue scouting, Thom set the crucifix on the quartz kitchen countertop. I passed him the hammer from my backpack and he demolished the ugly thing we both hated so much.
I awoke from a nightmare, breathing hard, trying to force the bad images from my head. I opened my eyes. Thom was there, holding my hand. I tried to smile at him, but the nightmare’s visions were still too strong.
“Can’t protect you from dreams, but I can snatch you away from them sometimes,” he soothed, stroking my fingers.
I found a smile for him and fell back asleep, still hanging on to his hand.
A day or two later, I ended up under the lean-to again. When I scrunched down in there on my back, something else was already in the corner, covering the wood. Thom had pried open the boards and stapled fabric from one of his old corduroy shirts to the plank near my head, then closed things up again. I pressed my cheek against it, smelled his comforting scent, and waited.
Thom entered the lean-to after a while and took out a flashlight to peek under the structure, looking for me. I wondered how long he’d been searching. He walked to the outside of my sad lean-to corner, and I heard him getting down on the ground to wait it out with me.
ow can I hold a part of me that only you can carry?/Needs a strength I haven’t found.” Toad the Wet Sprocket, “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted”
“Present!” Eric walked up to the picnic area, handed me a small, brown paper bag, and settled onto a table with me.
I held the bag up, enjoying the moment of curiosity before discovering what it held.
“Well?” he asked.
I knew this present was something differently special. Eric was restless. Just the slightest signs. A wiggle of his normally still foot. The way he continuously scratched one finger along the edge of the sole of his boot.
I peeked in the bag. Sliding around the bottom of it was a delicate silver ring with a small tumbled opal set into it. I felt something akin to panic, but it wasn’t panic. It was… I didn’t know what it was. It was the adrenaline of a panic attack, but it was a positive feeling. I still don’t know what to call it.
“I want you to be mine. Like, my wife.” He looked insecure for once. “Will you?”
I’d never even considered that Eric might ask this, but the answer didn’t require any thought. “Yes!” I surprised us both with my instant certainty.
Eric relaxed. He kissed me. He took the ring from the bag and slid it on my finger. It was an exact fit. How had he managed that? And it was beautiful. It was perfect.
“If you want, like, a wedding dress…” he began.
“I don’t need stuff.”
“Nothing fancy?”
“Mm-mm.” I shook my head a little too hard.
Were we really talking about this? My younger self hadn’t expected to live to be old enough to get married. My older self felt broken, too damaged for anyone to want to keep permanently, all the way up until he asked me.
We lay back on the table together and I watched the sky. Eric’s fingers languidly traced back and forth across my collarbone.
“I do want something.” The words sprang forth from my lips before I even knew what I was saying.
“Name it.” His breath was a warm tickle on my neck.
“Mark me.”
He sat up, eyes questioning. He knew how I felt about the scars given to me by others. I’d never minded the little self-inflicted ones. Those had been necessary to survive. But the others still made me feel ripped up.
I tried to explain: “All my life I’ve been given scars I didn’t want. Give me one I do want. I’ll think of you every time I see and feel it.”
Eric gave me his vows and gazed sweetly into my eyes for a lingering term. I felt filled with my love for him.
“I love you,” he told me.
I wanted to say the words for him, but still couldn’t. This must’ve shone in my eyes, because Eric simply smiled at me with indulgent understanding. I kissed him.
Eric fingered the hollow at the base of my throat for a moment. Then he unbuttoned my shirt. His mouth moved down my chest, and then his lips were at the side of my breast, his cheek against my sternum. “Stop me if you need…” he murmured, pressing his lips to my skin.
What Eric gave me wasn’t just a hickey. He left a permanent scar with that kiss. It was applied with enough force to draw blood through my skin. I realized this and worried about it briefly, trying to relax and accept that he would’ve been exposed to my blood eventually. I hoped it wasn’t a danger to him, because it was too late to stop the procedure now.
He pulled away finally, his lips colored deep. Kissable. So I kissed him again.
As I buttoned my shirt, I paused and touched the mark he’d given me. It would last for the rest of my life. Eric touched it too.
“Mine,” he said.
For a moment, I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to me, the mark, or both. I liked the idea of belonging with him. The way he’d said it, the way he’d claimed me as part of him. I claimed him back, placing a hand over his heart. “Mine,” I asserted.
He took off his shirt. I admired his perfect arms.
“Hey, over here!” He redirected my attention, smiling and tapping a spot on his chest. It was the same spot he’d marked me, except on the opposite side.
I gave him my vows and strongly suctioned my mouth to his flesh until blood was pulled through his skin. He murmured with pleasure until I released him. And he kissed me again.
Whenever he leaned down and pulled me close after this, our scars pressed together, emblems confirming we were connected to each other. This was our ceremony.
“Wife.” My new husband snuggled up to me and grinned. “Make me some supper.”
“Husband, it appears you didn’t read the fine print on this contract.”
We cuddled until we were hungry enough to bother with acquiring food.
