A glance at the clock told her it was already eight o’clock. She had been away from him for only a little over three hours. Three hours, three hundred years, there was no difference now. He had done that. Made time seem both the most important and most inconsequential thing all at once. What else could he do? Turn water into wine? Make a diamond out of a lump of coal? It was silly. He was no magician. The only magic he wrought was on her. Oh god, the way he could make her spark like a stubborn flame refusing to die, struggling to ignite the fields.

His kitchen was dark. She had eaten dinner in her mother’s kitchen staring into the shuttered window of his. There had been no movement. She suspected his mother brought his meals to his room. As if he were an invalid. As if he were not fit company. She had clutched her fork so tight, when she let go, there were swirly impressions in her palm from the metal. She did not remember what she ate. Some casserole out of the dozens crammed in the refrigerator. Food no longer interested her. She ate when she was supposed to, but her tongue was now jaded after tasting him. She’d already washed the dishes dreamily, the soap suds curling around her fingers the way his hair had curled around them in the afternoon. Part of her wanted to laugh at how ridiculous she had become. She was no longer a girl and he was no longer that summer son. She had an almost ex-husband. She taught children that would almost certainly not make it to college. There was so much pain in the world. There was so much pain between them. How could such a short time with him make her feel as if she were a child again? As if anything could happen?

Did she think she was going to rescue him? Maybe she was the one being rescued. As she drew herself a bath, she knew what she said to him that morning was true. She would help him. She would take him anywhere he wanted to go. The way she felt had never changed. Her dreams now were the same dreams she’d had the day when he would not kiss her at the pond. The same dreams she had the day he sat next to her on the porch swing and told her he could never love her. Marriage, children. A lifetime of waking up to his sleepy face on the pillow next to hers. Endless days of seeing him sitting next to her eating meals they had made together. Being able to take his hand in hers without fear of him pulling away. Those were just her dreams. She did not know what he wanted. But no matter what, she would help him get out of that house. Even if that meant he didn’t want to be with her. Even if after she got him get settled somewhere, maybe got him into a day program to help him readjust to the world, even if after that, he wanted to see other people, she would be satisfied. And maybe if things worked out, he wouldn’t mind if she visited him from time to time. She just wanted to help him. He owed her nothing. There would be no trade, no agreement; his freedom in return that he be with her forever.

She unbuttoned her blouse and slipped it off her shoulders. Clipped her hair up with a tortoiseshell comb that had belonged to her mother. Looked into the mirror and couldn’t believe the manic brightness of her eyes, the spots of red high on her cheekbones. A spattering of freckles starting to darken across the bridge of her nose. She stroked a hand from the hollow of her shoulder down to her breastbone. Following the vine of bluish purple roses he planted with his mouth on her skin. There was another day when she had stood in front of this cracked bathroom vanity and traced his marks on her. Nineteen years ago. A lifetime ago. Had it ever happened at all? Out of all her remembrances of him, it was the only one she could not grasp with any clarity. The only one she could not tell between reality and dream. The only one that had caused her to wander her dorm room and then later the house she shared with Riley, straightening her things in a frenzy. Both terrified to fall asleep again and longing to sleep and never wake up from the dream.

As she slid into the old porcelain tub, she couldn’t help but think about that dream. That memory? Which was it? Which had made her curl up in this very bathtub at eighteen, bruised and on fire, crying and laughing? Oh, her eyes felt so heavy. She was so tired. She would just close them for a moment.

*****************************************************************

It had been a mistake to go to Shannon’s Pond. They would be off to college in less than a month and she had let him get sick. Oh, it was all her fault. She had been so selfish. Even though he had told her he could never return her feelings, she couldn’t help but want to spend every moment of their last summer together. She had the burning, dreadful feeling that once she was at Radcliffe and he was at Harvard, he would find ways and excuses not to be around her anymore. But the pond had been wonderful. Just like old times, just the two of them.

That had been a week ago though. When she had called last Tuesday, his mother wouldn’t let her speak to him. Said reproachfully that he was sick and that she should have never kept him at the pond all day. She had been nearly wild with panic when he had not taken her telephone calls or her visits for the next several days. It was now Tuesday again. She knew his parents were out. It was their nineteenth wedding anniversary and her mother had said that his parents were going to cancel it but Dr. Travers told them Will just needed to sweat the cold off. That meant his parents were going to be gone all night. She’d heard her mother gossiping with old Mrs. Rosenberg that the Chief had reserved a room at the Rambling Rose Inn.

