In the Wake of Wanting (42 page)

“Now what?” she asks.

“I want to take you to bed
now
. If I had a condom right here, I would probably take you just like this on this rigid, uncomfortable floor, and put the
rough
from your sonnet into our first time and not even think twice about it… but I don’t. So I want to take you to bed.”

“You’d fuck me right here, is that what you’re saying?” I’ve never in my life seen such a provocative, inviting smile on another human being.

I look into her eyes, never having thought of myself as fucking
anyone–
much less someone I care about–but realizing it’s probably exactly what I’m describing. “Maybe,” I tell her tentatively.

“It’s okay to say it.”

The more time I spend in my head, the less I want to say it. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I swallow once more, kissing her on the forehead where I’d delivered my first kiss to her. “Coley, tonight I’d like to make love to you, if that’s okay.”

“I’d like that more than anything,” she says. “Well, I’d like a glass of water, and then I’d like that more than anything.”

“I’ll get you the water,” I tell her, standing up and helping her to her feet. “You get to the bedroom.”

“Hurry,” she whispers, putting her hand down my briefs and wrapping her fingers around the length of me. “Oh, wow.” She starts stroking me, squeezing and twisting as she does it. “Seriously, hurry.” She barely gets those words out before I pull her head back to mine in an aggressive show of appreciation for what she’s currently doing to me. I’m so hungry for her, I’m nearly biting her. On the verge of throwing caution to the wind–something I’ve never done–I break away from the kiss and pull her hand out of my underwear.

“I’ll hurry,” I promise her, admiring her body with my eyes and hands before she walks away. My gaze follows her until she’s completely out of my sight, but as my dick throbs and my thoughts linger, my imagination is already getting started on things in the other room.

After I get us both some water, I grab a piece of chocolate I still have from my Valentine’s gift, shut off the lights in the main room with the switch, and reunite with the wondrous creature that’s taken possession of my heart. She’s removed the comforter entirely and is lying under the sheet.

“You don’t think we’re going to need that?”

“I do not,” she says with authority. I hand her the water and chocolate, since she’s already on her pillow. She smiles, takes a drink, and then sets both on the nightstand next to her. “Your bed is even more comfortable than the other one,” she comments.

“Of course it is. It’s
my
bed.”

“I’m on your side, aren’t I?”

“You’re exactly where I want you.” She raises the sheet, inviting me in.

“Do you always wear black briefs?” she asks as she examines my underwear. She outlines the hem of them with her fingernail.

“Almost exclusively. I have some dark gray ones.”

“They look really sexy on you.”

“They’re comfortable.” I lean over and kiss her as she makes room for me, and then climb into bed with her. “Not as comfortable as this feels, though.” I settle against her body as her feet run up and down my calves flirtatiously. I’m mindful to keep most of my weight off of her by propping myself up on my elbows. “How are you?”

“High,” she says, smiling as she pulls my head to hers. It doesn’t take long for us to find our rhythm again. My lips yearn for hers, caress them–sometimes gently, sometimes not–and then fight the urge to let them go, over and over again. We rock together on the bed, slowly at first, but the movements become untamed, her hair tousled, our limbs tangled, and she’s trying desperately to remove my underwear. I kneel up quickly, strip completely, grab a condom, and return to the wanting woman who guides me into her and cries out loudly with my first tentative thrust.

“Are you alright?” I breathe. She grabs onto my ass and pulls me into her deeper, shouting again. “You can tell me what you like,” I say, although I’ve already got the
deeper
part figured out. I bend her legs a little toward her body to get a better angle, and she instinctively wraps them around my back. Hovering over her, we’re face to face, eye to eye, lips to lips. I watch her as each thrust seems to bring her closer to another orgasm, moving in to kiss her when I think she’s about to climax. She comes close a few times, but doesn’t quite get there, and
I’m
getting close to running out of
generosity
. “Uncross your legs.”