We returned to camp and did the supper thing at the lake, just the two of us, then Eric surprised me again. He’d trotted off, but now walked up and threw his arms around me. “Thom’s letting us have the Honeymoon Suite.”
We went to the lean-to to collect some sleeping bags and stuff, and Matthew and Thom were celebrating with beers. Matthew slurred a greeting. He hugged me and placed a sloppy kiss on my cheek. Thom hugged and kissed me too, but without the slobber. I whispered a bit of thanks in his ear, for the Honeymoon Suite.
“Ready?” asked Eric, eager to start the evening.
“Totally.”
We said good night to Thom and Matthew and left for the shack.
Eric locked the shack’s deadbolt, then turned to me and gave me a wink. I thought of the first wink he’d given me, back in the van. When Eric winked at me, my heart fluttered. Every time.
“Where are you?” he asked, knowing my mind had strayed from the present and into the past.
“That wink in the van,” I told him.
“Heh—I was feeling bold.”
“Wish I could’ve been,” I said, remembering how I’d averted my gaze.
“Nah.” And he surprised me yet again, quoting a line from “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann: “No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should.” He’d been reading my books back at the lean-to.
Eric undressed me slowly, as if he was unwrapping a special gift. He’d
seen it all before, in bits and pieces, but not all at once. I stood there, naked in his arms, allowing myself a bit of vulnerability. He stepped back to look at me. That Look.
I watched his eyes travel over the wild rose carving. I wondered what he thought about it, about the way it looked to him. He held my hands and pulled them over my head. Then Eric slowly twirled me around a couple times. He tilted his head to the side, smiling, while he watched me turning.
I took my time undressing him too, feeling his muscles twitching. I lingered at his arms. I circled him, clockwise and then counterclockwise, until he couldn’t wait any longer. He whisked me into his arms and laid me down on the makeshift bed of sleeping bags and blankets and pillows piled on the floor. We smiled at each other. His hard-on pressed against the inside of my upper thigh. I was ready for him too—had been for some time. I whispered his name, and he finally pushed into me, making an effort to go slowly.
“Nnngghh” was the only sound I could make. A bubble of air escaped up through my throat.
“Yes?” he asked.
I nodded vigorously. Very yes.
He’d pushed all the way inside me now, and it felt amazing.
I started to say, “I’m gonna…” but couldn’t. Fireworks. The most dazzling display. As they exploded through me, he brought his face down to mine. His cheek was warm. His jaw worked, tightening and relaxing.
Gently teasing, I whispered in his ear, “Think of something else, think of something else.”
He snorted with laughter, nudging the side of my head with his nose.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I breathed.
“Okay.” He set to task again.
Almost instantly, lights blossomed behind my eyelids. My body writhed beneath him.
“Okay, okay,” he murmured, sliding inside me, almost out, back in. Over and over.
I forced my eyes open, watching him above me. Tears trickled down to my temples, to my ears, to our bedding.
“Just rain,” I told him when he noticed. “Don’t stop. Please.”
He nodded, not slowing. When he came, I memorized every detail I could observe and considered how it was different from the other times. He rested his forehead against my own, and after a moment, he moved to my side and put his head against my shoulder, draping an arm across my torso. My entire body hummed.
“Oh, wow…” My voice was the softest whisper.
In the middle of the night, I awoke. I wanted him again. Okay, I always wanted Eric.
I swung my leg over his body and straddled him. He was hard in his sleep, responding to me. I moved… just… right, and he stirred, his eyes opening slowly, twinkling like the stars.
For a moment, I kept every muscle still, except for the ones connecting him to me. Eric took hold of my sides, and I wrapped my hands around his wrists. He wordlessly helped me move with him.
After, I lay there, straddled on top of him with his hands still resting on my hips. I pressed my ear against his chest, listening to the thundering drumbeat of his heart as it slowed and became steady. Worried he might feel suffocated, I drew away. He pulled me firmly back. No resistance. Soon, his breathing evened out and he dropped off to sleep. I did too.
When I woke up, I slid off Eric. I ached, but it was a good ache, for once. He woke up a moment later.
“I had the nicest dream last night,” he said, sitting up. “I opened my eyes and you were on top of me, and…”
I put a hand over his mouth, stopping the words. He leaned over for a drawn-out kiss.
“You’re my favorite,” my husband purred.
“You’re my favorite.”
We’d intended to breakfast at the shack and return home before afternoon hit, but that’s not how things worked out. We breakfasted, yes, but then we spent the rest of the morning making out on the floor, still naked. He was teasing me, making me wait for it. Touching and drawing back, licking once, or blowing warm breaths, or kissing, but just brief caresses. My ache from the way we slept went away and was replaced with a deeper ache of longing. And still he made me wait.
“Are you getting off on being withholding?” I finally teased.
He smiled and kissed me again. “You’re just going to have to wait. Time for lunch.”