She had to see him and apologize. She had to make sure he was going to be all right. Didn’t her mother always say summer colds were the worst and most ornery? He must be bored out of his mind, at home alone with no one to talk to. Especially now that he no longer talked to Xander and Angel. Her mother was working the overnight shift down at Sal’s this summer so she waited until she saw her pull out in their old Buick before she flew out the backdoor and scaled the fence into his backyard. His bedroom window was open but there was no light on inside. She lifted the flowerpot and found the spare key. Of course, his mother always kept it there. She carefully let herself in and tiptoed through the dark house. Ugh. It smelled musty and slightly antiseptic. Chief James must have been soaking his corns earlier that evening. Luckily, there were no stray baseballs or other sporting equipment on the stairs this time. That time when he was gone from school for so long, she had tripped over a baseball and almost broken her neck sneaking up to see him.

His bedroom door was slightly ajar. She peeked in and sucked down a breath. Oh, he was so beautiful. Lying there on his side, turned away from the door. Curled on his bed facing the open window, moonlight streaming in and touching his form with pale blue fingers. She could make out the jut of his hipbone underneath the sheet. She slipped in knowing this was wrong. They were too old to be this way. But her feet would not obey her mind. Her feet only knew one path. To where he was. She perched carefully on the edge of his bed and ran a trembling finger down his sharp shoulder blade. His hair was damp with sweat, curling at his forehead and around the tender nape of his neck. If only she could just lean over and place her lips there. But of course, she couldn’t. He wouldn’t like it. He would be angry. It was so hot in his room; his parents must have removed the little fan. No doubt because that awful Dr. Travers said he needed to sweat off the cold. Dr. Travers once told her mother she would have to wear a backbrace since she slumped so much. Thank god her mother had not listened to that old troll. She hated Dr. Travers.

Will still had his face turned away from her and towards the window. He was feverish, mumbling nonsense under his breath. Oh, he sounded terrible, there was a liquid rattling in his throat and he was gasping as if he couldn’t get in enough air. She felt tears coming into her eyes. She never should have made him go swimming with her. She laid her hand gently on his clammy forehead. He was burning up. Before she could move her hand away, he flipped over to face her. She nearly shrieked with the unexpectedness of it. His eyes were hazy and it seemed as if he could barely keep them open. Of course, instead of looking like a sick toad, he looked wonderful. His eyelids drooping, the lashes thick and inky against the bluish tint of his skin under the moonlight. One curling strand of hair falling on his forehead and turned a pale gold by sweat. She could tell by the outlines under the sheet that he was naked.

He murmured something she couldn’t make out and then she couldn’t even think. Because he had dragged his body up hers and buried his mouth at the hollow between her collarbones. He licked the sweat from her neck and she had to bite back a moan. He was still talking under his breath, his eyes half-closed. Now, now she could hear what he was saying. Her face flamed with the knowledge. Those words…she had never heard him say such things. Those dirty, purple words that no-good hoods like Warren Meers and his gang would shout at girls when they walked by in the school parking lot. Some of those words she didn’t even know how to spell. Once, she had tried to look them up in the dictionary. Of course, they had not been in there. And now Will was whispering these ungodly, depraved, filthy things into her ear. How he wanted to live inside her. How he wanted her to…to…lose control all over his face. Some of the things he was suggesting, his tongue tracing the rim of her ear, she didn’t even know how to do. Did he even realize it was her?

He wasn’t looking at her face, his hands were fumbling with the front of her nightgown. His eyes glued to the pintucking along her chest and the row of tiny pink buttons running from her collar to her waist. His fingers were clumsy, his voice slurred and honey-dark. Ripe with murmurs of 'baby' and 'fuck,' 'fuck you,' 'gonna make you scream.' She felt as if all the blood had drained from her body, leaving her limp and light. It was as if they were swimming through molasses, the air so heavy and weighted with their gasps and the sound of cloth rasping against cloth, skin sliding off skin. Before she could do anything, say anything, his hands had gathered the front of her nightgown and ripped it down the front. She could hear the tiny buttons falling and plinking on his wood floor. Thought dimly, that her mother was going to kill her. She stopped thinking at all when he swooped down and captured one of her nipples in his mouth. She bit his shoulder to keep from crying out. He did not seem to notice, even though she was sure she’d drawn blood. His teeth were grazing her nipple, his lips suckling at her like a baby that had just discovered its mother’s milk. Suddenly, he bit down and she stifled her scream against his neck. He moved away from her breast and down the length of her body, pushing aside her nightgown. She touched a shaky finger to her breast and came away with a drop of dark-red blood. Finally he yanked her nightgown down her shoulders and off of her, tossing it behind him. He covered her body with his again and trailed open-mouth sucking kisses down her chest, her torso, his tongue darting into her bellybutton, his short fingernails scraping lightly up and down her ribs. She sucked in a breath and jerked. He murmured against her lower belly and she felt tears of wonder gathering in the corners of her eyes.

"Always so ticklish."

Oh, he knew. He knew it was her. He seemed in a daze but he didn’t think she was Dru or any other girl.

