Nights Without Night (Fox Lake Book 2)

by Marina Vivancos

  He sets a pace that is as deep and rhythmic as ever. He watches his fingers for a while, appearing and disappearing into me, before pressing his face against my stomach, wrapping his other arm around my hips. I rest what I can of my legs on him so we’re cocooned in each other.

  Two turns to three, and he fucks me with his fingers, just like that. I can feel his breaths on the sensitive skin of my stomach, his arm holding me, pinning me down, the stretch of his fingers. I move my hips, pressing down on them, shifting against him. It’s like he’s everywhere, but I still want more.

  “Isa, fuck me. Come on,” I say. Isadoro looks up, cheek still pressed against my stomach. He slows his fingers down but presses them more deliberately against my prostate. I moan, arching my back.

  “Bastard, come up here and fuck me,” I say. I feel his laugh, even if the rush of my blood doesn’t let me hear it.

  Finally, he does. He sits up, and I can’t help but jerk him off a few times before I’m being pushed down again. I turn around, getting on my knees as I press my face to the sheets. Isadoro grabs my hips, just stroking my skin for a moment before he slides in.

  I love the thick stretch of it, the sudden fullness, the way he leans forwards and plasters all his body against me. He fucks me deep, that familiar volcanic water bubbling inside me. I feel his teeth scraping against my shoulder, my neck, and turn my face towards him, but I’m so pressed against the bed that we can barely kiss.

  Isadoro pulls out, turning me around, and then is back inside me, around me, both his arms a vice around my body. I lift my knees up high and wide towards my shoulders so the angle is as deep as it can go, and he splits me open even as he holds me together. He wraps around me completely and for a moment, in this safety, I feel loss.

  “Iván,” he groans into my ear, and I’m close too. He reaches between us to jerk me off with quick strokes and it all builds suddenly. Until it’s too much. We tip over the edge together, our names shipwrecked on the surf.

  For a while, we don’t part. We stay like molluscs clinging to rocks until my legs start cramping and I have to stretch. He helps me unbend my achy knees and cleans me up before we press close again. I can feel his come dripping from my hole and clench for a moment, wanting to keep him in.

  There’s nothing much to say. This is the last night. This is the last night we’ll ever be together like that.

  I can barely think it.

  For once, Isadoro falls asleep first. My head rests on his chest, and I feel his muscles relax fully, his breath becoming long and even.

  His body is so warm beside mine that I can feel the skin before I touch it. My fingers hover over his shoulder, down to the angle of his bent elbow as he holds me, running a path right over the moonlit shadow of him. My fingers feel his warmth, touching but not touching him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’d been afraid everything would collapse the moment we got back home.

  It doesn’t, but it doesn’t all just fix itself, either.

  The moment we’re back, life sweeps me away. Just a few days after we arrive, so do my grades. I sit in front of the computer for a while, just staring at the screen. Isadoro sits next to me, completely calm in his confidence. When I click the link, the numbers and letters are all a mess until they untangle themselves before me.

  “I did it,” I say. It’s all there. All my courses, my projects, my exams. All the programs I’ve learnt the ins and outs of, the digital languages I’ve perfected. All the paint and the clay and the spirit I’ve dripped onto canvas and moulded into shape. Life is fucked up enough that it all wouldn’t have mattered if these rows of letters and numbers didn’t glow like they do now.

  “I did it!” I repeat like I’m waking up from a dream. I look at Isadoro, smiling, and he laughs at my surprise.

  “Yeah, you did,” he says, and accepts my strangle-hold hug as I lunge at him.

  I liaise with work, and they’re ecstatic. We agree I’ll do a few days to get re-acclimated with ongoing clients and look at some possible projects starting up, and then start officially at the beginning of September.

  This leaves me enough time to stress over the summer show at the end of August. There are quite a few pictures to pick from, having done so many with Isadoro, and I talk to my advisor about options and composition. I have a few clay structures as well, and he tells me he can get me space for them in the show. I feel like I could vibrate out of my skin with anxiety and excitement.