She does. I know she’s in shape, but I test how limber she is, watching her eyes as I position her legs back further and letting her calves rest on my shoulders.

“Is this okay?” I lean back over her and push one time.

“Fuck!” she screams.

“Good?”

She puts her hands flat against the headboard and sighs, her lips lifting into a smile.

I thrust again, and again, and again, with a little more force each time because she seems to like it better like that.

“Yes! Oh, God! Yes!”

“Holy shit, Coley. Holy fuck. Fuck… me. Oh, fuck.”

“Fuck! Harder, Trey! Harder!”

Putting both of my hands on the top of the headboard, I go faster and deeper and rougher and rasher and she’s screaming “Yes!” at the top of her lungs and clawing at my ass and I come harder than I have ever come in my life.

“Oh, shit, Coley. Oh, God. Oh, sweet Jesus. Ohhh…”

And I’m still inside her.
Zaina never allowed that to happen
. It feels so personal and intimate.

I reposition my arms and her legs and lie on top of her, our bodies sticking together with sweat. I kiss her sweetly, deeply, hoping that I convey to her my gratefulness
and
my unworthiness. Realizing my weight, I slowly roll over, feeling her absence around me immediately. She climbs on top of me, though, and continues to kiss me.

“Wait,” I say, helping her off. She protests a bit. “Trust me.” I clear my throat, my voice scratchy. “The woman of my every waking daydream is astride me. I’m coming back to that.”

In the bathroom, after cleaning up, I look at myself in the mirror. It’s as if all the other times with Zaina were practice rounds culminating up to this.
This
is what it should have been like. Our mediocre sex-life was never my failure. I was stupid for thinking it ever was. Her self-conscious and over-cautious boundaries kept us boxed in, limiting us as to what we could enjoy together. Yet another reason why things were never going to work out.

I pull the door closed most of the way, wanting to leave a little illumination so I can see her better. When I get into bed, she returns to the exact place she was and leans over to press her mouth to my cheek. Her hair cascades around us, but I can still see light through her fine, golden tresses. My thumbs massage the small of her back gently as our lips are locked in deep, slow, passionate kisses. I should be spent. I should be exhausted. Instead, I’m alert to her every move and wide awake, wanting to watch her; wanting to see more of her.

She sits up, flipping her hair back, and sighs, running her fingers across my chest.

“Coley, you have changed my whole perception of things tonight; changed the full meaning of words with definitions I’d felt were simplistic and unchangeable. Words as simple as man and woman. Beauty and femininity. Sex and love. My entire reality has been modified; refined.”

She runs her fingers through my hair. “You’re a poet in your own right, you know? No, you don’t know,” she quickly answers her own question. “I keep a notebook of things you say to me. So elegant. So sensitive. They make me ache–in a good way.” She puts her hand over her heart, drawing my attention back to her scar. I lightly remove her fingers from her chest, placing her hand in mine.

“What happened there?” I ask, running my left thumb over the mark on her skin and hoping she’ll open up this time. She glances down at it, leaving her head bowed for longer than I’m comfortable. I feel her tears on my abdomen. “Coley, I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me. Here.” With her help, I move into a seated position where I can look directly into her disconsolate eyes and see more tears falling over her freckles. I kiss them away before they can fall. “I’m sorry.” We wrap our arms around one another, and she takes deep breaths to compose herself.

“It was Nyall,” she says.

I stop breathing.

“It was the worst day of my life.”

“Coley,” I whisper, my eyes tearing up now, too.

“His third episode. We were all cooking dinner for Mom–me, Nyall and Joel. It was over the summer–that first summer after the incident at his school. Everything felt normal that day. Mom was doing yard work. Joel was handling the meat. I was preparing some instant potatoes from a box–Joel and I were arguing about it because he wanted fresh potatoes and I told him I didn’t want to go to all that trouble. Nyall was cutting vegetables for a salad.

