A War Like Ours

by Saffron A Kent

  How strange and…exhilarating.

  It’d been almost a week since we’d met at the bench by chance. And every day since, he had turned up at the exact spot by the tree.

  Every day started the same way. I ran to my bench and waited for him, and James found me there. He’d walk up to me, messy, kind of sleepwalking. He’d touch my tears, catch them on the tips of his fingers. He’d be equally disgusted and fascinated.

  Then he would kiss me, and I’d kiss him back. We’d collapse into each other, sometimes against the tree, sometimes on the ground. The darkness just before dawn shielded us from all things. We’d be fully dressed aside from our abandoned pants. Somehow, it made everything even more uncontrolled and dirty and accidental, like we happened to see each other, fell, and started fucking. We couldn’t control ourselves. There would never be any foreplay. There wasn’t any need of it. We were always ready, panting, leaning toward each other.

  He always started with a tender kiss, a tender and terrifying kiss. His gentle lips scared the crap out of me. Men were incapable of tenderness, and I refused to believe anything else. I didn’t know what his deal was with being soft, but I always shut that shit down.

  We’d have scratches or splotches of dirt stuck to us, yet the rough texture around us would feel like satin. Sometimes, I’d be on top, riding him, pressing my hands on his chest, trying to bury him in the muggy ground. Then he’d flip me over on my back and do the same with me. Sometimes, he’d fuck me from behind, kneading my ass, scraping it with his nails, like he hated me. Those were the times I came the hardest. My body convulsed, and I would feel him and his anger everywhere. Being treated like dirt made me go off like a firecracker, apparently.

  Despite the variations, we always came together. Something between us was in sync, perfectly aligned. We never acknowledged it.

  It took me a couple of days, but I noticed we never said anything when we fucked. He never said my name while coming. I never gasped any pleas to God while he moved inside me. I never said I wanted more, harder, rougher. He never said I was beautiful coming around his cock. We’d grunt, moan, groan, writhe, but no words would come out. The sex rendered us speechless. I had to give it to him, he found the perfect way to shut my big mouth up.

  We’d dress beside each other. He’d always move away or turn his back to give me privacy. But I’d watch him even though he refused to watch me. I was creepy that way. Not that there would be anything to see. He always kept his shirt on, only sliding his pants down his thighs. Was it because he didn’t want me to see all of him, or was it because he was hiding something? I hadn’t asked him yet. I knew he wouldn’t answer me that easily.

  Then would come the weirdest part, the part where if I looked up at the sky, I’d find flying pigs or maybe even snow in summer. After dressing in haste, we lingered. Lingered. Instead of running back screaming to the safety of our homes, we found ways to stick longer. Ways like, he’d brush dirt off my hair, sifting his fingers through my strands, or I’d straighten the button of his shirt, trying to cop a feel. And then, just like that we’d slip into a conversation. A decent conversation. Throw in the talking monkeys, too, I’d say. Anything was possible.

  ****

  “Tell me a dream,” I’d said the first day of our forbidden park rendezvous.

  We’d been standing by the tree, my arms around his neck, playing with his wet hair. This meant he’d gone skinny dipping without me. I imagined touching his bare chest, his silky stomach, but he never let me. Why wouldn’t he let me?

  He caged me in with his arms on the tree, his breath tickling my nose. “What kind of dream?”

  “Anything.” I waved my hand over his eyes, closing his lids. “Tell me what you see now.”

  His lips parted, his breath coming out in puffs. “Water. It’s dark.”

  “Can you touch it? What does it feel like?”

  “Yes, I can touch it. I’m in it. It’s cold. I’m shivering.” A shudder ran through him.

  My heart pounded. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, making my chest hurt. “Always.”

  “What else?” My arms circled his shoulders, my fingers tracing the ridges of his throat, his fluttering pulse.

  “I’m drowning, I think. I try to come up, but my legs feel heavy, I can’t move them. I can’t breathe.” He dug his hips into mine, his cock stabbing against my stomach. “I think I…I think I’m going to die.”

