Hard Time (9 page)

I read that again. And again. I flipped past the next page of his handwriting, and there was my own. That’s why his letter had seemed so thick. I started crying again, then laughing. Hysteria at its most hysterical, like I’d stuck a syringe full of narcotic-grade relief into my vein and rammed the plunger down.

He gave the knife back! He’s good, he’s good, he’s good!

I giggled, giddy, and ran to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of wine. I didn’t go to the trouble of changing or doing my makeup, but I spritzed some perfume then jogged back to the couch, bouncing onto the cushion. My date night was back! Twisted as it might be. My lover was back, abstract though our romance undoubtedly was. I snatched up the pages and took a deep, sweet taste of wine.

I read your letter a million times this week. I tried to memorize it before I gave it back and I think I did a pretty damn good job. I copied down a few parts I didn’t want to forget, but nothing that might get you in trouble. Don’t ever give me a letter that way again. In person and with no envelope. Nobody checked me on the way out and they don’t sweep the cells more than every couple months, but when they do they read everything and any letter without a mail room or visitation stamp and staff initials means it must have come through the inside and that’s contraband and too many clues. It’s dangerous enough me writing all this but I figure if they find this they’ll find your letter so I may as well be clear while we’re being reckless. Anyhow if you want to write me do it through the mail with a made up name and address.

“Oh, duh.” I smacked my forehead.

No rule says I can’t get dirty love letters from a woman on the outside. Hell that’s what keeps most of these guys going in here. I hope you keep writing. Just do it smarter. Type it. Mail it.

I hope I don’t seem angry. Just spooked. I’d hate for you to get in trouble over me. Enough about that.

Indeed.

You said you worry about using me to feel sexual again
.
Don’t ever worry about that. I can’t tell you how good it feels to do that for you. I know I’ll probably never see you outside this place, or actually be with you, but just knowing I do that for you is the most incredible thing I’ve felt in years.

If we were together, I’d show you all the good things a man can do for a woman. I’d try to make up for what that other guy did to you. Everything you want and more. I’d make you feel so good and I’d never ask for anything until I got you off. I’d earn whatever you thought I deserved and it’d feel so amazing knowing you were wet because of me. I love that you think about me when you touch yourself. I don’t think anybody’s ever told me anything that made me feel so good. I bet I don’t need to even tell you I do the same. Sometimes when I touch myself all I have to do is imagine you saying my name. Just think about you saying my name while I was kissing you between your legs or touching you or fucking you however you wanted me to. I don’t even have to think about what we’re doing. Only about your voice.

I hope it’s okay I said fucking. I only did because you said that in your letter too. I could say making love instead but I know you probably don’t love me. We barely know each other. Plus that’s who I am. I probably don’t make love. I probably fuck. I’d try for you if you asked me to, though. You’d have to tell me how it’s different. It just seems like something a different kind of man would do. I don’t know how to tie a tie, either. I’ve probably got a lot to learn if I ever want to be with a woman like you.

You said you want to know how I’d be, during the sex. Usually in my mind after I make you come, it gets more rough. I’d never hurt you, not even if you asked me to. But I want you so bad I’d need to go fast. I’d show you with my body how bad I need to come. Inside you. I think that’s what you want to see. All the things you make me feel.

I hope maybe I’ll hear more about what you want in another letter, but through the mail like I said. If you tried to hand me a letter and I wouldn’t take it I hope you understand why now. And if I hurt your feelings I’m sorry.

I’ll see you next week darling. In green again I was thinking. You look so good in green. Even though you have blue eyes they almost look ocean colored when you wear green. And I’ve never been to the ocean.

Yours,

Eric

I sighed, long and loud, letting my head drop back against the cushion. I took a sip of wine then nearly choked on it, realizing I still had an entire extra letter of his, the one I’d been too scared to open last week. I rooted through my undies and brought it back to the couch. Though my heart beat hard, it was nothing like before. I was in bloom again, petals spread wide and eager to soak up whatever he had to say. I propped my feet on the table and unfolded his pages.

