“Stop worrying,” he says against my lips. He’s right; I should let it be. I follow Jem’s lead—tongue, and lots of it; hands in hair; fronts pressing closer and closer together.
Jem needs a brief break to cough, so I kiss his neck while his mouth is occupied.
“I’m sorry.”
I don’t accept apologies in bed. I want his mouth back, now. The easy resuming of our activity seems to please Jem. He doesn’t question it, at least, and his self-conscious timidity is forgotten in the midst of having his lower lip sucked.
That tension begins to creep back when I kiss his ears, though. His hands are on my breasts, teasing me gently. I ask if he needs a break to rest and Jem sighs against my mouth. “Can you take my pants off?”
“You sure?”
And then he gives me a pair of quiet, wonderful words: “I’m ready.” He doesn’t mean that he’s hard, because we both know there’s a slim chance of that happening no matter what we do, but he’s ready to show me everything. Underwear doesn’t hide much, but it gives the illusion of being covered. He’s not truly naked with shorts on.
He’s got Pac Man on his boxers. I think it’s cute. He thinks my plain black cottons are boring. Since we’re teasing, I slip my hand through the fly of his boxers and stroke the skin along his upper thigh. I tease, but touch nothing he wants me to.
Jem’s fingers brush against the outside of my underwear. I palm his balls—briefly—before I go back to teasing. He shivers against me, delighted and afraid at once.
“We’ll stop if it hurts,” I promise him. Jem nods and leans in for a kiss.
“Feels good,” he admits softly.
“Can I see all of you?”
Jem hesitates. “You first.” I obligingly slide my underwear down and kick them away. I want to take the loving look he gives me, seeing everything, and give it right back to him.
My hands settle on his hips. “May I?”
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
Jem sits up halfway and lifts his bum off the mattress while I push away his shorts. I slip them down past his hips, and he helps kick them the rest of the way down his legs. It only takes Jem a moment to regret his decision to take it all off.
“Lie back.” Jem complies, but he leans on his elbows instead of fully reclining and keeps his knees drawn up like he doesn’t trust me. I work around that, lying across his lap and kissing his thighs.
Jem sighs and ever so reluctantly parts his knees a few more inches. I take my time with him, making every touch a gentle, worshipful gesture. Jem manages to thoroughly enjoy himself.
“God,” he says, and pulls away slightly. His thumb brushes my moist lip and he says, “Give me a minute.”
“You okay?”
“Need to breathe.” He leans back on the pillows and pulls in a few deep lungfulls.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmur, and run my hands up his thighs and torso. Jem’s skin is pleasantly flushed and slightly damp with sweat.
“Can we work on you for awhile?” he says when he’s regained some breath. I tell him to do as he likes, and he shifts down to be face level with my chest. He looks so happy, grinning like a sweet idiot before laying his weight on my chest with an appreciative hum and kissing every inch of available skin. I could get used to this—this feeling of being appreciated. Jem is going to spoil me.
I hear him mutter ‘peaches’ as he takes my right breast in his hand. He flattens his tongue against my nipple and blood rises to the surface all over my skin. My blush amuses him.
“Like that, huh?” Jem echoes my sigh of pleasure as his lips close around my nipple, sucking it gently. It’s one of my favorite feelings—to be flicked between his tongue and lip, and the near-pain of it when my nipple grazes the edge of his teeth. He licks away the stinging pinches of his teeth and moves to the other breast.
“You have the best tits ever,” he says between kisses. I wonder if that sounded more eloquent in his head, but decide I really don’t care. I like this relatively uninhibited Jem.
He gives my left breast as much attention as the right, in the interest of fairness, and then leans up to kiss me.
“My neck,” he says against my lips. I shift to give him what he desires: open mouthed kisses, licks and nibbles along his neck and collarbone. It drives him crazy, especially the skin below his ears.
“God,” he murmurs, and moves his hand up my thigh. Jem’s hand is shaking, but he’s gentle and he knows what he’s doing. The first five seconds alone are better and gentler than any other hand I’ve ever had down there, and then he starts to play with me.
“Damn.” I pant against his neck. “Twelve years of music pays off.” Jem chuckles at that and stifles a cough.
“Yes?”
“More.” I’m not sure what I mean by that, but he does. I bite down on my lip as he changes the tempo, driving the sensation deeper into my skin. It’s heaven.
“Inside?” he breathes. How sweet of him to ask.
“Please.” So what if I can hardly breathe? He can; that’s all that matters. I take him in. We moan in unison and I have the bizarre impulse to call jinx. Jem turns back to my breasts, kissing and suckling at my nipples. He can’t hold in a few small coughs. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t care.” I touch as much of his skin as possible while I rock back and forth on his hand, compounding the pleasure his fingers give me.
“Neck?” I offer. Jem leaves my breasts for the moment to expose his neck to me. He’s earned some attention of his own.
Jem’s unoccupied hand goes to my knee and makes me straighten it. He’s mewling from the kisses I place higher on his jaw, just below his ear, as he straddles my leg and rests his weight on my hip.
“Yes,” I encourage him. He’s still soft, but his cock is tucked between us, subject to gentle thrusting against my skin as he continues to touch me.
