Love Is Overdue

by Natalie Myrie

  “Have you ever smelled his breath in the morning?” Lazaro had whispered to me, through the steady hum of the fan. “I’m pretty sure if I struck a match, his whole head would blow up into flames.”

  I thought about that for a moment. “Then you really would have killed a dragon.”

  Ω

  I got up suddenly. “I think I need some air,” I addressed all three of them, but then immediately grabbed the back of my chair to steady myself. The tequila had obviously gotten the best of me. I saw Ben glance over at me. “I’ll be back.”

  I stepped out onto the porch and fished in my bag for my cigarettes. It took me a while as I navigated through all the crap I’d bought at the shop earlier…

  I heard the door open behind me about a minute later and Ben was beside me.

  “Hey…” His voice was soft. “I’ll take you home, Gabby.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to go home.” I turned to look at him. “I’m sorry for…the things I said before on the phone – the way I talked to you and…”

  “It’s okay.” Ben cut me off gently. “You don’t look so good, though. How much you been drinking?”

  I sighed. “I’m fine,” I dismissed it, then thought for a moment. “So where were you tonight? You said you were like an hour away…”

  “Maple Ridge,” he said then. “I just went to check a friend after I put Sophie to bed – needed someone to talk to.”

  “Oh.” I thought about that. What about me? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. “Which friend?”

  He hesitated, giving me this look that said he really didn’t want to tell me. “Amira.”

  My heart fell immediately. “What?”

  Ben sighed. “Please don’t do this again, Gabby,” he practically pleaded with me. “She works for CPS – I needed some advice. I don’t know what the hell am gonna do.”

  “So when I called you she was right there?” I was mortified. And starting to get angry – as irrational as that was. Everything was just too much…

  Ben leaned back against the porch railing. “What do you want me to say?” He looked at me closely, just staring me down. “I don’t want to fight with you. And I have to get home too so…it’s late. Let’s just go.”

  Ω

  “I don’t want to go home, Ben.” I said it again as soon as he pulled the Escalade away from the curb next to Ivan and Angela’s house. It was now well past midnight. “Can’t I just come stay with you tonight?”

  He didn’t say anything right away. He stared out at the road in front of him and I tried to read his expression but it was hard in the darkness. And the silence was almost deafening.

  Then he glanced over at me briefly. “Let’s just take a drive first.”

  I had no idea what he meant – or what he had in mind – but I just stayed quiet as he headed up East Hastings towards downtown, crossing back through Chinatown, until we neared the foot of Gastown and the shipyard on Waterfront Road. He pulled his car up along the Main Street Dock and in a secluded spot next to Portside Park he finally parked and cut the engine.

  “What are we doing here?” I wondered aloud finally.

  He looked over at me finally. “Just pull your seat up all the way and get in the back.”

  My eyes went wide in shock at his sudden command. I knew he wasn’t in much of a talkative mood, so a drive had seemed quite puzzling to me, but I had no idea this is what he had in mind. Even still, I felt my blood rush through me suddenly and a warm tingle – although hesitant and somewhat fearful – settle between my legs.

  “You mean…” I didn’t move.

  “Like this, baby.” And he reached under his seat and pulled the handle, yanking it forward as far as he could and then flung open the door and hopped out.

  By the time I’d followed suit and slid in the back seat with him, he had already unbuckled Sophie’s booster seat and was tossing it over the back rest and into the trunk.

  “What are you doing?” I asked cautiously yet again.

  But Ben wasn’t wasting any time. His hand was already on his buckle, unclasping. The waist of his boxer-briefs peeked out as they always did. Today they were Calvin, but they were usually Ralph Lauren or DKNY. His off days were always Calvin…

  “I want your mouth, baby.”

  He was on his knees next to me, and he ran the palm of his hand up across his belly then, pushing his t-shirt up to his chest, showing me those gorgeous flat muscles, that trail of dark black hair that ran down from his navel and under the waist of his Calvin’s. The bulge between his legs was already more than visible.

  He slid his thumb over my chin. “I miss those pretty lips.”

  Fuck, he knew just how to get me going. But this wasn’t like Ben at all. This forward. This pushy. Commanding. Just pulling me in the back seat and demanding a blow job? Seriously? Part of me just wanted to tell him to fuck off…

  But then his hand reached inside and he pulled that gorgeous thick brown cock out – still half-flaccid, but still so impressively and beautifully huge, I couldn’t help but suck my breath in in delight as he gently ran the head across my cheek. He smelled like a mixture of soap, Bounce dryer sheets and a full day’s worth of confinement and it was intoxicating. My pussy got wet immediately, realizing Amira hadn’t been anywhere near it…

  “We’re like three blocks from the police station…” I whispered, as he teased my lips with his cock, staring down at me and wetting his lips.

  “These windows are well-tinted, Gabby.” He grabbed hold of himself and smacked my lips a few times, stroking himself to his full engorged size within seconds.