I groaned. I had no interest in eating. He prepared a meal, and I picked up Thom’s guitar.
“Play me a song,” Eric said, fiddling with the can opener.
“Which song?”
“Whatever song you want.” He pulled off one can’s lid. Then he started adding conditions. “Something you’ll sing to.”
I strummed the guitar, trying to choose a song.
“And make it one I’ve never heard before.”
I pulled on fingerpicking picks and played Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren.” In it, a sailor is drawn to doom, seduced by a beautiful siren. He knows he should resist, but his love for her is instant and all-encompassing. She calls to him, then rejects him, teases him, won’t let him touch her, and tells him to come back later. The melancholic troubadour wonders whether he should lie down and succumb to death.
When I finished the song, I looked up to see Eric standing still. He held a half-opened can, but his hands weren’t moving to detach the can’s lid the rest of the way.
“If I could’ve written a song about you,” he said wistfully, “that would’ve been it.”
Eric had That Look. I finally knew the words embedded within it.
I pulled the picks from my fingers, setting them and the guitar aside (after putting the capo on the highest possible fret and giggling to myself about it).
“So I’ve been torturing you?” I asked.
“Excruciating torment.” He set the can on the table and rejoined me on the floor. “Worth every second, too.”
“I didn’t—”
“Uh-uh,” he hushed me. “I wouldn’t change a thing. No regrets.”
I pulled his arm and he finally got on top of me.
This time, something unexpected happened after he finished. Maybe because he’d made me wait so long? I kept coming, even after his touch was gone. I lay helplessly on the floor, quietly climaxing, climaxing, climaxing.
Eric was distracted by an iridescent green hummingbird. It flitted too close to the shack’s high window, making a small tapping sound after Eric had gone quiet. We both looked up. For a moment, I watched Eric following its movements.
A mewling noise eventually escaped from my mouth. Then I emitted a long, low groan, the kind of intonation which told of either great pain or great pleasure, a mixed sound of desperation and desire fulfilled. He turned back to me, but by then I’d closed my eyes. Eric slid a hand under my head and put the other around my shoulder, momentarily concerned.
“Kit?”
I continued to tremble on the floor.
“Eyes open,” he told me.
I opened my eyes. Still climaxing, I moaned, again long and low. He wrapped himself around me and felt my body quake for what seemed like an eon. Ultimately, I settled down.
“I didn’t know that was possible,” I told him. My eyelids felt heavy, my body was fatigued.
“Had to set the bar higher, huh?”
“I don’t want you to get complacent.”
He chuckled and kissed me again.
We got dressed and had our late lunch. A salad with refried beans that had taco seasoning mixed in, tortilla chips, and salsa. Definitely a treat.
Eric smiled. “When you were… I wasn’t even able to see the rims of your irises, your pupils were so huge.”
“Big black holes, great,” I said.
“Beautimous,” he replied.
I was pretty sure “beautimous” wasn’t even a word. Or it hadn’t been, but it was now. I looked in the dictionary later, to check, and found it. In his writing. Beautimous [byoo-tih-muss] adj. Descriptive term for a unique being of immense and indescribable beauty.
“Whatever is is right, if only just because it’s much too big to fight.” Devo,
“Plain Truth.”
Eric was gone the next night on some mission for Jeff. I slept snuggled up with Thom—it was to be our usual arrangement whenever Eric was away. This had been instituted at Eric’s request. I got cold more and more easily. My heart hadn’t worked quite right since the car accident.
Thom would’ve moved over and kept me warm regardless of whether Eric had requested he do so, but I felt better about it being sanctioned. It was comforting to have him close. I’m not sure I would’ve been able to sleep at all otherwise.
Eric returned in the early morning before even a hint of light showed in the sky. I heard him arrive, and in the dim light cast from his flashlight, I saw him smile at how Thom had me wrapped up in his arms.
“I never thought he’d be like that under any circumstances, with anyone,” Eric observed.
“Comfy,” I sighed.
Thom awoke and grinned at seeing Eric home safe. I nudged the side of Thom’s head with mine. I tucked the blanket around him, then I followed Eric to the stream and assisted in cleaning him up again.
Whatever mission this had been, it was another that weighed heavily on him. I stood on a rock, holding onto his shoulders and kissing the tears on his cheeks.
“I can’t talk about it,” he mumbled, as if I’d demanded an explanation.
I rested my forehead against his, waiting.
“They’re dangerous,” he finally said. “They had hostages, but…” Eric made a sobbing sound, and I held him tightly and stroked his hair. “I couldn’t save them.”
Then no one could, I thought, but I knew it wouldn’t help him to say this right now.
“And the Dangerous People?” I wasn’t afraid of the answer, but I understood he was. He needed to tell it.
“Several fewer of them live now, but too many are still out there.”
I looked him directly in his eyes so he knew I was clear on what he had done and what he had admitted. “Thank you.” I pulled him tighter and kissed him and pressed the side of my face against his. Our tears mixed together.
Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse Page 23