Jem moans into my mouth and I think I heard ‘I love you’ on the end of that.
“I love you too.”
“So good…”
“More?” I should be careful what I wish for. Jem shifts his hand and the room promptly melts away. I couldn’t care less about trivial nonsense like breathing right now, arched into his chest, throat open with a soundless scream. He rides the high out with me. Jem holds my gaze and never looks away—I couldn’t if I tried.
“Beautiful,” he whispers with tender awe, and lies his head on my shoulder. His hand keeps moving slowly while I gasp for breath, giving me a break, but not a rest. He fully intends to make me come again once we both catch our breath—he tells me so in between leaving little love bites on my neck.
He’s still moving against me, thrusting gently for his own pleasure. I cup his ass, smooth and lightly sheened with sweat, and encourage him.
“When we can do this for real…” he whispers in my ear. “God, I can’t wait to make love to you.” I nod in agreement. It’s nice to want the same things and have it feel so right.
We focus on him for a little while. He continues to rock against my hip. I kiss his ears and neck, encouraged by a steady stream of half-coherent compliments. My nails across the back of his shoulders make him shiver.
“Feels so damn good…”
A shout snaps me out of the bubble of bliss. It’s just a momentary cry, and then the rest of it is muffled in the pillow where Jem buries his face. His groan is long and pained. His back curves with tension and I feel his groin twitching against my skin. There’s a feeling of warm wetness as Jem trembles around me.
“Jem?”
He tries to lift his head from the pillow and I can see his face screwed up in pain. His breath comes in short gasps as he tries not to make a sound.
“Lie down.” I put a hand on the back of his head and he readily drops back down to the pillow with a moan.
“Hurts,” he says into the bedding.
“I know, I know. It’ll pass. Just relax.” I curl my wrists around the backs of his thighs and feel the muscles tremble. His
lower back carries similar tension, and the muscles in his groin are as tight as untried springs.
“Where’s your heart beating?”
He lets a shaky breath out into the pillow and doesn’t answer. I didn’t expect him to.
“Feel it in your fingertips.”
It takes ten minutes of this, trying to relax Jem with words and massaging hands, before the worst of the pain has abated. He rolls onto his side and looks us both up and down warily. When he sees the mess he made between us, his cheeks turn bright red.
“Oh shit,” he says hopelessly.
“I’ll get a cloth.” I get up and go to the bathroom. I wipe myself off first and then take a wet washcloth back to the bedroom. I find Jem kneeling on the bed, supporting himself with his arms and looking sadly at the wet spot on the sheets.
“Here.” I make a move to clean him and he turns toward me with a pained expression.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It was an accident.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
Jem closes eyes and hangs his head. “God, I’m fucked up.”
I kiss the back of his neck. “You’re perfect.” He’s having a moment, and I let him. I kneel behind him with my front pressed to his back and wrap an arm around his middle. My other hand trails the wet cloth between his legs, tenderly wiping away the mess.
“Are you okay?” he asks hoarsely.
“I’m fine.”
“It, um…you may get a rash where I…where my…” He trails off in embarrassment and I squeeze him tighter.
“From your medication?”
Jem nods. “You should wash well.” He tries to sound composed, but it only makes him sound distant.
“Shower with me? We both need to unwind.” Jem nods his assent, and it’s only after we’re standing under the spray together that he starts to come back to himself. He insists on washing me, soaping my skin with quiet devotion.
“Let me take care of you.”
My back is pressed to his front as he washes me. Every few seconds I feel a kiss on my scalp or neck, shy but loving. His hand lingers guiltily between my hips.
“I don’t hold it against you,” I tell him. “You’re still the best I’ve ever had.”
I look over my shoulder and find Jem trying not to smile. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better, aren’t you?”
“No, I mean it. You actually paid attention. You were generous. I loved it.”
Jem rests his cheek on the top of my head. “It shouldn’t have ended like that.”
“There will be other chances. It won’t always be painful.”
“I’m sorry.”
I extend my arms back to give Jem an awkward hug. “Next time we get you off first, okay? We’ll control it, together.”
The sigh he blows across my scalp is shaky. “Thank you.”
*
I ask Jem not to get dressed after our shower. Instead, he opens the front tie of his bathrobe and lies face down on the bed. I open a bottle of lotion and massage it into his skin, trying to help him relax his leg and back muscles. I can still feel the odd spasm under my hands, though Jem insists he isn’t in much pain.
“Do you need your oxygen?” I ask as I press my thumbs along his hamstring.
“No, I’m fine.” He helps me arrange the bathrobe to keep him warm while exposing new skin to be oiled and rubbed. I spend some extra time on his lower back and bum. Just a little. Jem reaches over and turns on the iPod dock on his nightstand. Classical string music is the first thing that comes on.
“Leave it,” I say when he moves to change the song.
“You sure?”
I nod and press the dimples above his hips. Jem hums with pleasure at the gentle pressure and sighs contentedly when I work little circles into his muscles.
“Willa.”
“Mmm?”
Jem turns his head to the side and reaches for my hand. His cool fingers twine with my moist ones and he smiles. “I feel beautiful.”