  At home, things move more slowly. Isadoro reverts back to barely leaving the house, but he comes out of his room, which is more than I could have hoped for. He takes over a lot of the cooking and the house chores, guilty at his negligence of them before the trip. I don’t really care. I’ll thank whatever gets him out of the room.

  Despite this, some days are still worse than others. Some days, the darkness in his room becomes too thick, and he can’t escape it. I’ve learnt to be a little less direct in my approach, but no less present. I’ll open the windows, parting the curtains just slightly so they flutter in the breeze. I’ll lay with him sometimes and talk about the exhibition, about the job, asking his opinion to engage him. It works, sometimes. He seems less frustrated than before, and I realize how scared I’d been. Scared for him, but the fear took his shape, talked to me with his face, until I started feeling a little scared around him, too. Scared of what his own behaviour might mean for him. Scared of how much it hurt to see him suffer, and how helpless I was to stop it.

  We stay up late much of the time, sitting on the couch with just a sliver of space between us, but going to bed is still strange and lonely. After so many days of going to sleep to the sound of waves, the silence is heavy. It drags with it the suggestion of a visceral fear that reminds me of childhood. Of being a kid and hating to fall asleep after my parents had gone to bed, when the house felt unnatural and dead. Now, it feels like my nights are haunted, and these ghosts are just the night-time anxiety of children, manifested.

  I’ll lay in the dark and feel the exact shape of his absence in my bed. The hollow creature of it is as transparent and still as the silence of the oceanless night.

  I’ll close my eyes and miss him.

  **********

  One day, I come back from talking to my advisor and Isadoro isn’t home. I don’t notice at first, thinking it’s just a bad day and he’s in his room, but when I peek inside I’m startled to see his room empty. I look around, stilling when I see the note on the coffee table.

  Out for a bit,

  Be back later

  I roll my eyes at Isadoro for giving me the least possible information, and through an outdated medium. I take out my phone and send him a text.

  This is your phone speaking. Please use me. I can help you communicate with people. Will wonders never cease?

  He doesn’t reply, but I didn’t expect him to.

  He comes back a few hours later. As soon as I see his face, haggard looking and exhausted, my stomach drops.

  “Isa? Are you…is everything okay?” I ask, that old tentativeness back.

  “Yeah,” he says, and moves straight towards his room. I watch him, feeling like I’m sinking, as if he’s dragging me with him, when he stops at the threshold. He just stands there, shoulders and back stiff with tension, before some of it seeps out of him with a sigh.

  He turns back to face me, pauses again, and then walks towards the couch. I just follow him with my eyes as he sits next to me. He slumps onto the couch so that his head rests on the edge of the sofa’s back. He closes his eyes. He takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and just sits there for a while.

  For once, I don’t push.

  “I went to the V.A.,” he says suddenly. I almost jump, glad of his closed eyes so he doesn’t see my gobsmacked expression.

  “How did it go?” I ask eventually.

  “It went,” he says, and I can tell that’s the whole sentence.

  “Isa…” I say softly, and brush one of my hands against his. His eyes flutter op
en slightly, and he looks at me. I smile. “I’m glad you went,” I say simply. His lips twitch into a fraction of a smile. “What did you do?”

  There’s a long moment of silence, a little furrow between his brows, but I let it be.

  “I met up with that guy you went to see. Mansur.” He opens an eye, peeking at me. “I felt like he already knew a bit about me,” he says, but it’s not accusatory.

  “Yeah. I needed the help,” I admit. He closes his eyes again.

  “Yeah…”

  “Did you tell him anything?”

  “Yeah. I’d thought it’d be harder with him already knowing some stuff, and not knowing how much stuff he knew, but he told me everything you’d told him about me and it kind of helped. I could just confirm or deny and then just…elaborate. I don’t think I would have told him so much if I’d had to say it all from scratch myself, you know? Not that I told him everything, obviously, but it was…”

  “A start.”

  “Yeah. A start.”

  “Did you like him? I’ve read that the therapeutic relationship is the most important part-”

  “Oh my God,” he laughs. “I’m going to disable Google off your phone,” he says. I mock-gasp.

