Landslide (21 page)

Because when she does, the dam holding back all of Hell crumbles around us and breaks free at last.

Her eyes smoldering into mine, she lavishes attention on my engorged head with her tongue, finding and tasting the glistening drop of fluid she finds at the tip before completely covering me with her mouth to take me in deep. She doesn’t once break eye-contact, seizing my heart and lungs with the stark emotion that appears to be reflected back up at me in her heated gaze. Despite a severely rocky prelude and the gradually building crescendo, the finale sneaks up on me fast and I find myself having to forcibly swallow words that, no matter how true, to utter them in this moment would make them a premature cliché.

A low moan escapes her throat. It cuts through my resolve; my eyes rolling back into my head and making me groan in response, those three words balancing precariously off the tip of my tongue. I bite them back again and open my eyes to stare at her once more, watching me watch her repeatedly draw me in as far as she can. It’s then that in addition to blurting out that I am wholly, beyond all reason, fiercely in love with her, I recognize the imminence of one other thing I desperately don’t want to do.
 

One hand clenches the sheet beside me and the other flagrantly disobeys my will and flies from behind my head to her shoulder, my fingers digging into her soft flesh, as if either of them gripping onto something the way they are can stop what’s about to happen.

“Oh shit, Erica. Stop. I don’t wanna cum in your mouth. Please…stop.” Frantically pulling at her, praying she’ll heed my warning, I know that although each word would come from my charred soul, my soul isn’t ready to say them…and her heart certainly isn’t ready to hear them. “Come here…I need you to kiss me. Now.”

With words of bleeding love unadulterated straining at their reins to be set free, like a thundering herd pawing at the smoke and fire engulfing us, the plea is barely out of my mouth before rapture begins to strangulate me. I feel myself panting; it’s the maximum I can do now to stave off the inevitable. Short huffs of electrified air echo the cadence of my pounding heart until she finally relents, giving me her lips and breath, my hand joining hers in working me to a moment of release pure and unfettered.

Our tongues hardly have the few seconds it takes them to twist and tangle before behind my eyelids, starbursts fly through the night. It’s a light show the glory of which has never before been witnessed; not in my lifetime’s experience anyway. Of course now, the meager sparks lit in me by others previously as well as those promised by anyone else in the future will forever fall short in comparison to this grandiosity.
 

The little boy in me, though, tall and proud now, tucks that bittersweet truth away—not forever; he’ll give it back when it’s time—and then he confidently takes his place in front of the bonfire of guilt and memories, and for once righteous, he will remain there, respectfully standing vigil over everything in me that’s been burnt to ash.

Our breathing slows and our lips leave each other’s; hers move to drop sweet and tender kisses onto my neck and cheek, and mine go to nuzzle her temple as I pull her closer, a deep, satiated sigh escaping from them at the same time.

“You okay?” she mutters, pulling her hair out from under her cheek and getting herself more settled by finding her head’s favorite comfy spot on my chest.

I like being her pillow. It sucks for me in terms of sleeping, but, I figure I can sleep when I’m dead.
 

“Yeah, I’m good. Better than good.” The admission feels good too. It feels right.

Replete in almost every way, another gust of air comes from my lungs and one hand starts habitually weaving its fingers through Erica’s hair; the other running over my face as I acknowledge to myself just how much I’ve been repressing; how pent up I’ve allowed myself to become. I didn’t really realize it until now, after all the nagging negativity, hostility, and completely bottled up intensity has been, for now, let go of. I’ve been holding onto
so
damned much but it was like trying to hold onto thin air with my bare hands. I was afraid though that if I were to let go, there wasn’t anything except an empty abyss of darkness waiting to swallow me. So, I kept grasping at a rope made of nothing to keep myself from falling.

“Wow. I didn’t think I did, but…I needed that. Really bad.”
 

“I know. I remember I did too, and now we’re even,” she whispers with not a trace of a tear in hers eyes or voice, but rather, grateful satisfaction is heard as she snuggles even closer.

