Liarholic

by Kingsley Ash

Her body shakes like an earthquake hit her. She tightens around my cock, kisses my neck.

  ‘Stay inside me . . . I don’t want to forget.’

  ‘You’re killing me, Amylocks,’ I groan, a tinge of desire rising in me again. ‘I could come by just kissing you,’ I whisper.

  I lean into her more, tipping her head up and kissing her to alleviate her arousal. Her lips are sweet against mine. My spent cock slips from Amy’s body despite her efforts to keep me inside her.

  My eyes open slowly and connect with hers. My hand cups her cheek, fingers smoothing through her sunshine hair. I stare at her in the spell of afterglow, riding the high that she used to love me, is in the past where it fucking belongs.

  What matters in the here and now, after being apart for so long, is us engaging in an intoxicating night of non-stop touch. Yeah, fucking in every way imaginable, but also a tenderness we rarely show each other. Hands held, arms wrapped around torsos, lips kissing lips and fingertips.

  In bed, I lie back on my chest, and Amy rests her cheek against my torso, most likely feels the reverberation of my happiness echo through her own body like a ripple across a pond. And it’s like Amy’s heart beats back a harmony of her own happiness.

  There’s no beauty inside me. I love her because she loves the ugly in me, and for nothing else.

  She shined her light into my darkness, and destroyed everything in my starless world. I’ve been convincing myself I’m not for her.

  I’m the poison in her heart. She’s the cure to my dead soul.

  I keep burning around her like I’m a planet too close to the sun. Without her, I’m cold as ice. And I realise now. The truth. I’m done fighting this stranger-thing feeling.

  Done.

  I want Amy more than I want to fucking breathe. Her bones are made from emeralds, she is that precious. The thought of another man touching that soft, magical, sunshine brain hair makes me want to destroy the world for her.

  I need Amy Earhart to be MINE.

  Love? It’s not a good enough word. The burning thing in me feels a lot more powerful than any romantic little word like that.

  My father’s identity has tormented my head, drowned me in doubts whether my love for Amy is true or tainted. Deep in my gut, I know she isn’t wrong. We don’t share the same damn father. This love isn’t infected. It’s the purest fucking thing in my world.

  And that’s the single truth in my whole fake goddamn life.

  49

  ME

  Amy’s face is like ice, staring off to one side of the phone screen. I know it's my fault she looks like that. Hell, I don’t expect her to forgive me for lying.

  Broken promises.

  Hurtful lies.

  Can't undo that. A sick side of me doesn’t want to.

  In the past, I figured staying away was a good way to protect her, from hurt, from me. That didn't work out, so now I've got her right in my hand where I can protect her. From everybody else, but not from me. Haven't figured out how to do that yet.

  ‘We can have dinner together,’ I say.

  ‘Dinner?’ she says and looks at me with this curious little hope in her eyes. Screw air, food, water. I could just about live on that look.

  ‘Well, I'm gonna have you for dinner, but I’m gonna cook up something for you to eat, too.’

  That's not a joke. When she comes round, I eat my dinner out of her from a handful of bites. She lies back on the bed, all willing and totally indifferent.

  ‘No, we're not playing that game tonight,’ I say darkly.

  Sex isn’t enough. Never was.

  ‘We'll play whatever game you want,’ she says, but too slowly. She's not paying attention to me. Gone off to the land of fluffy bunnies or wherever she goes to get away from me.

  Something’s bothering her. Has been for days.

  My true identity has been kept a secret my whole life, because of lies.

  All secrets are pain. All secrets become dark.

  I’m done with the lies.

  And I’m done with her locking me out.

  ‘You say that, but we play your game as often as we play mine. How's that work? Big monster playing the little girl's game. Who's in charge here?’

  ‘What is my game?’ she says.

  Like she doesn't know. Like she doesn't use that coldness against me.

  I grab her wrists, pin them above her head with one hand, and trap her under my weight. I love the feeling of her breathing under me, moving restlessly, finding possible escape routes. She doesn't do that tonight. She lies perfectly still, except when I lean down to kiss her mouth. But when I’m done, she looks away.