Forget the lotion. I abandon the job and crawl forward to lie next to him, cradling our twined hands between us. “I’m happy.”
“You’re a good person,” he murmurs. “You made some awful decisions, but that doesn’t make you bad.” I don’t entirely agree him, but I think it’s sweet that he believes in my goodness. I lean in to give him a kiss and make a promise that I think I can actually fulfill, “I’ll be good to you.”
“Likewise.”
*
Jem is playing his cello again. His hands are getting better and the rubber finger sheaths help. Today the music is light and happy. I listen from the other room while I make lunch. No soup on the menu today; it’s warm rice with olive oil and pear cooked in honey for lunch.
Jem tells me about his song when we sit down to eat. He was in the middle of composing it when he got sick, and for the past year it’s been on hold; he says he wants to rewrite the melody to sound happier.
“Is that so?”
Jem gives me a charming smile and takes my hand on the tabletop. Lunch is a slow affair because Jem has to chew thoroughly and take small bites in between the coughs, but it’s time spent together.
Eric and Ivy return home just as I clear away our plates. Eric is disappointed that there isn’t any food left.
“Was she okay? Did you guys get her settled?” Jem asks of Elise. He makes it sound like they dropped her off in a war zone.
“Relax, she’s fine,” Eric says. “She’ll be Little Miss Popular by the end of the day.” This closes the issue for him. Eric offers to cheer Jem up with a game or two. Playing with the Wii is usually Elise’s thing, so it’s an understandable sentiment.
“I’m too tired,” Jem says.
“It’s going to be boring around here without Elise.” Eric turns to me and declares, “You’re our de facto Elise until she gets back. Crouch down, you’re too tall.”
I leave the dishes in the sink and give Eric a shove. “Come on, I’ll have a game with you.” He leaves to set up the system in the living room and Jem mouths “Thank you” behind his back.
“Will you play some more?” I ask, and give him a few soft kisses to sweeten the deal. Playing his music takes his mind off missing Elise, at least. It makes him happy in such a fundamental way.
While Eric spazzes and flails in front of the TV, I listen to Jem test notes beside each other, retracing his steps across bars to alter the tempo and talking to himself when it goes right.
I think I’ve finally killed him.
Jem: June 28 to 29
Wednesday
“God damn it, Eric.” I take out my phone and call him. I get a busy signal. He was supposed to wait at the school for me to write my exam. Mrs. Brett cut it down from three hours to one for me, and instead of an essay I had to do an oral interview about the novel with her (I think she knows I only read the Coles Notes). An hour is not that long to sit in the parking lot and wait for me.
I walk across the lot to the picnic tables and sit down to wait for him. It’s interim week—the time between the end of the regular school year and the start of summer courses—so the parking lot is empty apart from employees’ cars. It’s weird to look around and see this place so vacant.
I used to hate it here. School was the worst part of my day, with the stares and the fatigue and knowing that I wasn’t living up to my academic potential because I was just too sick to work. I have a lot of horrible memories of this place, but there are some good ones, too. Some from this very picnic table, actually. How many times did I stalk Willa out here? We plotted domination of Greenland with an army of seagulls. We exchanged music and talked about inconsequential junk. I had her all to myself for a little while, away from the people who made me feel like a freak. This bench was our little island of normalcy, because even when Willa was poking fun at me, she treated me like a real person.
God, she was a bitch. I smile stupidly at the memory of how much I loved to hate her at first. If someone
had told me then that in a few short months, she would have me stripped to the core and teaching me to love myself again, I’d never have believed it. I wouldn’t have believed her to be a good person, either, or understood that even the best intentions can manifest in horrible, cruel ways. I couldn’t sympathize with a person whose mistakes were too big and too permanent to be fixed before I knew Willa. I still don’t understand her pain, just like she doesn’t completely understand mine, but we try…and sometimes we reach an understanding.
She was wrong about forgiveness, though. I probably won’t ever agree with her decision to help Thomasina die the way she did, but I can forgive her for being that person. She’s learning to love herself again too, and I can’t have her thinking that I’d withdraw my love and esteem based on something she can’t change. It would kill me if she did that, so I won’t do it to her. I’ll come to terms with why Thomasina’s death upsets me, one day at a time.
A car drives by in front of the school, punctuating the silence. I’m alone out here apart from my memories, and it feels liberating in a strange way. I can be here and not be stared at. I’m just me, without context, enjoying the afternoon sunshine on a picnic bench.
The idea makes the hairs on the backs of my arms stand up, like I’m about to do something mischievous. That thrill is half the fun. I look around first, even though I know there’s nobody here, and I pull off my hat. It’s too hot for wool, anyway.
I haven’t felt a real breeze on my scalp for almost a year. I run my hand over my hair, trying to do something about the hat-head. The strands are thickening and filling out now. It looks almost like a really amateur buzz cut, since there’s a bald spot above my ear and my hairline is still lopsided.
A seagull trots past on its way to forage the garbage cans and stares at me.
“That’s right,” I tell it. “It’s growing back.”
The stupid bird squawks at me and I tell it to go shit on the principal’s car. An animal that stupid ought to be good for something, at least.
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