by Devin Sawyer
“Okay, Ace?” I ask one final time.
Another nod of the head is the only go-ahead I need, and I place myself at her entrance and slowly glide into her. When I reach the hilt, I release the breath I was holding and just pause for a moment.
“Fuck,” I hiss out.
She wiggles beneath me, but I’m not ready to move out of her yet, wanting to bury myself in her for all eternity. A small moan leaves her and any shred of control I have snaps as I lean into her and threaten, “If you don’t quit, I am going to come so damn fast.” She quiets, but I can see how hard she is trying to hold back and I begin to move in and out of her taking long strokes. There were many years I ran, never belonging anywhere, but in this moment, I knew what home is again, and I’d just arrived. I find a quick pace that satisfies the ache and I continue to move over Ari, needing her to feel my anger and displeasure roll off of me, but she doesn’t make a sound, heeding my previous words.
Feel me, Ace.
Know me.
Take my pain away.
I grip at her hips, pinning them to the bed and unleash eight years of pent-up desire onto her. I am unrestrained and completely lost in her body. I pick up on the sounds and noises from her that I know means she likes something and I press on, encouraging her to come around me, but I feel her lose her orgasm. I take a new approach and pull out from the confines of her tight body and flip her over. I am immediately rewarded by her heaving chest. She has amazing fucking tits. I enter her again and pump into her from an entirely different angle that makes my balls ache. Ari reaches down and rubs herself in small circles and I am so turned on by the lead she has taken over her body and I am reminded how much she has grown over the years, no longer a dark, angsty virgin. I make the mistake of looking up and I catch Ari’s eyes, still red with shed tears from our earlier fight, and my pace slows, matching the beat of the agonizing organ residing in my chest. I lean down and soothe away her tears. I move to my elbows, leaning over her. We find our pace again, our bodies moving more in sync with each other. I find peace in her eyes, I kiss her forehead and I continue to roll my hips into her. Small whimpers escape her with each thrust.
“You are everything I dreamed of,” I tell her in solace. “I wanted nothing more than to promise you happiness for an eternity, and the first time you are in my bed, your eyes are still puffy with tears that I caused. I wanted better things with you.”
Her lips seek mine out and we meet each other with a crazed slow passion. This sex is like nothing I have ever experienced. Her body tightens for me and I keep the pace, I tweak one of her nipples and she furiously rubs at her swollen clit. Dear God, never let this end. Her body breaks for me, she quiets right before and throws her head back in exhaustion as the groan releases from her body and her orgasm rips through her. I fasten my pace slightly, unable to control my desire as I watch and feel my daydream and nightmare clench around me. I lose myself to the pleasure and drop into her at my own release.
What just happened washes over me. There is no reality like post-orgasmic reality. I’m an asshole and I know it. I finally took the last thing I could from Ari to feel some sort of retribution for my own hurt and I couldn’t even wear a condom while doing it. Not only did I take this from her, I took it from us, tainted us with this memory of hateful sex. It was never supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be everything.
Chapter 30
Ari
I lay there, motionless, with Torren’s weight still bearing into me. It feels suffocating and I am obsessed with it.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and I almost swear I hear his voice crack, but there are no signs of breaking when I stare back at him only to find a stern face that lacks the emotion I am so overwhelmed with. Small tears fleck the corners of my eyes, and I see his face soften for a half moment before he looks down to where we are still conjoined and as quickly as his face softened it twists into a pained expression.
“I didn’t use a condom.” A deep sigh falls from him as if he didn’t even have the energy to keep it in. “I’m clean though. I promise.”
“I’m clean too. It’s okay,” I simply offer.
This is what I always wanted, I couldn’t bring myself to say it aloud, but I always knew. I hadn’t envisioned it happening quite like this, under these circumstances, but what I don’t think Torren understands is that it never mattered to me. Having him mattered to me and I did a horrible thing in lying to him to make that happen and yet I don’t regret a thing...this moment is mine, forever. It’s ours.
I had never seen him like that before. He was bitter, and angry during sex, and yet that didn’t seem to last. I wasn’t worried about Torren losing control, he needed to use me as an outlet, and I have been used for much worse things for people I cared about much less. Torren is worthy of all the good things in life and over the years I can see where his heart has become jaded. The Torren I knew was always kind and loving and light-hearted, playful more than anything, but clearly, there are things that have changed about him. I never even knew him after he went to prison and it’s so obvious he has demons now that I never knew of. I was too busy drowning in my own sorrow to see his hurt and pain. He was an embarrassment to me. I faced my final year of high school filled with taunting about the criminal I had been slumming it with all summer. As if I had done the ultimate summer charity work, the people in that town were a fucking joke. The truth was, I know he sacrificed everything for me, even if it broke me and embarrassed me in the process. Everything Torren has lived through in the past eight years was a sacrifice for me, it is no wonder the man is angry.
I stroke my fingers along his back making my first attempt to comfort the war he is battling, as he continues to catch his breath, he has since pulled out of me and I feel his release slowly leaving me. I feel a balloon in my chest, heavy with years of regret. It is so full and stretched to its capacity willing to break and I have slowly been letting air out over the years, but I can’t hold onto this for even a moment longer. I am finally given my opportunity to break free and breathe freely, so I gulp back a breath and release.