“All of a sudden, his arm was around my waist, my back was against his chest and the knife was against mine. ‘He said he doesn’t want them!’ he yelled in my ear. ‘He doesn’t want them!’ I felt the knife pierce my skin. It was a shallow cut.” She leans away so I can watch her continue her story. I caress her face and run my fingers through her hair, attempting to be as soothing as I possibly can. She alternates between looking behind me and looking at me as she goes on.

“I had been there to see his second episode, but he was hurting himself. Punching through the wall in his room… not to damage it, but to make himself bleed. ‘Look at the blood. Make it stop,’ he kept chanting as he hit and hit and hit. It was in this monotonous tone, and his eyes were fixed and glazed over like he wasn’t even there.

“The same thing happened on this day, in the kitchen. Joel tried to reason with him, but Nyall wasn’t listening. Joel finally told me he wasn’t focusing on him at all. He was chanting by then. ‘He said no. He said no. Look at the blood. He said no.’ I told him to go get Mom, and Joel broke down because he didn’t want to leave me like that. I yelled at him to run as the knife pushed in deeper. I’m not sure to this day if Nyall did it or if my movements caused it. I was crying hysterically at that point.

“He pulled me into a seated position on the floor. One of his arms was around my neck, and the knife was still pointed at my chest. Mom stepped cautiously around the corner. Joel was sobbing behind her. She signed for him to go to his room, but he wouldn’t go. I kept my eyes on his as I felt blood run down the front of my body. I could tell it was getting worse by the look on his face.

“Mom was calm when she spoke to Nyall. ‘That’s your sister, Nyall. That’s Coley. Your baby sister that you love dearly. She didn’t hurt you. She didn’t hurt Joel. Let her go, Nyall. Put the knife down and let her go.’

“‘He said no!’ he yelled. It was so loud in my ear that I jerked away from him. There was this searing pain. I screamed in agony. Mom told me to stay still and then I saw her gun raise… and then I passed out.”

Her face crumples in sadness and distress. “Oh, shit, Coley, I’m so sorry. Laureate, I am so, so, sorry.” I hold her as tightly as I can.

“It was awful.”

“I know. I’m sure it was.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” she says through her tears. “He didn’t mean to.”

“Of course he didn’t, Coley.”

“Mom would never hurt him. She loves him so much. It was so devastating to her. To all of us,” she cries. “But the knife had gone in pretty deep when I moved, and she needed to get me to a hospital. She was desperate and had to diffuse the situation.”

“What did she do?”

“It wasn’t even loaded. Joel said she walked right up to Nyall, pointing it at him, and it wasn’t until she was in his face that he snapped out of his daze and let me go. Then, he heard Joel shouting our address into the phone to 9-1-1, saw me lying in front of him in my blood-soaked shirt, and threw the knife across the room as he scooted to the other side of it. He had no idea what he’d been doing.”

She shakes her head, moving back once again. “Dad picked him up… Nyall insisted on donating blood at the hospital because he heard I’d lost a lot. As soon as he was done, he asked to be taken to a mental hospital where we would all be safe from him. Dad made a few calls, got a recommendation, and that’s how Nyall ended up in Berryville.”

I don’t have any words for this situation. I wish I did, but everything is insufficient for something this monumental.

“It’s a hard thing to reconcile… that someone you love so much would try to… you know, kill you,” she says.

“It wasn’t Nyall,” I say to her. “He wasn’t in his right mind.”

“And that’s hard to understand, too,” she admits.

I nod my head, once again pushing the mass of fine hair out of her face. We kiss softly.

“It’s why I take pills. Antidepressants,” she tells me. “Without them, I’m overwhelmingly sad for him and for my family. In a way, I feel like I put him in there.”

“You know who put him in there. You told me before. The man who molested him and the son of his who was old enough to know better–they drove him to the brink, laureate. You didn’t do this. You love him and he knows it. And he loves you. I could see that, whether you think he understands love or not.”