  Anywhere but me.

  ‘That game, that game, where you pretend you don’t care. That's your game and we ain't playing it tonight. Look at me,’ I rasp.

  I grab her, turn her face back to mine, but her eyes are closed. She doesn't even bother to squeeze them tight. She just doesn't open them.

  How the hell did Amy get this kinda control over me?

  ‘Fucking look at me,’ I say and I know I sound crazy-mad. Nothing like her cold, usable anger, but hot and — and this is the point where I usually do or say something that she's afraid of. Where I hurt her. Kind of on accident, but mostly in a rage. Worthless rage, because she has the power to give me what I want — some thing — but I can't make her give it to me.

  Most people fear me. I went toe-to-toe with death and made it my bitch, and little Amy has that power over me? After what I've done to her, how can she be indifferent?

  She’s definitely not lifeless when I make her come. Her taste is still sweet and fresh in my mouth and I get a sudden high from the memory of eating out her pussy.

  ‘If I didn't like your little fur so much, I'd give you a shave,’ I say. ‘Yeah, I love it when you look at me that way.’

  To cheat me, she closes her eyes again.

  ‘I told you to look at me,’ I say. Petulant like a little boy.

  I return my hand to between her thighs. I stroke her, and I wonder what she thinks of as her face melts into cloud nine, as she watches me slick her with my saliva before I work my fingers into her.

  She feels warm and pleasurable. I go on caressing her, and after a moment, I lean forward to kiss her between her tits.

  ‘Why, baby? Why? You always make me take. You never want to give,’ I say against her breast, but my fingers don’t stop their steady movement inside of her.

  ‘You like taking. You only want me to give until the moment you're ready to take,’ she says on a sudden inhale, as I stroke my thumb against her clit.

  ‘That how you see me?’

  ‘It's how you are.’

  I slide my fingers out, and puff like a dragon. ‘Amy, something’s happened, hasn’t it? Hell, it feels like you need to get something off of your chest but then something stops you. Like you’re scared . . . Just tell me what the fuck is going on. I figured after the other night we were getting somewhere. Turned a corner. Figured things had changed between us. But it’s like you’ve gone back into that little box you made for yourself and you’re shutting me out.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to, it’s just I need time —’

  ‘No, Amy, I’m done with you pushing me away. This ends now.’ All the menace is gone from my voice. ‘I’m done being a fucking painkiller. It was good at the start. Fucking ace, baby. I gave you whatever you needed from me. Took whatever I could get. But it’s not cutting it anymore.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  I love her. That counts for something. Allows me to be the one to save her.

  ‘I want to be your rock, baby.’ I want to fuck those words into her, hoping Amy finally gets it. ‘That’s what I want.’

  Sitting up, she scoots down the bed, unlaces the combat boots I’m wearing and takes them.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ I say. ‘Did you not hear me?’

  ‘I just want to get you out of your clothes.’

  I don’t say no, so she grasps the waist o
f the trousers, where they rest at mid-thigh, and pulls them off. When she unbuttons my leather jacket, I half sit up and shrug out of it, before lying down again. She looks at me naked on the bed.

  ‘I said, what’re you doing?’

  ‘Just trying to —’

  ‘You don't ever touch me.’

  ‘I won't if you don't want me to.’

  It’s a first. Amy’s never gone down on me, and fuck does it swing me hot.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I say, tucking one hand under my head, watching her.

  She runs her hands over my chest, my core, up my thighs, hardly looking at where her hands travel, aware of my gaze on her. She strokes her thumb over my nipple and draws it into her mouth. I laugh, but don’t stop her from sucking on it until it’s a small, hard bead under her tongue. She moves down to my cock, half hard and aching. Hesitates.

  ‘Don't be shy,’ I say.

  She glances up at me, embarrassed, and lowers her gaze before licking up the length of my cock. When she takes me into her mouth, I put my hand on her cheek and say, ‘No, look at me.’

  I stroke her hair back, watching her, not forcing her. When I’m close to the edge, I hold my hand on the back of her neck to set the rhythm of it.