Darling,
he wrote. And he told me about the things he wanted to do to me, the places he wanted to take me, if he could. The things about me that took his mind off his daily life, and roused his body in idle moments. And I wondered if he wasn’t a bank robber after all, the way he kept making off with my heart.

From there, our paper courtship began in earnest. And our in-person contact—the brushing knees and reckless glances and murmured code words—those became the highlights of my weeks. That and my steady progress in building Cousins a proper library. I’d convinced the warden to let me take over a classroom that I’d never once seen in use. For now it was just a dozen mismatched bookshelves and the most rudimentary of catalog systems, but it grew, week by week. Same as my heart seemed to grow with every letter Eric gifted me.

Darling,
he’d write.

It was my birthday on Sunday. I’m 32 now if you were curious. How old are you? There’s so much I want to know about you. Tell me about where you’re from. Everything about it that’s nothing like where I’m stuck now.

That night in bed I imagined you came to me, like magic. You were there and it was us and nobody else, real quiet. You told me you wanted to treat me, for my birthday. We kissed and then you were moving down, your mouth and hands on my neck, my chest, my belly. Then you were pulling down my pants, until you could see how big and hard I was from wanting you. Then it was your mouth on me, so slow and sweet, and you’d stop now and then and look in my eyes or say my name or smile. I asked if you wanted it, what I had to give. If you’d taste it. And you said yeah, let me have it Eric. And I did. God I have no idea if you’d ever let me do that for real, but for my birthday I let myself imagine it . . .

And I’d write back.

Of course I’d let you do that, on your birthday or any other day. I’d want your fingers in my hair, and your voice telling me what you liked, and your hips under my palms, shifting and giving away how excited you were getting. If you told me faster, I’d go faster. If you told me deeper, I’d take you deeper. If you told me suck harder, I’d do that, too. And when you couldn’t take anymore I’d beg to taste whatever you had to give me . . .

I got his pages on Fridays, and wrote mine immediately so they got into the Saturday mail. It was nearly like I got to see him twice a week, since my letters almost always made it to him on Tuesdays, and just imagining his anticipation and reward was as exciting as opening one of his letters to me. I wore green, gray, purple, black, blue, white. Whatever he told me to.

Darling,
he’d say.
Your words about made my week. There’s so much bullshit happening around here lately, but at night I can escape into what you wrote me for a little while. I like what you said, about how it smells like fall now. I smell it in the mornings, out on work release. I never liked school and I hate the winter, so I guess I just don’t like that fall smell the way you do. But maybe if things were different I could learn to like it. When it got cold outside I could hide out in bed with you all day, where it’s warm. When it snowed we could stay inside and I’d find a hundred new ways to make you feel good . . .

And I’d curl up in my covers against the October chill, wondering how it was I’d ever pined for an air conditioner. I’d write,
Sometimes I wish our circumstances were different, so I could come see you during visitation and say these things to you out loud. Of course then we’d have witnesses. We couldn’t say all the things we do here. But do they let you touch visitors, at Cousins? Hold their hands? I bet just feeling your foot against mine through our shoes would take my breath away.
And it did, weekly, though I didn’t want to drop too many breadcrumbs for the folks in the mailroom.
Lord knows what actually holding your hand would do to me . . .

He’d tell me,
Sometimes my favorite thing to imagine is just us on a big soft couch. Me on the end and you between my legs, on my lap kind of. I could feel your hair on my cheek while we watched a movie maybe, and I could smell your skin. It would drive me crazy, being against you like that. I’d get hard, I know it, but it would be so perfect, just being with you that way, I wouldn’t even care. Maybe you’d like that though, getting me excited. Maybe you’d take my hand and lead it wherever you wanted it. I could touch you between your legs just sitting together that way, feel you get wet and hot and feel me getting even harder. After I made you come, I’d lay you down on that couch naked and take what I needed . . .