I don’t have any idea how many minutes tick by before a teary yawn threatens and explains in no uncertain terms just exactly how spent I am; however, I’m pretty sure it can’t have been more than one or two. So knowing I’ll probably soon become the embodiment of a stereotype by passing out on a girl, I use my last vestiges of energy to search for my boxers with my toes. Once they’re in my free hand and I’m done using them to clean us both up a little, I give in to the joyous feeling of being utterly depleted in every way imaginable, and smile to myself as I settle her as close to me as I can.

Then she giggles. “So…tell me, just how bad do you want a cigarette right now?”

I feel my eyebrows knit together in confusion and looking down at her, I give her a questioning look. “Now that you mention it, pretty bad. Why?”

“Because you keep putting my hair in your mouth,” she answers and laughs at me again before taking the gathered strands of hair from my fingers that I have, in fact, been subconsciously sucking on. “If I get up and get you one, can I have one of my own?”

“No.”

“Well, if you get up and get one, will you share it with me?”

“No.”

“Why not?” she whines the query and I chuckle at her through another yawn.

“Uh, hello, am I gonna have to start calling you Smokey Joe? You keep forgetting that you don’t smoke, and because
you
keep forgetting,
I’ve
been burning through more than a pack a day. Plus, everyone knows smoking in bed is dangerous…if you fall asleep you can burn your house—er, house on wheels down.”

“Oh please, you smoke in bed all the time,” she accuses and then turns her head marginally so she can express her feelings of being denied what her shiny new addiction is craving by biting me.

It’s not hard, but it’s enough to make my pectoral muscles flinch and cause me to narrow my eyes at her while I try to decide if and/or how I want to make her pay for it. We’ve never been playful like this before. I mean we have, but it’s most often been in public and both of us have always had clothes on. This is different for us. And now after thinking about it, actually, I kind of want to bite her back. The yawn I’m overcome with though reminds me that I really just don’t have it in me.

Although
… The nibbling I can just barely feel threatening me with another bite gives me a small surge of after-burn bravery. “Alright, Smokey, you want the truth? You literally sucked the life outta me and I got nothin’ left.”

Her teeth move out of nipping range when she lets out a short
humph
of laughter before elbowing me in the ribs. “Punny.”

“Thanks, I try. Seriously though, neither of us is getting up. I am legitimately done.” I yawn again and pull her to me once more. “I hath spoken and doth decree it.”
 

“Oh, fine.” She sighs and yawns a little herself, nuzzling her way back to her cozy spot and lightly kissing the spot on my chest that I’m sort of hoping will be bruised in the morning, just so that there’s proof tomorrow in case I need it for some reason. “Have sweet dreams, Your Majesty.”

Fighting back another huge yawn so I can kiss her on the corner of her forehead, I murmur, “You too, beautiful.”

So with that; with me soaking up every breath she takes against my skin and continuing to allow her body’s warmth to fan the low burning embers of my fresh start, yet still knowing that nothing’s really changed between Erica and me, that proof or no proof, tomorrow and the coming days will be a categorical bitch to get through now…a quiet sense of serene peace surrounds me, allowing me to finally close my eyes and hold her to me without an ounce of shame for the duration of the night…a night that will prove to be the first night of truly restful sleep that I’ve had in months. Because despite being weak and made powerless, heartwarming hope is finally rising to the surface, thawing me out with the understanding that the boy I used to be was right.

It’s never too late…

17

“Let Me Go”

—Erica—

I gave complete strangers the best of me and saved for my best friend the worst. I showed him the unsightly despondence inside me and he would kiss away the ugliness of his own volition and without question. He’s been feeling some of the same loss and emptiness I have, but unlike me, he gave of himself and comforted me. He made me feel alive and wanted…and beautiful. And I gave him nothing of that compassion in return; gave nothing of myself.

Performing the first blow job of my life on him might’ve been an odd way to say thank you, but the market in town still didn’t have those raspberry powdered donuts he likes so much and after hearing how distraught he was last night, I felt saying something like, “Hey, I really appreciate all you’ve done to help me heal and the sacrifices you’ve made to do it, so here, I got you a radiator,” just really wouldn’t carry the same sentiment I don’t think. So, I went a different route. Sue me.