  His eyes whipped open, black more than gray. Somehow I knew it. Others would piss their pants, but my broken superhero with no red underwear would be turned on by the prospect of drowning. He slid his hands from the tree to my throat, and I stopped breathing for a second. “Do you ever imagine struggling for breath? Someone or something choking you so you thrash and writhe and fight for life?”

  He increased the pressure on my throat, not enough to choke but enough to scare me and turn me on. So. Fucking. Much. Oh, and question my mental health. Let’s not forget that.

  He rested his forehead against mine and licked my trembling lips. “Tell me, Madison, do you ever imagine how dying must feel? Knowing that, no matter what you do, it’s not going to be enough?”

  I shook my head. No, I didn’t imagine dying. Who would? But now I wanted to. For him. In any case, with his cock hard against my pussy, his fingers around my neck, I couldn’t think much of anything. Then he moved away, only to push my shorts and his pants down our legs so he could thrust inside me in one smooth motion.

  I gasped inside his mouth, my eyes fluttering closed. So good. This was beyond good. Better than shooting coke up my veins. I’d tried it once and then danced half-naked for hours around the bonfire. With James inside me, I could go for days.

  His fingers were still around my throat as he moved with a speed I didn’t think he was capable of before now. Frantic. Desperate. Rabid.

  “I do. I imagine it,” he gasped, still moving, chasing after his climax. “I imagine fighting for life, adrenalin rushing through my blood. So much energy that it makes me feel alive.”

  I moaned as he tightened his fingers around my throat, making it hurt. One more thrust, and I came, arching against him, my eyes rolling back. My orgasm triggered his, and he came inside me just like always, jerking, groaning, his face tucked in my shoulders as his fingers slipped free from around my neck.

  “Like now?” I panted, referring to his earlier statement about fighting for breath.

  “Exactly like now,” he mumbled against my skin.

  I tugged on a strand of his hair. “Is this your version of dirty talk?”

  His shoulders shook as he chuckled, still breathing against my neck. “Is it working?”

  Oh yeah, it was. I squeezed my pussy with him still inside me. “Couldn’t you tell?”

  He grew hard again, hard and big, and ground his hips against mine. Before long, we were at it all over again. By the time we finished, I stumbled back home in a daze.

  ****

  “Red door. I dream of a red door sometimes,” James said, a couple of days later.

  We hadn’t bothered to dress yet. Instead, we opted to roll around naked in the mud.

  No, not really. We were crazy, but not that crazy. I hoped.

  Anyway, we just lay there, me on my back, looking up at him, and him on his side, his head propped up in his hands, looking down at me.

  “What does it do?”

  “It’s the front door of the house I grew up in.” He sighed, looking away from me. “When my father left, I’d stare at it for hours, hoping he’d come back. He had a habit of just snapping it open. One second everything is silent in the house, and the next, the door is banging against the wall. My parents fought about that a lot. I think he did it on purpose to upset her. I remember hating it. It was too loud for me.” He ran his hand through his mussed-up hair. “But when he left I wanted him to do just that—snap it open and bang it against the wall. So my mother would shout from her study or at least get out of there. She spent days cooped up
in there, never coming out.”

  “Never?”

  He shook his head. “There was one time when I didn’t see her for almost a week. I knew she was in there though. I would come back from school, and her study door would be locked. She used to get upset if I knocked so I would leave her alone.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Eleven, twelve, I guess, the first time it happened, anyway.”

  “It happened more than once?” I asked, horrified. “How…what did you eat?”

  He threw me a sad smile. “I knew how to cook, Madison. I learned. It’s okay. I didn’t go hungry. It was the part where I had to eat all alone that bothered me.”

  It was a silent battle for me to not hold him then. Looking away from him, I remembered what he said the first time we spoke about his job, the connections he was looking for. “Did you ever find it, the connection you were talking about? Did you ever find it with your dad?”

  “Yes, I think I did.”

