Punk and Zen

by JD Glass

  Before we got onstage to play, I’d left the board programmed with a cycling set so Dee Dee could just flick a switch and have music for the rest of the night. She did as Graham pulled me into a hug. “The rest of the Microwaves do,” he whispered, as we danced.

  “I won’t say anything,” I promised as he took me through a quick two-step twirl.

  “I wasn’t worried about it.” Graham grinned and put his mouth close to my ear. “What I am worried about,” he said in a low voice, “is you.”

  “Me? Why are you worried about me?”

  Graham gave me another little spin before answering.

  “You’re a great performer, Nina, a real natural. Paulie-Boy was right, we’re gonna have a great tour,” he began.

  “So what are you worried about?” I questioned. I mean, if the music was good and the tour was on, then what was the problem?

  “I’m betting…you’ve never been away for so long, have you?”

  “No,” I answered slowly, wondering what he was getting at.

  “Things change—faster than you think.” He tapped my nose lightly. “She’s outside the bar—go talk with her.” He spun me gently to face the door. “Go!”

  I don’t know why I did it, but I did, slipping through the dancers and other attendees. I stepped out through the door, walked past the vestibule, and saw her, standing a few feet away like she had that first night that felt as close as yesterday and as untouchable as tomorrow.

  Tears shone in her eyes, and she merely watched me as I neared her under the streetlight, and I couldn’t help myself—my hands reached out and gently cradled her face. I kissed that perfect mouth softly, my chest burning as I felt her respond.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever made love with,” I told her as I traced her cheeks lightly with my thumbs.

  Fran blinked and looked down.

  I put my arms around her. “Baby, please…don’t do this to us,” I asked into her ear. She wound her arms around my waist and buried her head into my shoulder, her cheek way too warm against my skin. I could feel her shoulders shake as she cried, could feel her tears slide down my chest.

  “Nina, you hardly let me touch you,” she said thickly, then grazed her lips against my collarbone as her hands dug into my shoulders.

  I didn’t know what to say to that, because it hurt, because it wasn’t true, not really anyway, and her lips on my skin and her hands on my shoulders burned with memory, a fire that left me breathless, caught between hurting and wanting.

  Finally, I found a way to speak through this paralyzing feeling, the cage that constricted my chest and throat, the words that had meaning for me, anyway. “You’re the only one I’ve ever let touch me, love,” I said, the words scratching their way out.

  “No, baby, no,” she corrected as she drew her lips along my neck. She kissed my jawline, then touched my face, her thumb drawing against my chin. “I’m your first.”

  She kissed me, deeply, desperately, those splendid lips against mine, maddening given her words, inflaming despite them.

  “Tell me you don’t love me,” I broke off and said, breathing heavily. I leaned my head against hers. “Tell me you don’t.”

  She kissed the spot right next to me ear. “I’ve always loved you,” she whispered, and clutched me to her fiercely. “I love you right now, more than you can possibly know, and I will love you tomorrow.”

  “Then why…?” I asked helplessly as I held her to me just as tightly. The light breeze that blew over from the Hudson River felt cold on my face as I let the tears run freely down before I buried it in her mane. I breathed in her scent and felt her tremble against me, or maybe it was me trembling against her—I couldn’t tell at all, it didn’t matter.

  “You’re about to go see the world, baby,” she said softly, “and it’s a whole lot bigger than I am.”

  That didn’t make any sense to me at all. “Kitt…do you want me to stay?” I asked quietly, prepared to do ABC anything.

  She laughed softly. “Yes…no…I wouldn’t do that to you,” she smiled at me, “and I wouldn’t want you to do that to yourself.”

  Finally, I let her go and stood back a step. “What can I do?” I asked her. “Does it have to be like this?”

  Fran smiled at me. “Come back. We’ll see where things stand then.”

  I nodded and swallowed painfully. “You let me think this was about Samantha,” I said, pain burning through me in strings that wiggled and twisted under my skin.