The weird thing is, I expected to feel guilty or wrong doing it. Like, by doing something I always got squeamish about just thinking about doing to Holden, I thought I would feel badly about myself. I didn’t. Not in the least.

I’ve always felt safe with Cole, even in my earliest memory from when we were little, although the trust we mutually showed each other last night was unlike anything I’ve ever felt with anyone before, including Holden
and
my grandparents. I didn’t feel uncomfortable or awkward asking him if what I was doing was right or if it felt good. I wanted to get it right for him. I mean it’s not rocket science, I guess, and I’ve seen porn, but I didn’t want to be a spaz and hurt him or go too slow or something either. I obviously don’t have a penis and until he showed me, I didn’t really know the first thing about what one might like, so what better way to find out than by asking and making sure what I was doing was being done the way Cole’s penis likes it done. And that’s another thing… A guy’s penis is practically sacred, and by trusting me with his the way he did made me trust and have faith in myself as well, and that’s something I haven’t had in a long time.
 

I’ll admit though that I was apprehensive about actually putting his priceless equipment in my mouth. I felt vulnerable. Really vulnerable, but, when I heard him tell me to wait and I looked at him, some of the same vulnerability and uncertainty was reflected back at me, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to show him in no uncertain terms just how much he means to me. I had no clue if I was doing that right either, although rather than asking again, I just thought back to the night we first got to this campsite and tried to, in a way, mimic what he did and how it made me feel.

It was before we met our new friends; the sun had gone down hours before we checked in and got settled, but it was really warm still. We’d been close to overheating again; however instead of trying to find the problem at night with a flashlight, like he’s actually done before, Cole chose to go check out the part of the river we’d been fortunate to get a campsite close to. I met him down there after I threw some trash away and put a bathing suit on and grabbed a couple towels. Come to find out, fortunate doesn’t cover being given twenty-four access to what is actually a breathtaking cove that during certain quiet hours of the day or night, a person might feel as if they’ve been blessed by somehow stumbling upon Eden.

That first night was one of those peaceful times and after soaking in the tranquility and majesty before me, I couldn’t take my eyes off the glowing white of the huge moon. It brought out conflicting emotions of devout appreciation and simple sadness because it was so pristine…so perfect, and I was allowed to be a part of its beauty. Yet, it also made me think of how much splendor Holden is going to miss out on now. I don’t know how Cole always knows because I never say anything, but he waded up to the shore where I was standing ankle deep in the water. He didn’t even have to ask. He just knew.
 

He took one of my hands in his, threaded our fingers together, and then brushed my hair back from my face before kissing me once softly. I clung to his lips though, not wanting to be alone with my thoughts again just yet. As if he could read my mind, he kissed me again and again, deepening each one until I was breathless and he’d picked me up. I wrapped my legs around him and he backed us out into the water so that we were in up to our waists. I don’t even know how long he stood there kissing me like that; letting his lips aid the magic of the cove in dispelling everything unpleasant from not only me but the world.

His giving didn’t end there though. The fingers of one of his hands kept getting tangled and caught in the tie of my bikini top, so I just took it off. I didn’t think about it really, because it wasn’t the first time I’d ever taken my top off in front of him, and it wasn’t the first time I’d ever had his lips on my naked flesh either. It was the first time I felt heat from his eyes though. And it did something to me. It evoked something inside me that I still haven’t found a word for.

He took the top from me and put it in his hand that was at my back. With his other hand, he started at the top of my neck to lightly and slowly trail his fingers down my collarbone and over my left breast, moonlight catching and playing in every drop of water his fingers left behind on my bare skin, and he watched what he was doing. I think that’s what gave me more goose bumps and spread more warmth inside me than anything else. He carried me back to the shore and laid me down on the water-soaked sand so that he was hovering over me, yet he still hadn’t kissed me again or taken his eyes from my body.