  “What is it?”

  He smiled sadly once again. “Like him, I…hurt the people I care about.”

  Oh James.

  “Do you know why he left?”

  His shoulders tightened under his mud-splattered shirt. “He was a musician. He played the guitar. They were going on a tour, and he said he couldn’t handle the responsibility of a family. That’s what my mother told me, at least. I know he left because of me. Because I’m wrong in the head.”

  I traced my finger on the lines of his forehead, and his hair tickled my skin. It was soft like fur; I could touch it forever. “What’s wrong in there?”

  “Everything,” he whispered, catching my fingers in his hands. Then he told me about his lethargy, his morbid thoughts. He said it was never-ending, pervasive, and it had always been like this, ever since he was a little boy. “Pain helps me focus, or I’d never get out of bed. I don’t think it gets more insane than this.” He chuckled/grimaced, an absurd combination.

  Okay, fuck not touching him. I’d already touched him everywhere. What’s one more place? With trembling hands, I touched his face, stroked his jaw like I’d always wanted to do. “No, it’s not insane or crazy. It’s not anything. That’s a way of dealing with life. I cry and you punch a bag. It’s not wrong. Misery is beautiful.”

  “Are you calling me beautiful?”

  “Uh, no,” I scoffed. “Your nose is too long to be beautiful, not to mention, the dimple on your chin just makes you look…you know, ugly, for the lack of a better word.”

  He bent over me, giving me all of his weight. The hard ground scraped against my half-naked back, but I didn’t mind. Scratches and rashes could wait until he was done with me.

  “So I’m ugly, huh?” he growled, rubbing his long…beautiful nose against mine.

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Yet you think about me all the time.” He pinned my arms above my head.

  “Never. As soon as I leave here, I forget about you,” I teased.

  “Is that right?” He traced the pulse on my wrist, rubbing his cock against my panties. “Then maybe I should try a little harder.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe not. I think I should let you go. I wouldn’t want to impose my ugly face on you.” He tried to lift himself up, but I grabbed on to his hair and shoved his face into mine.

  “Shut up and kiss me.”

  He laughed softly and did just that.

  ****

  “What does it feel like?” James touched my tears and asked. He bit his bottom lip, as if analyzing the simple act of crying.

  “It feels cathartic, I think,” I said, straddling his lap on the bench.

  He was wet all over as he always was. What was in that lake? Somehow, I knew it would have something to do with his wife. That nameless blue-eyed blondie. The one who blamed James for Katie. Bitch. Yup, I was going to hell. But hey, wasn’t I going there anyway? What was one more crime?

  “I don’t know exactly, but it’s, like, if I don’t do it, I feel off all day. At this point, it’s more mechanical than anything else.” I shrugged. “But as I said, it doesn’t help. So you aren’t missing much.”

  Then he did a strange thing, a very strange thing. He kissed my forehead, a whisper of a kiss that was hardly there, but I felt it all over.

  “It’s a mirror,” I whispered. “You know, my version of a red door. Whenever I want to look at my mom, I look in the mirror. And lo and behold, she’s there, alive and well. That’s why I never took any photos of her with me when I ran away from home.”

  “Why did you run away?”

  Shit. Never should’ve said that. “Well, because, you know, my mom died and I died with her. There was nothing for me there.”

  He didn’t believe me, his forehead creased in a confused frown. Obviously, he didn’t believe me. I couldn’t lie to him about anything.

  “What about your stepfather? What happened to him?”

  “Nothing.”

  Again, he didn’t believe me. Time for some distraction. No, not sex. Something crappy.

  “What about your wife?” I bugged my eyes out. “What’s her name? How did you guys meet?”

  He clenched his jaw, even though I could see he knew what I was doing. Mission successful. He was thoroughly distracted and provoked. I added fuel to the fire. “Tell me about her.” When he didn’t say anything, I goaded him, gyrating my hips on his lap. “You can’t, can you? It’s like this big, dark secret, and if you tell me, you’ll spontaneously combust or something. Isn’t it?”