  “How dare you threaten Google, my one true God?”

  “Those comments are gonna bite you in the ass when we live in a world where we can sell Google space in our heads for ads and they start selling thought data to third-party members.”

  “Okay, Black Mirror, calm yourself down…How much is Google paying for brain space exactly? Because there’s this new drawing tablet I want and…”

  Isadoro laughs, shaking his head. “I’m not letting you sell brain space to Google.”

  “Oh, you’re not letting me? You’re not letting me sell brain space to Google? Team Daddy has prohibited all selling of thought space. Well, you’re not the boss of me, Mr. Puss-Filled Cyst, so stuff that into your goofy-looking beret.”

  “Hey! We all know those berets look ridiculous, but we’re not supposed to say anything!” Isadoro admonishes.

  “Oh my God…they are so bad,” I laugh.

  “Shush! Okay, I don’t insult Google, you don’t insult the berets. Deal?”

  “Deal. You’re going to lose.”

  “It isn’t a competition, it’s a deal. No one is supposed to lose.”

  “You’re still gonna lose, and I’m suing you upon breach of contract.”

  Isadoro slumps back again, laughing this time. His hand is wrapped around mine.

  “So…it went okay?” I ask. Isadoro looks at me.

  “Yeah. I don’t know about the…group thing.”

  “Maybe that can be a goal to move towards,” I say. Isadoro’s lips quirk up.

  “That’s what Mansur said.”

  “Well, there you go. Group stuff is usually a lot worse in your head anyway. Once you connect with those people, it’ll mean more than you were ever scared of it,” I say.

  “That barely made sense, but I got your point,” he replies.

  “Puss-filled cyst,” I mouth at him. He snorts. “So, you’re going again?” I ask. Isadoro nods.

  “Yeah,” he says. We leave it at that.

  It’s unclear what impact going to the V.A. has. It seems to exhaust him so much that he goes out less, and often spends the afternoon in his room after a session. However, he always goes to the sessions, and I start preparing comfort dinners those days to lure him out. It almost always works. We’ll eat together, and I won’t ask him any questions. We’ll just talk or watch a movie.

  Somehow, although I can’t pinpoint exactly what, I feel things are getting better.

  **********

  “Nuh-uh. No way. Nope,” Iva is saying, sticking a finger out at Ezra from where her hand is holding a drink.

  “Look, I’m not saying it’s by the size of their hands or whatever, but you can definitely tell if a guy has a big dick from their aura.”

  “No! I know what you’re saying but you. Are. Wrong.”

  “I feel there’s a story behind this.”

  “There’s definitely a story behind this,” Joaquin says. The four of us stand in the courtyard of Iva’s favourite club. Latino music pumps through the open door, but it's far away enough to be able to hold a conversation in the open air.

  “There is definitely a story behind this and rest assured I am right and you are wrong,” Iva tells Ezra.

  “Receipts please,” he says, holding the palm of his hand up to the sky.

  “Okay, so,” Iva starts, and I’m already smiling at her storytelling energy. “I met this guy the other week, right? He was like, blanquito to the max. Cute, guy-next-door sort of floppy-haired look, you know? Anyway, so we get to talking and he seems, like, not shy exactly but like he doesn’t go out often, you know? Like, he was rusty. And I’m curious, you know, so I’m asking him questions and eventually he tells me about how he just split up with this long-term girlfriend, like, real long term. And he’s not shitting on his girlfriend or anything, he’s like explaining how they kept trying even though it obviously wasn’t working and blah, blah, blah, relationship-people stuff.”

  “Real sensitive,” I snort.

  “I’m not dissing! I’m just saying that people who are scared of being alone can get caught up in the ‘but…’ part of ending a relationship and this one obviously dragged on for way too long. It was obvious he needed to change the script for a while, clear the air. So, I was like, you need to have fun, dude. And, lucky for you, I am a lot of fun,” she says, smirking at us. We laugh.