“I love you.”
“Don’t.” His voice is tight and words clipped and he lifts his head peering down at me and only holds my eyes for half a second, unable to stand it anymore.
I take a deep breath because I know this is going to hurt. I know I need to brace myself for it, but I can’t hold it back any longer, I can’t hold my pain in for one more day. Tears brim at my eyes, and despite this, they feel dry and burn. I use everything in me to hold it back because I never pictured it like this. The next words are even harder to say. And it’s selfish of me, but I do it anyway.
“I don’t know how not to.” I emphasize the last three words, hoping he sees the underlying meaning. He shrugs me off of him and into the bed and sits up with his knees over the side. I only know he understands when the next words fall from his mouth.
“Time and time again you tell me how not to, I suggest you learn to do the same. Remember how not to love me, you did it for years.”
He gets up and pulls his jeans on, sans boxer briefs that are nowhere to be found and grabs his shirt. He pulls it on over his taut abdomen and I memorize him and re-write this memory in my head a million different ways before he heads toward the door and leaves me. Alone. In his apartment.
I didn’t think my heart had it in it to break anymore, but I sat there on his bedroom floor, body convulsing, as I let out my pain. Dry heaves wrack my body as it takes in an apartment that in the brief amount of time already smells like the heartbreaking man I love. I cry until my sobs go silent and lie on the plush carpet, gripping the short supple strands in my grasp, willing myself to hold onto anything. I cannot make it through this again, and I have only myself to blame this time.
What can only be hours later, my body is growing sore from either the sex or the gut-wrenching heartache working its way through my body. There is no sign of Torren’s return. I gather my keys and with my remaining strength, I dra
g myself to my apartment two buildings over, text John that I’m requesting the following week off, and fall into the darkness.
~
I let myself hurt. I fall apart the same way I did eight years ago. The breakdowns mirror each other. If you had told me back then that I would be fighting this same hurt again, I would have lived a life filled with depression. The only thing keeping me going was that things had to get better. I eat only when I can’t stand the stomach pains any longer and I lie in bed. My grief fills me. I let myself die a little more each day. By day four, Emily has barricaded herself in the apartment with me, unwilling to leave my side, and is forcing chicken noodle soup down my throat. I don’t want her here, but I don’t want her to leave either. I cry about the loss of Torren, I cry about what I did to Brad to try and keep Torren, and I grieve the loss of him even at work. Things were more exciting the weeks he was there.
“Get your ass up, we are going out.” Emily, Chelsea, and Nadia are in my place, but it’s Emily taking the lead and making demands. As usual. I don’t want to go out.
“Come on, Ari, you’re not even trying to feel better.” Nadia this time.
I don’t want to feel better, feeling joy would seem disrespectful to my heart right now. I want to wallow, I want to open up to the pain again. Chelsea stays quiet. She’s here for moral support, but when I look at her, I see it in her eyes. She remembers the pain too. She remembers losing Jeff. I always feel guilty when she has to watch my pain. I had a second chance, and I destroyed it. I know that.
Em throws an outfit on the bed and tells me to get dressed. I don’t move.
“Let me have a minute with her. I’ll help her get dressed.” Chelsea’s sweet voice rings out and the other girls hesitantly leave my bedroom. I’m not a toddler, I don’t need help. I’m just not going to do it.
When the other girls leave the room, Chelsea sits me up like a rag doll and yanks my T-shirt off me.
“Hey!” I shout at her like an insolent child. I know I’m being a big bag of dicks right now, but I’m also feeling entitled to it.
“I will not watch you do this again.” I’ve never seen Chelsea this direct, she’s passive by nature, and it’s a bit scary. “I will not let you hurt over and over again. If you want him, then go get him, if you want to heal then heal, but don’t bask in this. You will lose everything if you don’t get your shit together. You want that job when John leaves? You need to be in control, Ari. Please, just do something about it.”
My heart almost hurts for her a little bit. Her voice is pained, and her mouth sounds dry.
“I can’t go after him. I fucked things up, I already apologized. If he’s offering forgiveness, then he hasn’t told me yet.” Tears flood my eyes and I try to hold them back because the familiar burn is getting old.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it, but if that’s how you feel, how you really feel then you move on. You fight for everything else good in your life. Love will come.” I was shocked at her bravado. Chelsea dated, but she didn’t love. She hadn’t at least, not since Jeff. Why was she so confident that love was coming?
I didn’t need love. If I knew anything now, it was that Brad had been a companion, but he hadn’t been love. He had pulled me out of my funk and I was grateful for that, always, but it hadn’t been love that I had felt for him. I nodded my head at her. I worked for that job, I worked for this life, I wouldn’t lose it now. I make a promise to myself, in this moment, not to let myself slip again.
She grasped my face between her hands. “Promise me.”
I nodded again. “I promise. I promise I’ll try. I promise I want to feel okay again.”
“Good, the girls and I will help. Stay busy and work for it, the rest will fade when you’re too busy with life.”