  I ran my hands over the contours of his chest, the swells of his lean pectorals, and the dip of his stomach while his unruly hair kept raining drops on him. God! He was so fucking sexy that I wanted to somehow, someway crawl inside him. “So are you gonna glare at me or are we gonna fuck?”

  His eyes smoldered. “Oh, we’re definitely going to fuck.”

  I paused a moment to just let the way he said “fuck” wash over me. Every time he cursed, he made me want to shout it off the rooftops.

  He heaved me up by the waist and all but pushed me down to the ground. He tore at my clothes, shoved his cock inside me, fucking me into oblivion.

  Those were the times when we truly realized what this was all about. The conversations, the accidental intimacy that had come between us these past days clouded the real purpose of it all. It was simple, really. We were two people who couldn’t not fuck each other.

  These small manipulations, these tiny wars kept everything in perspective. They gave us hope that we wouldn’t lose ourselves in each other.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Madison

  I’d just gotten off the phone with Lily. She was doing well, spending time with her family, who apparently, hadn’t known about the abuse before she showed up at their door. Now they were out for Josh’s blood. Fantastic. I was happy for her.

  It felt good to hear her voice and the coos of my goddaughter. I thought I’d suck at this godmother business, but no, I managed to make her laugh with my voice twice. Two times. A baby laughed because I was talking nonsense.

  Now I stood behind the glass doors of the play/gym area, watching James glare at a little boy who couldn’t be more than ten or eleven. The mid-morning sun all but roasted the skin and heat slithered in the air. It had been a few hours since James and I had the major angry fuck at the bench where I’d asked about his wife. I almost missed our easy banter and conversations. But as I said, I had to do it to get him off my back.

  I watched Katie, James, and the boy playing ball together. James was teaching Katie the tricks, though she kept missing the catch. I sympathized. I’d never been very athletic, unless you counted jump and roll in the bed in the name of sex.

  But why the hell was James glaring at that boy? Pushing open the door, I stepped out. Shading my eyes from the sun, I walked over to them, winding my way through people tanning. The trio stood beneath the shade of a sprawling tree, close to the lake, passing the ball to each other.

  Katie’s eyes wid
ened as she saw me creeping up behind James. I placed my finger on my lips, asking her to be silent, and she threw me an impish grin. I leaned over to James’ ear and hissed, “Boo!”

  He didn’t even move a muscle. “I know it’s you.”

  Busted. I came to stand beside him. “Great. You’re such a party pooper. You were supposed to get scared,” I whined, nudging him with my shoulder, and his lips twitched with a smile. “But seriously, I’m impressed. You kind of have ninja skills.”

  He gave me a side-glance. “And apparently, you don’t. You make too much noise while walking.”

  He caught the ball and threw it to the boy, his long fingers and bronzed arms swinging with a grace I’d never seen before. Like dancing but not really. Something as smooth as that but more…rugged. Okay, that did not make sense but whatever.

  “Do you dance?” I asked.

  “What?” He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “You know, where people wave and shake hands and stuff or just jump around to the music.”

  “I don’t think so. I am not a very good dancer.” Another catch, another pass. This time his shirt flexed with his shoulders, and I wanted to tear it off so he’d have to play without it.

  “Huh, could’ve fooled me,” I muttered.

  He gave me another suspicious glance before going back to the game and, well, glaring. Yup, that reminded me…

  “Why’s there steam coming out of your ears?”

  He took his turn and then said in a low tone, “She likes him.”

  “What, who?” I studied Katie and the boy. She was giggling, and the boy looked kind of disgusted. “Oh, you mean, Katie likes him?”

  James widened his stance and crossed his arms as if to scare the boy away.

  “You don’t like that she likes someone.” Again silence. “Is that why you’re playing?”

  “She thinks he’s the smartest boy ever because he helped her draw a…boat, a small boat, and because he can play ball,” he muttered, throwing the ball, looking pissed off.