His mouth reached the lacy elastic of the waistband on her panties. He crawled up her heaving, trembling body, his own arms shaking. His face swam in front of hers. Eyes still dreamy and half-closed, lips swollen and glistening with her sweat. When he spoke, his voice was so throaty and low, she had to strain upwards, her breasts sliding against his chest, to hear.

"Do you want me?"

Ohgodohgodohgod. How was she supposed to answer such a wanton question? Her mother would cast her out of the house. But then, she was wanton. He had made her so. The things she had already let him do…the things she still wanted him to do even though she didn’t know what they were. Only had gauzy, half-formed imaginings gathered from her mother’s silly romance novels and giggled whispers in the girls’ bathroom.

"You know I do."

She would have felt triumphant at the steadiness, the matter-of-factness of her voice if what he said next did not almost make her slide off the bed in a dead faint.

"Then take your panties off. Before I rip them off."

She did what he said with trembling hands. It was like when she had bled for the first time and he told her to wrap his shirt around her waist. The tenor of his tone was the same. Proprietary, tender, burning her from within.

He grabbed her wrist and jerked her up to her knees on the middle of the bed. Moved behind her, on his knees as well. He slid his arms underneath hers to cup her breasts in his hands. Her head slumped forward at the feeling, her hair curtaining her face. He whispered in her ear, his teeth finding home in her earlobe.

"Look up. Look at us."

She raised her head and gasped. He had positioned them in the middle of his bed, her back to his front. Facing the large beveled mirror above his dresser at the foot of his bed. The image reflected back at her from the glass was so erotic, she would have fallen if he did not have his arms clasped around her, holding her up. His left hand moved from her left breast and slid down, down her ribcage, down her belly, his fingers tangling in the curls between her thighs. His other hand still at her breast, tweaking the already sore nipple. She threw her head back against him, the long fall of her hair cascading over his shoulder. She watched as his long, sun-browned fingers disappeared inside her. She watched herself jerk like a tightly-strung bow at the feeling of him stroking her secret place and making her bloom.

They watched each other in his mirror. She stared at his hands playing her like a well-loved instrument, his white even teeth scraping along her jaw, his dreamy, fever smudged eyes watching her glowing, scarlet face, their undulating bodies. Watched him watching her bite down hard on her own fingers when the storm building within broke and the thunder and light met, crashed through her, the aftershocks reverberating through him. She fell forward on her hands, taking him down with her. Her chin grazed the wooden footboard of his bed. That would leave a bruise. Somehow she knew she would have many bruises by the morning. She rested for a moment on her hands and knees, still shaken and electrified by this first pure sensation in all her eighteen years. He was panting above her, lying over her back, lifting-off the barest bit to run his tongue along her spine. Tasting the salty trail of her sweat. She bucked him off and turned around. Pushing him down on his back against his pillows, to draw his fingers into her mouth and taste herself on his skin. He shuddered and moaned, his head lolling against the pillows.

She licked the sweat from his brow, his chest, along the cords of his neck. Even the divot above his upper lip although she did not kiss him. Ran her lips and hands and tongue over his hipbone, the crease where his thigh met his torso. Combed her shaking fingers through the darker gold of his pubic hair. Gently, the way he had done to her. Finally looked at the part of him she had only caught a flash of before, when she was so twisted up in her own ecstasy. Suddenly, she grew afraid. It looked nothing like she had imagined. She had seen it before of course. When they were little. When it was still little. Oh, she had seen pictures of the fully-formed man version courtesy of Faith. She remembered turning bright red and sputtering as Faith laughed and showed her the dirty book she had found at the back of Chase’s Bookstore. That was just paper and ink. But this, him sprawled out in front of her, sweaty and feverish and biting his full lower lip awaiting her touch, made her brain run in desperate circles. She had no idea what to do. He would laugh at her. He would come to his senses and kick her out of the bed. Maybe toss her out his open window head-first. She raised her index finger and touched the tip of him gently. He groaned and bucked his hips. She snatched her hand back. Had she hurt him?

"I’m…I’m sorry."

"Oh god, touch me. Touch me please."

His gasp so needy and throbbing, something inside her broke and she no longer cared what her mother would say, what people would think if they knew. All she cared was that she wanted his body as much as she wanted his heart.

"Show me. Show me what you want."

His hand curled around her jaw and drew her face down towards him, his other hand was curled around himself and he rubbed his tip softly across her lips. Asking for entrance. She licked her lips and tasted his salty moisture, inadvertently sweeping him with her tongue as well. His hand left her jaw and flew to his mouth. He bit down on his own fingers to hold back a sob. She slowly opened her mouth and welcomed him inside. She had seen Dru do this for him once. That time when he had come to DoubleMeat when she was working, to rub her face in his relationship. Had Dru been better? She thought Dru must have been. She was doing this for the first time and it certainly hadn’t looked like that was the first time Dru had done that for him. And of course, he loved Dru then. Probably still did now. He told her he could never love her. So odds were, she was not as good as Dru. She stopped the movements of her mouth to look up at him. He was still biting down on his hand, tears leaking down the corners of his eyes. She crawled up his body to lick his tears away and whisper softly in his ear.