  Fran nodded. “I know I did—and I’m sorry about that. I was…um…I overreacted,” she explained, waving a hand in the air. “But…it’s not going to change anything. The fact is,” and she reached into her pocket, “you’ve been in love with her since we were kids—and it’s not fair for you not to find out where that stands now.”

  She pulled her hand out of her pocket. “This…is for you,” she told me, opening her hand to reveal an old-style silver chain with an ankh pendant—similar to the one I used to wear. There was something about the way it shone in the light that it made it look old, too.

  She put it on me, fastening the clasp. She placed her hand over where it lay on my throat and gazed at me.

  “Wear this,” she asked, her eyes deep with meaning as they burned into mine. “Don’t take it off—promise me that.”

  I didn’t know why she asked, but the energy that emanated from her told me there were intentions behind this that were stronger than I knew.

  I folded my hand over hers. “I promise. I won’t take it off.”

  Prompted by instinct, I bent my head to hers, to kiss that mouth I could never resist.

  “Oi there!” Graham’s voice called out. “They want one more song before closing!”

  The moment cracked in two.

  “I’ll be right there!” I called back as I faced her.

  “Go, they’re waiting for you.” She smiled and waved me on.

  I nervously swallowed and agreed. Graham was, in a strange way, about to be my new boss—and I didn’t want to muff it up.

  I started back to the door and had even taken a few steps when my brain snapped back to normal. Fuck it—he wasn’t the boss yet.

  I ran back, caught her up in my arms, and kissed her, one last beautiful kiss that would tell her more than my words would. “You’ll always be my Kitt,” I murmured into her ear, holding her close before I had to let go, “nothing will ever change that.” I’d never spoken truer words in my life.

  I let her go and didn’t look back as I went to the door where Graham waited. He raised his eyebrows at me, but my expression told him nothing as our eyes met. He dropped his gaze and focused on the ground as I passed.

  The place was crowded, and I bumped into Samantha as I moved through the human press to the stage. Caught short, I stopped to look at her, and her blue eyes, almost black in the light, widened as they rested on the ankh that hung around my neck.

  Stretched between rage at the unfairness of everything and the absolute tearing that threatened to rip me down until I was nothing, when her eyes met mine again, I wrapped an arm around her waist, drawing her to me as she closed me against her chest, the thrum of the music I’d programmed bouncing through us.

  “Do you want me to come home with you?” she asked, her voice low and throaty in my ear.

  “Go to Fran—she’s outside. She needs you,” I whispered back as I let her go. I walked to the stage, feeling absolutely nothing.

  I got home after six in the morning, the sunlight beaming. It was the last day, last chance before I left to straighten things out. I looked around my neatly packed stuff. That was good. I’d prepaid my rent, so that was taken care of. I walked out to the train station and hung out with Nico for a while. We stopped by my parents’ for a few minutes because I wanted to see them before I left—well, that, and Nico insisted. It was a little less strained than usual—but not by much. I got an awkward hug from my mom and a vague “Be careful about the water” from my father. Nanny admired my ankh and
didn’t say much else.

  My aunt, my mother’s sister, embraced me warmly and told me to “show them what a Del Castillo’s got,” and I let my cousins, who shared my and Nanny’s old bedroom, monopolize the rest of my time: little Elena and her doll collection and Victoria, who, even though she was too big for it, sat on my lap or rode piggyback while enthusiastically sharing her bug collection and took me through the little infirmary she’d created for Elena’s dolls—they were really sweet kids.

  I spent another hour at the comic book store with Nico before I went home. I knew at least he’d miss me, well him and Victoria, anyway.

  A car would come to pick me up in the morning. I took a shower. With nothing left but to pick out my clothes for the next day and to sleep, I flipped on the lower light, lay down in my bed, and forced myself to think about absolutely nothing—the future was a complete unknown. I must have ABC dozed off because the phone rang.

  “Nina,” I answered sleepily.

  “I need to see you before you go,” Samantha’s voice said urgently in my ear.