  He attacked my throat then, going deep, and not holding anything back, and I let him take it, moaning softly as he gagged me over and over again. He groaned loudly as he filled me, grabbing the back of my head, fucking me with such force, like his life depended on it. I had never experienced this rawness from him – if it had been anyone else, and not the man that I knew and loved and ached so badly for in every single way, I would have felt cheap. Used. An object of his selfish desires.

  But I didn’t care. This was Ben. I would give him whatever he wanted.

  “Oh fuck, baby…” I gasped as I pulled back, needing to catch my breath. My jaw and my lips were in a numbing, aching pain. My pussy was so wet, I felt my panties sticking to me, suffocating me. I needed release so badly, I was practically swimming in my own juices. “You make me so wet,” I whispered, wanting him to take my implied cue, willing him to touch me with my eyes, as they practically pleaded with him.

  Ben groaned again, as he pulled his slick wet throbbing cock from my mouth, squeezing the head between his fingers, and teasing me with a drop of semen on the tip of my tongue. “You want me to fuck that wet pussy, Gabby?” he growled at me in barely more than a whisper. But it hit every sense in my body.

  “Yes,” I gasped desperately.

  “Get on your back,” he ordered me then. “And put your leg up here,” he added, slapping the back rest.

  I did as he asked, my dress bunching up around my waist as Ben quickly slipped his jeans off and straddled my one thigh, pushing my other leg further up in the air. He didn’t bother to pull my panties off – he just tugged the strip of material to the side roughly with his fingers. He spread my lips apart, staring down at me hungrily, and pushed two fingers inside my dripping cunt. I groaned at the sensation. But as he slid them in and out a few times, slipping deep inside the slick wet flesh, he still didn’t seem satisfied, so he leaned over and spit on my pussy – not once, but twice – and I shuddered in waiting agony, as his fingers went back to work between my legs, then stroking and wetting up his cock with our mixture of juices, preparing himself for my pussy.

  He held the base of his cock and began just teasing me with it, rubbing the head up over my clit and back down again, the sensations just pulsing through me, attacking me so deeply, and pulling me into such a hypnotic trance.

  And then his cock slid deep inside me and he let out a low groan fro
m the back of his throat. “Fuck…” He grabbed onto my leg to steady himself and stared down at where our bodies joined in that slippery, wet pool of pleasure, that was just pulsating between us so steadily. He just kept watching my pussy, his cock – his eyes not veering from that spot. He began to fuck me harder – deeper. I was moaning, his depth and size pushing me to the precipice of my threshold of pain again and again and again.

  I grabbed my aching breasts and squeezed. They were still trapped uncomfortably under my bra and my dress and I tugged at them, trying to free them again and again – staring back at Ben, silently pleading and begging for him to come suck them, to come kiss me, touch me – hell, even just look at me. Look at me, baby…

  “Fuck…Ben…please…” I moaned, my voice trailing off, as he just kept fucking me – in, out, in, out – attacking my insides, ravaging me, his eyes still glued to that one spot.

  And then, without warning, I just felt his body tense. He sucked his breath in and just let out this deep, almost animalistic groan and he grabbed his cock so smoothly, pulled out in a mere second, and I watched as he emptied himself onto my belly, his eyes suddenly shutting – a brief look of almost pain as it crossed his face, and then vanishing just as quickly.

  And then it was over.

  I didn’t move. I couldn’t. My body was still on fire – still needing release – still aching for him. And he was finished? I was shocked. I couldn’t move.

  Ben didn’t say anything. Eventually he just eased my leg down slowly and fell down onto the seat beside me, running his fingers back through his dreads, letting his breath out slowly.

  I grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled it back down over my legs quickly. The entire scene suddenly replayed in my mind in a whole new light. And everything about it suddenly felt wrong – really wrong. If I hadn’t been there to see it with my own eyes, I would have never believed it had actually happened. Not Ben…

  I sat up next to him, adjusting my panties awkwardly, the wetness on my belly sticking to the fabric of my dress. I would have to remember to spot clean it as soon as I got home. It was dry-clean only… Fuck…

  “What the hell was that?” I demanded suddenly, Ben still not speaking.

  He glanced at me then. “What is it now, Gabby?” He actually looked annoyed. “I have a lot on my mind and all you seem to wanna do is pick fights with me. What the fuck is your problem?”

  My jaw dropped. The contempt in his voice sent a chill up my spine. “I’m not picking a fight with you, Ben, but when you go and park your car and force me into the back seat and use me and fuck me like some cheap ass ten-dollar whore, I think you owe me a bit of an explanation!”

  Ben’s eyes went wide at that but then he just sucked his teeth. “I cyan deal wit your shit right now, girl,” he said, pulling his jeans on quickly. “And you wonder why I can’t tell you anything…fuck…” He couldn’t have gotten dressed quickly enough, I noted as I watched him, still too stunned to make any sense of what was happening…

  We drove in silence. I didn’t say another word and neither did he. And I knew then that he never had any intention of having me come spend the night with him. Fucking me on the side of the road had been my consolation prize, his way of letting me down easy…

  And so as he pulled up in front of my apartment to drop me off, it didn’t come as any surprise to me. I grabbed my handbag but stopped short before opening the door to get out. I glanced over at Ben, but his eyes were just staring out the front windshield.