"Shhh. Don’t cry. I know you miss her. I know I’m not as good as she is. But I’ll try my best."

He choked back a laugh that was almost a sob. Threaded his hands through her hair.

"Shut up, Summers. I have never seen you more beautiful than tonight."

Oh, she was only eighteen. Her birthday had been two weeks ago. He told her a week before that, that he could never love her. Oh, he was so cruel and so beautiful. To crush her hope three weeks ago and piece it back together and set it on fire tonight. She was only eighteen. She thought perhaps, she was either a very stupid or very wise eighteen.

She moved back down and rested her cheek against his inner thigh, just breathing in and out. Watching him twitch for her. She kissed the tip of him and heard him moan above her. Took him back in her mouth and smiled like the woman she felt she had become, when he came in a cool rush down her throat. Before she could lick him clean, which she thought would be the considerate thing to do; he bolted up and tumbled her onto her back. Pushed her legs apart and bit the inside of her left thigh making her cry out in pained pleasure. He bent her knees and pressed them back towards her shoulders to open her up to his mouth. Buried his head between her thighs and made her wail and shake into her hands. Over and over, he drew out her sobs until her throat could no longer make any sounds and she lay there limp and languid, tears running down her flaming cheeks. Sprawled out naked on his bed with him, the moonlight filtering in through his open window to paint their exposed forms an unearthly deep blue. Floating in her mind, on her back at Shannon’s Pond with him in her arms. With his head between her legs making her unfurl like a rose. Finally he slid up her body, their sweaty skin bonding together. He flopped on top of her with his head on her chest, his hand lifting her left breast to his mouth. His lips drawing in her nipple as if for comfort. Her arms banded tightly around his shoulders, her hands twining of their own volition in his hair. His eyes were already closed and he had buried one of his hands between her thighs possessively. Oh, her eyes felt so heavy. She was so tired. She would just close them for a moment. Tomorrow was going to be wonderful.

*****************************************************************

She awoke with a jolt, splashing water out the sides of the tub. She had fallen asleep and the water had gone cold. Pressed her pruney hands to her eyes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It was so long ago. It had been a mistake. She should have never snuck into his bedroom when he was in the clutches of fever and loneliness. She should have never expected that anything would’ve changed in the clear light of dawn. He had been upset and full of self-loathing. Hating himself. Hating her. She had just stood there in frozen silence as he threw her her nightgown and told her to get dressed and leave before his parents got home. Before her mother came back from the graveyard shift at Sal’s. She had put her nightgown on carefully, getting on her hands and knees to collect the scattered buttons from his floor. Listened to him retching in the bathroom as she remade his bed. She’d used clean bedding she found in the hallway linen closet so they wouldn’t smell like her. Left the corner of his sheet folded back in case he wanted to slip back in bed and go to sleep.

She’d slipped out of his house and back inside her own. Made a cup of tea and dry toast for her mother so she could have something to eat when she got home from work. And then she had gone up the stairs to take a bath. Stared at her face, white but still glowing in the cracked vanity mirror. She’d taken off all her clothes and inspected all the bruises, scratches, and bite marks on her body. It hadn’t been a dream. Funny how she still had his touch on her when the memories were already starting to become hazy and unreal. As if she had just made it all up in her own lovesick mind. She’d thought, laying there in the bathtub with tears running down her face and hysterical laughter bubbling up in her throat, that perhaps it was best to think that she had made it all up.

Now she was lying here in the same bathtub, in the same bathroom. No longer crying, no longer laughing for what could have been. For what never was. That night, when they were eighteen, that night had been the last time she had seen him before the accident. Before she had watched them carry him out of the white house on a stretcher, his face bloody, and his body covered with a sheet. Before his father had been shot to death by a burglar and he, he had been put in darkness forever. She wouldn’t think of that now. Her memories and half-formed dreams were already starting to twist her mind until she became confused between the past and the present. The only thing that could ground her was him. To feel his hand on her body. To feel his lips burning hers. Her life had come down to this again. Living from moment to moment of him. The minutes only distinguished by With Him and Without Him. Just like before. Just like it had been all those years ago.

She tried to warn me away from you tonight. She thought she was being subtle. I think she suspects but does not know for sure. She told me you would try to hurt me if I gave you the opportunity. I wanted to laugh and laugh. She does not know anything about me, about you. Everything she sees is turned backwards and inside out. It is me who always hurts you if given the opportunity. I have tried to warn you away from me so many times. But you are so strong. You tear down all my walls with one glance. How can anyone so fragile and soft be a fortress against the ugliness beyond?

Next Part

Story Index

Site Index