  I looked at the little travel clock by the side of the bed. “I’ll never make it to you and get back here in time to get some sleep for tomorrow,” I said, thinking for some reason that she was at the bar. Funny how it never occurred to me to say no.

  “No need, I’m right on the corner.”

  I swung my legs off the bed, walked to the window, and there she was—same overcoat, hair gleaming under the streetlight. I didn’t think about being naked until I felt a chill cross my skin.

  I hung up the phone and grabbed my robe—a new one I’d bought for the trip. Belting it around me, I padded on bare feet out of my bedroom to the door. She was waiting when I got there.

  Her face was pale, making her eyes stand out even more, dark burning holes that pulled me ever deeper into them. “I can’t just let you go again,” her voice was ragged, “I can’t.” She reached for me and I took her hands, pulling her inside.

  “Fran—” I whispered to her as we walked backward toward my room.

  “Has set you free,” Samantha interrupted, and her voice burned with her intensity. She took a hand back and cupped my cheek, her eyes as intense as her words. “I know you love her, but I know, I know, you love me, too—you can’t tell me you don’t.”

  She was right. I couldn’t. I tried, but I couldn’t. God forgive me, but when I looked into her eyes to speak, to say something, anything, the words died in my throat.

  I let myself experience what I really felt for her, all the things I’d closed myself off from, the things I’d told myself, convinced myself, would never be. The reality of Samantha’s closeness flooded through me, the loss and the need, the stark fear of losing this moment, of losing her again, of never having this chance, despite the rawness that I felt to my bones over Fran, the desperate, desperate ache just to be next to my Samantha.

  This was so much more than sexual, deeper, stronger somehow, leaping through my blood and setting icy fire to my belly.

  I kissed her, I finally had her lips on mine, the memory and the promise merging into the beauty of the now, the real, creating an emotional landscape I could read without a single spoken world. I put my hands to her shoulders and slid her coat off her and onto the floor, and I felt her body shift as she kicked her boots off. Her hands were under my robe, caressing the skin of my back, graphing lines of heat that drew me even ABC closer. I fumbled almost frantically for the belt at her waist and the button underneath. She gently grabbed my hand and guided it down her jeans.

  “I have never been this wet before,” she whispered into my ear, and I gasped softly because I swear it felt as if I’d touched myself; I could feel my cunt throb when my fingers encountered the thick and rich proof of her words. “Nina…” she groaned softly, warning me that she needed.

  “Me either,” I confided to her softly, because it was true. I never really had—before. I led her hand to me and she gave a sharp exhale as she softly felt what I’d said. Two sensations bolted through me—one a purely primal need to lay her down, and the other absolute relief and even joy that my body was finally doing the thing it was supposed to.

  “You’re wearing too much,” I murmured, my lips on her neck. I bit lightly against the tendon, then scraped my lower lip against it as we both got rid of her pants. I ran my hands under her shirt and lightly over her breasts, feeling the hardness of her nipples as she pressed into me. I brought my hands to her neck and reversed their position, and in one sudden, savage motion, I ripped her shirt off.

  She shuddered when the air hit her, and I sucked on the skin just under her throat while I undid the front closure to her bra and slid that, with the remains of the shirt, off her shoulders.

  Her mouth was refreshingly cool, soothing my tongue, and she tasted like wine. Her hands slid my robe off my shoulders and tossed it behind her head, and the bed was behind her as she grabbed my hips and pulled me down on top of her, her thigh slipping between mine, pressed firmly against my cunt.

  “Christ!” I gasped, because that truly felt great, and I had never, ever, wanted anyone the way I wanted Samantha. I looked at her face, into her eyes, eyes hooded with desire, and she gave me a slow smile. I returned the pressure she gave me and she rolled under me, slipping against me.

  “I normally…don’t enjoy this that much,” she told me, breathing heavily as we slid against each other, “but you…are the exception.”

  I could feel the rising tide of sex control my face. “Same here,” I smiled back at her, “same here.”