  I took a deep breath, as I fought back the tears threatening to fall. “Whatever you do, Ben…keep Sophie safe. If that means cutting off Maria completely then so be it. I can only imagine how things might have been different for me if my dad came to save me back then.” I kept my voice as steady as I could but looked straight ahead. I saw Ben glance over at me then out of the corner of my eye. “She’s seen enough. Don’t let her see any more.”

  I flung the car door open and left without another word.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Three weeks. It was the amount of time that could go by in the blink of an eye or drag on in an eternal time warp, depending on the situation. When Ben and I had first met, three weeks seemed to pass by in a blissful fog – being with him seemed to stop time and make it pass by in a heartbeat all in the same breath. The three weeks that had passed since he’d broken up with me, on the other hand, was just an endless continuum of pain, hurt, and an unbearable sadness that I had never felt before.

  The truth was, I had never had any real boyfriends – any real relationships that went beyond just passing flings or casual sex buddies. I had never had any problems meeting men that wanted to fuck me and in its own small way it gave me a sense of validation – that I was attractive, I had sex appeal, I could turn a man on and keep him coming back for more – at least for a while. But what Ben had given me went beyond any other relationship I had ever known. He had pulled me into his world, and allowed me to pull him into mine. I had felt a connection and a closeness and a need for him that was so strong and so deep – and it went so far beyond the sex, although the physical void that he had left me with was an agonizing pain all on its own.

  The actual break-up didn’t happen in the car the night he’d fucked me in the backseat near the shipyards. It happened two days later, although we hadn’t spoken in between then either. He hadn’t called or texted and I refused to give in either. What he had done had hurt me – and I wasn’t ready to let it go that easily – but I did realize the stress he was under. By the next day, when the reality of what Ben had been enduring and dealing with, all in the span of the past 24 hours, really hit me – I couldn’t hold his actions against him anymore. But I still wasn’t ready to call.

  Avoiding him at work hadn’t been that hard for those two days. He obviously hadn’t been interested in seeing me either, and even though I knew he was back at the restaurant, I kept my distance. The text he did finally send me came mid-afternoon on Wednesday. When his name popped up on the screen, my heart leapt immediately, and I almost choked on my cup of coffee.

 

  My body immediately eased and I even smiled to myself as I sat at my desk.

  I hit reply.

 

  And that was it. I practically counted the seconds until 5 pm.

  Seeing him again had felt so good. I smiled when I saw him approach – I just couldn’t help myself. I just wanted to wrap my arms around him and never let go…

  But Ben held back. He didn’t look at me the same way. I heard him unlock the car and step around to the driver’s side to get in so I just hopped in beside him and waited.

  “How are you, Gabby?” He didn’t move to start the engine.

  “I’m okay,” I said quickly. “How about you? How’s things with Sophie – what’s happening with that? I’ve been worried but…I just figured if you needed me you would call.”

  He nodded slowly. “She’s still with me. Maria’s back at her house and she told me Miguel is staying with a friend for now while they figure shit out, but I don’t believe her.” He hesitated, thinking. “I’m just taking it day by day and doin’ what I have to do – what else can I do, right?”

  I nodded, watching him. “What are you doing with her when you’re working? Who’s watching her?”

  “Sally mostly. She’s picking her up after school and brings her to the restaurant by about seven and she hangs out here with me until we go home. It’s too late for her, though, so am workin’ on gettin’ someone to stay at the house…”

  “I was thinking…I mean, I get two nights a week now,” I cut in suddenly. “I could stay with her those days, Ben, give Sally a bit of a break – I don’t mind. I would enjoy it actually, spending time with Sophie…”

  He didn’t say anything to that. He just looked back at me with that same expression on his face that was beginning to scare the shit out of me. It reminded me of what a doc
tor would look like – about to break the news to a patient that she was dying…

  “I can’t do that.” He finally spoke and his voice was eerily quiet.

  “Why not?” I wanted to know. “Aren’t you the one that told me it’s stupid to turn down help when you need it? I remember, believe me, because you were right and I was stubborn. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there for me.”

  He didn’t say anything again for the longest time. It was getting pretty ridiculous, this insane amount of silence between us. I didn’t fucking get it…

  “Gabby…” He turned towards me in his seat then, running his hand over his head and resting his elbow on the steering wheel. “You know how I feel about you…”

  I was confused. “No, actually, I don’t,” I admitted.

  He didn’t say anything to that. “What I did the other day…that was wrong and I’m sorry, Gabby.” His voice was so quiet again. “You didn’t deserve that, I was just…I’m having a real hard time with this shit, and maybe I don’t handle stress right – I don’t know – but I’m used to always being in control, that’s the only way I know how to function – especially when things are so fucked up – and right now, the only thing I can focus on is gettin’ shit back under control…that’s all I know how to do…and that’s the only way I’m gonna be able to do what I need to do for Sophie…for myself…for my fucking restaurant that falls to fucking pieces if am not around…and I can’t afford that – especially not now and I just…”