He craved the most intoxicating mix of things—the most romantic, affectionate contact—domestic, even—chased by harsher deeds. Always my pleasure given first, and his earned. His needs sounded more physical and aggressive than mine. Nothing unnerving. Quite the opposite. But that old male-female, rough-gentle dichotomy. After a big, inhibitions-loosening glass of wine, I wrote to dispel this myth.

Eric,
I wrote.
I loved your last letter. I love all your letters. Hearing everything you have to say, and everything you want to do. I hope you know I’m excited by the way you talk about sex—about the sex you want, after you’ve made me come. Sometimes I want that so much more than the sweet things you tell me about. If we were ever together, after you got out . . .

At this, my heart hitched. A child inside me had picked up the book of matches, and her eyes were nailed to the door, nervous at getting caught. Hands itchy, eager to make trouble.

. . . I’d want to see how badly you wanted me. Needed me. I’d want to see exactly what you were like, after all that waiting. I bet it would be so fierce, and urgent. I’d want your hands all over me. I’d want to feel your lack of control and your need, even if it was clumsy and frantic and nothing like what you’d see in a movie.

I know you’re worried about what happened to me with that ex, but the way he hurt me, it was never about sex. He would drink too much and turn resentful, push me or give me a smack—he always said he was teasing, and told me I was being too sensitive, but I knew deep down what was coming. I left him the night he struck me in the side of the head. He burst my eardrum and knocked me to the floor. I never saw him again after that. What he did snuck up on me, because he’d led me there, step by step, letting me adjust to whatever he’d done last. A mean poke, then a pinch, a push. They built up gradually, like the way you develop a tolerance for spicy food or alcohol. What I thought I could handle got modified. I’m almost glad he hit me that hard that night. It was so much worse than what had come before, it woke me up.

It’s not even male aggression that scares me. It’s the hidden stuff. The potential. It’s what a man’s capable of, and being tricked into letting myself get led there.

Sweet Jesus, I was writing all this to a convicted felon, wasn’t I?

I love what you say, about the things you want to do for me. But part of me wants to hear what you like. Right up front. I don’t want to be eased into anything. It sounds strange, but trust isn’t a gradual process with me—a slowly, steadily earned privilege. I don’t trust things that build gradually. Like the way he hurt me. I like black and white now. Honesty, even when it’s not that pretty.

I paused, blinking. Was that why I’d ended up here? In Darren, in such a crippled library system, and at Cousins? This town and those places . . . They didn’t come gift wrapped. They led with their thorns, same as the criminal I was falling for. The first thing I knew about him was that he’d done something awful—why else would he be in Cousins? The wolf had come at me teeth first, and with the danger understood, the fear of a nasty surprise gone, all that was left was soft fur, shining eyes, power, speed.

So tell me what you want,
I wrote.
Tell me all the dark things you think about.

It was cold that next Friday, and I was nervous as I climbed into bed and wrapped the blankets up to my armpits. Not scared like after I’d handed him my first letter, but edgy. I’d told the wolf, don’t hold back. Took the muzzle off him. I couldn’t guess if he’d come at me with his tongue or his fangs.

Darling
, I read.

I want to fuck your ex up, I really do. But I can’t and I won’t, not even if I was let out tomorrow and he walked past me on the street. It sounds like you took care of it yourself, so I’ll just keep telling myself that’s enough. I’d like to think there’s no worse punishment a man could suffer than losing a woman like you. And if that’s not enough to make him regret what he did and maybe change, then he’s probably too stupid to learn from getting beat down by some angry stranger.

You want to know all the dark things I think about, huh? Does that mean you like dark stuff? I don’t want to disappoint you, but I’m not into real dark stuff. When you’re a young man and bored and free and figuring everything out about sex, that’s when you get fixated on things. About what the best kind of sex is, the perfect sort of woman, complicated shit like you see in porn maybe. Taboo stuff. It’s like being able to choose any kind of food you want, any time you want. You start to only want one sort of thing. The best, most perfect thing. Does that make sense?