  I lowered my head to that mouth I wanted to drink from again and again, and I reached a hand around her hips, past her ass where her leg flexed into me and found what I wanted. My fingertips pressed very lightly against her opening.

  When her hands, which had been guiding my hips, moved so that her hand dug against my ass and her fingers slid easily between my lips with the other, I leaned heavily into her, against her. I pressed my face to her neck, her head next to mine.

  We rode through the moment, and as we did, I suddenly ABC understood why we had always been told the body is a temple, because as we moved together, I felt like I was praying and Samantha’s body was the altar through which I touched the face of God.

  I don’t know if she felt that or not, but I can say with certainty I was shocked when she surged up against me, rolling me onto my back, her leg still firmly between mine.

  She leaned over me, then kissed me with fierce tenderness, the wine-taste of her mouth dizzying as her fingertips trailed along my chest.

  “I need more of you,” she said, her voice harsh and low with want, “please,” she asked, and she slid her tongue deeply into my mouth and her fingers even farther inside of me.

  “God…” she groaned, her lips against my neck, “you are so wet, love, so wet…” and she drew her tongue hotly against my ear.

  I had frozen a moment when she slipped inside me—the unexpected intrusion, the suddenness of it, catching me short. But I could hear, I could feel that it meant a lot to her, and I forced myself to relax. It wouldn’t hurt me, at worst, and as Cap had said once, I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.

  I let my breath out slowly.

  “Are you okay?” Samantha asked me in the same low voice, her lips nipping lightly at my earlobe, her pussy an irresistible glide on my thigh.

  I could have said no, but that wouldn’t have really been true.

  “Fine, you’re doing fine.” I forced myself to smile. This was okay, I was going to be okay. “I’m…I’m just not…not used to that.” And it was true. Even though Fran and I had made love as often as we could, it was rare that she was inside me—it really just wasn’t my thing.

  Samantha raised her head from my neck and looked at me, her eyes ocean-at-night blue, for once the sorrow that always hovered in their depths gone. “I need you so much, Nina…you make me feel like I’m home.” The chain and sword charm I had given her years ago stuck to the skin below her throat, glint
ing in the half-light of my room.

  And that’s why I let her continue—because everything in me screamed that she was where she belonged: with me, in me. Fuck it. For once, I wanted this, I wanted to know, once and for all, what it was that everyone so enjoyed about this. I didn’t want to just enjoy it in my head, I wanted to feel all of it. Samantha was the ocean I wanted to dive into. I grabbed her ass, pulling her tighter against my leg. “Come home, baby,” I told her as she moved within me slowly, and she kissed my breasts and neck, “come home.”

  I tightened my cunt around her fingers, and she groaned again as I pushed my hips against her, driving her deeper into me and harder against my ABC thigh.

  “I love that,” she rasped out, “the way you hold me in you.” She pushed desperately against my leg, and her ass was so preciously tiny I felt like I could cup the whole thing in my hand. But what I wanted was more, more of Samantha, and I reached around her precious ass to spread her lips against me, so her exposed clit would ride the hard muscle of my thigh.

  I slid my fingers along the length of her cunt and her hips moved, her cunt a thick, wet glide against my leg, amazingly hot, a sublime feel against my fingers as she began to thrust into me.

  I had to be inside her, and I slowly moved against that delicious soft opening, carefully, slowly, moving my fingers against that tight, hot space.

  “God…” she groaned and arched her back, trying to catch my fingers and drive me deeper inside her. But as soft and as wet as she was, her pussy was tight, and I didn’t want to hurt her. Although I’d never felt anyone that wet before, I’d also never felt anyone that tight either, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought, well, honestly? I would have thought she was a virgin.

  “I don’t want to hurt you…” I told her as her pussy pushed at me, urging me.

  “You won’t—I swear,” she gasped, her breath ragged against my lips. “I need you, I want you, inside me.”

  I was full of misgivings. I was so scared I’d hurt her, but she’d made herself vulnerable by asking, and I couldn’t deny her request.