  “So, we agree to meet up later that week ‘cause I could tell he was way too green for just a party hook-up, but I made it blindingly clear that this was a Netflix and Chill situation. We text-flirt, it’s all good, I go over to his place and he’s cooked me a Three. Course. Meal. Like, from scratch. Himself!” she says, gesticulating wildly.

  “Oh my God,” Ezra says, laughing. Out of all of us, Iva and Ezra probably know the ‘Netflix and Chill’ etiquette the best, and a three-course meal is obviously a major misstep.

  “What did he make you?” I ask.

  “Oh my God. So, he made mushroom soup to start off with and it was sooo good. And then it was this, like, spaghetti but the pasta was super thin, and it had these giant prawns, oh my God. I died. And then he made tiramisu! Himself! From scratch! For a hook-up!”

  “Sounds nice,” I say.

  “It was nice, yes, but, like, it wasn’t respecting the agreed-to terms! But, anyway, it was fine, but like at the end I was so full I was like, I can’t even think about fucking you right now dude, like I can’t move. And he was totally fine! Like not even a little bit like, ‘me man, me make you food, you give me sex now’ sort of bullshit. Like, it hadn’t even been a play, he just cooked me a meal ‘cause he thought I would like it? What kinda crazy…?”

  “You need to up the quality of your hook-ups,” Joaquin says.

  “No! I want sex! Food is great, but I got other people for that! If you’re an FWB, like—I mean you two are a fucking terrible example honestly, the fact that you thought you were friends with benefits and not a straight-up couple for like a year is just ridiculous,” she says to Ezra and Joaquin, who look at each other with sheepish smiles.

  “Urgh! Anyway, so we just cuddle on the couch for a bit like we’re an old married couple, Jesus, and I leave or whatever and we agree to meet up the next week and this time I need to make sure he knows what’s up. So, the day before I text him like, ‘don’t cook. I already know what I want for dinner’,” she says, miming with her hands as if she’s texting. We laugh, and she points at us.

  “Right? Like, you all get what I’m saying. But this dude texts back, ‘what is it? I may not have it anymore but I can go get it if you want.’ Like, he thought I’d seen something in his pantry I wanted and offered to get it for me? I was like, you adorable dork…so I text back, ‘no, fool, I’m talking about your dick,’ and he was like, ‘oh’,” she says incredulously, and we laugh with
her.

  “Oh my God this guy sounds fucking adorable,” Ezra says.

  “I know, right? So anyway, it’s show day, and I go to his and we chat for a bit but I was like, let’s get down to business. I kept an eye on him cause I was like, is he, like, you know, does he want this? But, oh yeah. He definitely want this.

  “So it’s getting hot and heavy on the couch and the guy is like, let’s go to the bedroom, because of course he would take it to the bedroom, and I’m like, okay. So we go to the bedroom and I’m feeling saucy, so I just fling myself on the bed and lounge there like a French girl and say, ‘undress for me’. And he’s all shy but he does, it was so adorable he was wearing a button down and he had to undo all the buttons, and then he takes off his pants and I’m like, okay. Like, he was still wearing his underwear and I could definitely tell something was going on down there but I was like, must be a trick of the light, you know? And then he takes his underwear off and he pulls out this fucking super soaker of a dick. Like, I swear to God it swung from one side of the room to the other like, fwoooh, fwoooh.” She sounds out the noise and mimes a swinging trunk. “I was like, it’s not global warming that’s causing all these storms! It’s your dick falling out of your pants affecting the air currents!” she shouts. We laugh loudly around her.

  “Iva…” Joaquin between laughs, shaking his head.

  “Man…it was just so unexpected. Like, give a girl a head’s up, you know? See if I need to bring a grapefruit…”

  “You were blessed by the dick Gods,” Ezra says.

  “Some things are a little too much blessing…but that dick was just right! Wassup!” she says, high-fiving Ezra. Joaquin and I roll our eyes, smiling.

  “I love your life,” Ezra says, but immediately looks at Joaquin. “But I also love my life,” he assures. Iva laughs.

  “Have you chosen an apartment yet?” she asks them.

  “No, but we’re getting close, I think. I have a good feeling about this week.”