  Afterwards, she lies between my legs and rests her head on my abs, feeling the steady rise and fall of my breath.

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ I say. ‘You think I’ll forget the conversation we were having?’

  She stares at my scar. It’s old, long faded to white, and lies above my left hip. A thin line, a few inches long, with one ragged end. She runs her finger over it, and says nothing.

  Gone, just like that.

  And it does something to me. Short circuits my last goddamn fuse.

  I shoot up and catch her hand, squeeze it in mine until I stop myself from crushing it. When she looks into my eyes, I know she sees rage.

  I’m at a complete fucking end. What else can I do to fucking help her?

  I get off the bed, tower over her and rasp, ‘I'm done with this.’

  ‘For good?’ she says.

  Does it give you a spark of hope to be rid of me?

  ‘You'd like that, wouldn't you? No, not done with you for good. Not by a long fucking shot, Amy. Just done with this bullshit merry-go-round tonight.’

  The look on her face makes me want to kill someone. Done with her? Hoping I'm done with her? If I’m done with her, will she leave? Or will she figure there’s something worth living for here, if I’m done with her?

  That scar. Fucking thing burns under my hand, like it did when it first happened. She did that, touched it and made it like it’s new again.

  I move my head side to side, slowly. ‘I don’t get you, Amy. And I don’t know what else I can fucking do to get through to you.’

  You’re in a bad place, Amy. Where the monsters go. But it’s only in the bad places . . . that I can get to you.

  Then I knock the nightlight off the nightstand, and I am the thing she likes me to be.

  Her monster in the dark.

  50

  YOU

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he says, after coming back to the bed an hour later.

  He pulls my head down on his shoulder. Going to sleep is easy when he is there, my face pressed into the familiar animal smell of him. But when I wake up in the dark a little later, I’m alone in bed.

  When I opened the Black Magic Box six days ago, it let out all the monsters.

  After watching my sister’s fake wedding DVD, I can’t leave Shepherd’s side. Hiding in his black shadow, in his darkness, I feel less afraid of the dark.

  Where did he go?

  He never sleeps through the night with me. I’m not even sure if he sleeps, only that he sometimes insists I sleep next to him. Sometimes, I wake to find him in the chair in the corner of his bedroom, watching me sleep. The nights I sleep in my room, I always wake up frightened, and often find myself wishing he was there. Watching over me. Like a dark prince.

  I lie still, listening, but in the black, my senses always play tricks on me. Getting up, I move carefully, one hand out in front of me, trying to visualize the location of the bathroom door. I find the far wall and pass my hand lightly along it until I find the opening. Inside, there’s a strange burnt smell that I don’t recognise.

  Trailing my hand along the countertop, I make it to the toilet and smile to myself at making it this far without bumping into anything. When I finish, I don’t flush. I half smile to myself. I’m not helpless in the dark, after all.

  I pat my hand across the counter for the tap, turn it on low, and lean over to drink and splash water on my face.

  I wonder then, if Elizabeth is sleeping peacefully, or is she afraid of the dark, too? But I realise I’m not so afraid anymore. There’s beauty in the dark. Without pain, you can’t see it, feel it, but it’s there, in the darkest corner, where Shepherd and I are on fire.

  As I fumble for a towel, some hot, wet thing grabs my calf, making me jump. A little hiccup of fear escapes me and then I hear that wicked, booming laugh.

  ‘Nice view from here,’ Shepherd says. ‘Hand me that lighter, will you?’

  I turn, easing my leg out of his grasp, and see his shimmering eyes. They glow in the dark.

  Shivers run down my spine. He’s been there all along, like a dragon in a cave, reclining in the tub.

  ‘So is the honeymoon over that you come in to take a piss without even knocking while I'm in the bath?’

  My cheeks sizzle and grow like pink bubbles. ‘If you weren't always playing your monster in the dark game, I would have knocked. I didn’t know you were in here,’ I say, with my heart thumping in my throat.

  ‘The lighter,’ he prompts.

  Unnerved, I sweep my hand along the counter, find other things, but nothing that feels like a lighter.