I nodded again and let a single tear fall. I let the ache slip out of me. I was going to have to fake it, but I could do that, for them, but most of all for me.
“Now get dressed. We are just going out for dinner and drinks. No clubs or dancing.”
That comforted me. I needed my friends, not to distract my pain with other men. I had learned my lesson there.
~
I return to work the following week. The girls haven’t left my side since the night they all intervened. Some days hurt less than others, but mostly I plaster a smile on my face when I’m around them because I don’t want them to worry and because I am happy to have them. Being back at work is not as difficult as I had expected. We won’t have any major holiday parties until Valentine’s Day and even that is only one day. Keeping busy helps. I begin the search for continued help. Now that we are out of contract with most of our vendors, we have to renew contracts or seek out other companies. I don’t have it in me just yet to find a new security agency, so I start with some of the other departments we will also have to replace. John arrives a little after ten and I greet him when he walks past my office.
“Ari, glad you’re back. Hope you enjoyed your week off.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, I’m feeling much more refreshed now.” A lie, but nonetheless I had nothing else to work toward other than my goal to take over Eventor.
“Meet me in my office in fifteen. I’d like to go over a few things with you.” He walks off not waiting for my response. Nerves tickle my spine. Fear stirs in my gut.
Chapter 31
Torren
I run home. I drive the few hours back to Layton and I crash in on Dad and Gavin watching a basketball game on TV. Their shock registers. I haven’t been home much over the years. Hardly at all. This place reminds me of that night. It reminds me of the pain and that’s why I’m here again. The agony welcomes me home, greeting me at the door like an old friend. I grab a beer from the fridge and join them at the TV. They don’t ask me anything, and I don’t offer an explanation to their questioning stares, they can see something isn’t right. A house full of men never was very good about opening up and sharing. Gavin passes me some beef jerky he was snacking on and I accept it. I zone in on the TV screen and pretend to watch the game. The job is finally over. The second I laid eyes on her I thought I would never want it to end, but here I am so grateful that I never have to see her again. That I never have to be toyed with. I made some poor decisions, no I made some really awful decisions a few years ago, but I’m not convinced I deserved the manipulation I’ve been on the receiving end of for the past six weeks. I get why she wants to hurt me too, but I have a feeling that she didn’t get the gratifying sensation she thought she would from it. We definitely shouldn’t have had sex. I was grasping for closure, and she was grasping for forgiveness. Neither of us wins.
I hole myself up in my old room for a few days, refusing to shower, and drinking away most feelings. Dad and Gavin try at separate times to talk to me, to see what’s going on, but I’m not up for this conversation again, for the same déjà vu bullshit. I go back and forth between denying the hurt she caused and being so angry that I’m not a functional person—she’s rattled me to my core. After days locked up, I only leave for a run when I can’t stand being alone with my thoughts anymore.
Gavin pushes me, while Dad gives me space. I’m not sure which one I dislike more. Gavin shows up daily, inviting himself into my room.
“Get out of bed, dude. This isn’t healthy.” He picks up the whiskey bottle and moves it from my nightstand.
“Hey,” I yell at him, reaching out to take my bottle back.
“You’re destroying your life. Act like a grown up. Forgive her or don’t, but either way, you need to go back and get your life together. You’re worrying Dad sick and he doesn’t need that shit at his age.”
I didn’t mean to stress out Dad. This was the only place I could go to get away, but I could return to my home just outside Houston and still manage to avoid Ari all the same.
“You wouldn’t ever understand what I’ve been through for that girl,” I spit back at him.
“Well maybe if you tried to tell me, I would.”
I don’t respond to tha
t. I love Gavin, but I can’t open up to him, or Dad, about my failure with Ari, again. It feels too close to what happened before and part of me wants to just keep the embarrassment of it all to myself.
On a particularly drunken night, I call Laurie, my old counselor from prison. I should probably call Barb, but all rationality has left with my sobriety. I have to blink one eye shut to focus on the numbers, but after three attempts of dialing the wrong number, I finally get it right. She doesn’t answer, but I leave a pleading voicemail that I need to see her and it’s urgent. I receive a text back a half hour later with her new address and she tells me to stop by tomorrow. She will know what to do. She knew all those years ago. Between the whiskey and her words, I fall into a deep slumber for the first time since I left.
The following day I drive out to her place, a hangover looming, when I find her small rundown apartment on the north side of town. I sit in my truck, contemplating this idea. Why am I here? Who cares? Not Ari, not me, not anyone. When I finally locate her door, I knock on it loudly. She answers the door wearing the clothes I assume she wore into work at the prison that day.
“What are you doing here, Torren?” she asks and I wasn’t expecting the disappointment I hear in her voice, but it matches my own questioning going on in my mind. I was expecting to tell her what happened to me, how my life fell apart in the last few weeks the same way I had all those years ago, and then maybe end up in bed with her again. That was my only plan to make the pain go away. I’m aware it’s not the best one but whiskey tricks my mind into thinking it will work. I’m so tired of seeing Ari’s face. I see it everywhere. I am a haunted man. I let myself into her apartment, striding by her and plop down on her couch in the living room.