I’ve been locked up now for five years and a month. I bet you can guess, the food here sucks. If I got out I’d want to taste everything there was. Every flavor and every kind of meat and every sort of sweet or salty or sour. And after five years without touching a woman, when I get out, I want to try all those most simple flavors of what a man and a woman can do together.

Everything’s so hard in here. And mean and ugly and loud. I know you want to hear dark things, but what I say about the romantic stuff I want to do with you, I want that so bad I can’t tell you. I want to be in a room with you, so quiet I can hear your breathing and your heart. A place so clean I could smell your skin. And with candles, all yellow and soft after the bright white lights they use in here. I want to be with you someplace that’s nothing like my cell. Someplace big and open, with a giant mattress a foot thick and the softest sheets. Someplace cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In a huge bathtub. On the grass somewhere. I want feminine things, because that’s what I miss. Because in here, everything feels hard and sharp and bright. I want to escape and go someplace dark and soft and quiet.

I want to escape inside you. I want to feel your hands on me, and your eyes, and feel like there’s nobody else for a hundred miles. I want to feel all that, like I’d want to pay close attention to the first few bites of a nice meal in a restaurant. I’d want to savor, at least to start.

But after that first taste, I could do darker stuff for you. You want to feel how pent up I am, don’t you? You want to feel powerful, offering to end my suffering. It makes me smile to think about that. You seem so sweet and that’s so naughty. You want to watch me lose my mind, so of course I’d let you see that.

I’d go real slow, to start. For me, not for you. Let me savor, like I said. But it wouldn’t last long, I promise. I’d explore your mouth and your skin first. I need your hands on me, it’s been so long since I’ve been touched in any kind of nice way. I’d want you to touch my cock real slow so I could memorize every second of it. And when I first slide inside you, looking down at you in the candle light, your hair down and spread across those big pillows . . . I’d make that moment last a hundred years.

I let the hand holding the letter drop to the side, sighing for every corner of the room to hear. “Fuck me, you’re good.”

But after I got to feel all that again after missing it, then I’d give you the dark stuff you want. I’d be so fucking hard for you. Inside you. I’d want to make you feel it, every inch of my cock. I’d want to say with my body, feel what you do to me. Feel how deep I want to be. Feel how bad I want to come with your wet hot cunt on me after all these years with just my hand. I’d stare down at you and you’d look like an angel smiling up at me. Or maybe not. Maybe you’d look mean. Wild and on fire. Maybe your hands would be on my ass or my hips, and I’d feel them begging me for more. Deeper. Harder. Faster. I’d give you that, and knowing you liked it would get me so hot. I’d do whatever your eyes told me to. Or your mouth, if it said, come for me Eric. I would. Then I’d show you with my mouth or hands how grateful I was.

“Oh my.”

All the things I hadn’t thought I wanted to hear from this man—soft sheets and candlelight and tenderness. The things I’d thought
he thought
I would want to hear. The things girls are told they like, the things men are trained to promise.

That night I wrote,
I was so wrong.

Wrong about what I’d assumed you wanted when you said all the gentle ways you planned to be with me. How I’d imagined you were just trying to please me, tell me what you thought I’d like to be told. I’ve never known those words to come from a man’s heart—only his mouth, when he’s trying to get a woman into bed. But you really want all that. I can taste how badly you do, from the way you wrote about it.

So yes, I’d love for you to be all those ways with me. Everything you’ve been missing, for as long as you wanted. And yes, you’re right—I do want to feel powerful, making you crazy. I hadn’t even realized it myself, but you’re right. You’re so strong and together, and I want to turn you into a pleading mess. I want to feel your muscles moving under my palms, feel your body chasing your pleasure, faster and faster. I want to watch the strongest man I’ve ever laid my eyes on shake and tremble and moan, helpless from needing me . . .