  ‘Crap. You can't see it,’ he says. He rises with a loud slosh, steps out of the tub, dripping water down my back as he leans over me.

  The lighter flares and for a few seconds reveals the strange scene. He holds the lighter to a cigar clamped in his mouth, his face cast in red from the flame, his eyes closed tight against it.

  His beauty is so dark, and it turns my heart to a dust muchness.

  Muchness? Is that a word? No, mushiness.

  On the counter lies a bar of soap, a straight razor, a can of shaving cream, an ashtray, nail clippers, toothbrush, toothpaste, some mechanical thing I don’t recognize. Probably uses it to sharpen his claws and fangs.

  Then the lighter dies, leaving me with nothing but the burning after image on my retinas. Behind me, he steps back into the tub. I turn toward him uncertainly, watching as he puffs on the cigar. It glows, revealing his face for a moment before he takes it out of his mouth. The hand that holds the cigar comes to rest on the edge of the tub.

  His eyes are like beacons on me. Pressed against the edge of the sink, I debate my options. Go back to the bedroom and wait for him? Or . . . stay and join him in the bath?

  ‘You have nice tits,’ he says, out of the blue. No, not out of the blue for him. I’m standing there naked in front of him, with my arms crossed under them. ‘Not big or anything, just the perfect shape. They look good. Feel fucking amazing.’

  ‘Uh, thanks, I guess.’ I drop my arms self-consciously, then just as self-consciously bring them back up, this time to cover my breasts.

  ‘That how it works? I compliment your tits and you cover them up?’

  I drop my arms again, knowing he can see me blush. I hate that he still has the power to embarrass me, like I’m a silly blushing teenager again.

  Feeling toward the door, I say, ‘I'm going back to bed.’

  ‘Come back here,’ he answers in a low voice. I should leave, but as always, my body ignores what my brain wants me to do — not do. I return to my position at the sink.

  ‘Get in,’ he says. He clamps the cigar in his mouth and then his hands are on me, guiding me as I step blindly into the tub. As I’m trying to figure out where to s
it, he pulls me down on top of him in a slippery heap.

  ‘That's hot water,’ I gasp as it laps over me. Or I think it’s the water that’s volcanically hot.

  ‘Because that's the only way to get rid of bad things. You burn them.’

  Sitting up, Shepherd pulls me into his lap and uses his hands to pour water over my hair. He smoothes it down my back and twists it into a wet rope that he ties around my neck. Then he begins to work his hands over my breasts, soaping them in slow circles.

  ‘Stand up,’ the dragon says, exhaling smoke into my face. I obey and he soaps up between my thighs. Only then, with one hand, he begins stroking between my legs and one hand lingers on my buttocks.

  ‘You afraid of drowning?’ he says. The cigar ember doesn’t provide enough light to read his handsome face.

  ‘No,’ I say cautiously, exploring the floor of the tub with my foot until I find the plug. I clasp the chain in my toes and pull. The water begins to go with a glug. He jumps up and grabs me, lifts me off my feet.

  ‘Shepherd,’ I gasp, but he’s laughing, pressing his face against my soapy shoulder. The cigar butt smoulders for an instant and then goes out. I feel him reach past me and turn on the shower. Hot water pours down on us and he rinses the soap off. When it’s done, with the last of the water swirling around our ankles, he has me cornered. Against my back is the tile wall. The tap handle presses against my ribs.

  ‘Why me?’ I say.

  ‘Why you what?’

  ‘You can have any girl. You’re wealthy, handsome. Beautiful, really.’ It’s sheer nerves, terror on speed, that fuels the dangerous things I say in these moments. ‘Why . . . why did you come back for me?’

  I am not special. I am not anything. I’m the poisonous rotten apple — not the princess.

  ‘Why you, huh? The answer to that would fill a book.’

  He presses against me, hard and unrelenting, digging his fingers into my arms. I’m afraid to look at the only light source available — his dark moonlit eyes.

  My forehead against his, I say, ‘Why, Shepherd? What is it about me that makes you think I’m worth all this trouble and pain? Most people would have run off by now. Why do you stay?’