Teaching Willow: Session Four (5 page)

FOURTEEN- EBON

A knock wakes me. Again. I roll out of bed and stumble to the door, looking out through the peep hole.  I see Detective Arnold standing on the other side.  Blearily, I think that too many of my days are starting out with cops at my door.

I flip the lock and pull open the door.  “Detective Arnold,” I say, stopping myself before I add a polite
What a nice surprise. 
Because, of course, that would be an outright lie.  If I never see another police officer for the rest of my life, I’d die happy.

Well, not happy.  I’m not sure I’ll ever be
happy
again, but at least I’d die a little more…satisfied than I am right now.

“What can I do for you?” I ask. Not that I really want to know.

“The results from the ME have returned.  Your mother’s death was ruled a suicide.  The only prints on the vials found at the scene, as well as the syringe used to administer the fatal dose of Ketamine were her own.  The angle of the puncture and the positioning of the needle are consistent with a self-inflicted wound.  What that means for
you
is that you’ve been cleared of suspicion of any wrong doing.”

“So…I’m…” I prompt, raising my eyebrows.

“You’re a free man, Mr…Daniels.  You can return to your home and your life whenever you like.”

I’m a free man?  That doesn’t sound quite right.  I don’t know that I’ve ever been free.  Not really. 

When I make no response, Detective Arnold continues.  “Well, your house was cleared within twenty-four hours. I just got the impression that you didn’t particularly want to be there.”

I give him a tight smile.  “I’m sure you can imagine why.”

He wags his head as if to say he can understand it.  After a few seconds, he clears his throat.  “Just make sure you don’t violate that restraining order and maybe you won’t have to see me again.”

The restraining order.  It’s never far from my mind. 

“I won’t be forgetting about that any time soon.”

“Good good,” he says, pushing back his sleeve to glance at the watch on his wrist.  “Well, I’ll let you get on with your day.  Take care, Mr. Daniels.”

“You, too, Detective.”

And with that, he’s gone from my life.  Hopefully forever.  His disappearance from the hallway is one step closer to putting this whole mess behind me.

But now what?

I wander back into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed and stare at the blank screen of my laptop.  It’s fitting, I suppose.  My story is finished.  Written.  Completed.  Now it’s time to move on.  To move away.  There’s nothing for me here now.  Without the possibility of Willow, without the hope of seeing her again, there’s nothing keeping me in this area.  Nothing at all.

FIFTEEN- WILLOW

After a shower and a decidedly excruciating visit to my closet, I finally managed to make myself somewhat presentable for Ebon.  I can’t put this off for one more minute. I have to find him. I have to tell him.

I park alongside the curb across the street from his house. A million emotions collide inside me as I sit in the quiet of my car and stare at Ebon’s dark brown front door.  Behind that door, I experienced some of my life’s greatest pleasure, all at the hands of Ebon.  Behind that door, I perpetrated some of my life’s most heinous deceit, all for the love of Ebon.  Behind that door, I flirted with the grim reaper–his mother–all because of my relationship with Ebon.  I feel elation and despair, excitement and anxiety, ever-present love and never-ending fear.  In short, I’m a mess before I even get out of the car.  But get out, I do.  This is my bed to lie in.  I made it.  Fashioned it out of my own obsession.  Now I’ll have to sleep in it, even if it burns up around me. 

 I take a deep breath that’s supposed to be calming, yet only makes me more jittery. I wrench the door handle and slide out from behind the wheel, quietly closing my method of escape behind me.  I run a trembling hand over my long hair, curled for this special, albeit hideous occasion.  I rub my lips together, feeling the silkiness of my rose-tinted Chapstick.  I blink away sudden tears, unwilling to risk ruining my mascara, and I square my shoulders inside the demure sundress I’m wearing.  Boldly, I take my first step.

My shaky legs carry me all the way to the stoop, where I take another breath before knocking lightly.  When there’s no answer, I ring the bell, surreptitiously glancing in through the open curtains to check for signs of movement.  Maybe he’s hiding inside.  Maybe he’s in there wishing I’d go away, like an unwanted door-to-door salesman.

Well, tough shit!  I’ve got something important to tell you,
I think to myself, knocking again, only this time more insistently.

Still no answer.  Still I wait.

I knock again and press the bell a second time, alternating the two for at least ten minutes, hoping to wear him down.  But it’s all to no avail.  There are no signs of life that I can see.  Not one.

I back up and lean toward the window, no longer trying to hide that I’m peeking in like a common perv.  It’s as I’m cupping my hand around my eyes, face pressed to the glass like one of those suction cup cats that go in your rear windshield, that I get busted.

“This place is already spoken for,” a raspy female voice says from behind me, startling me so badly I almost tip forward into the shrubbery.  I turn to find an older woman, maybe late fifties or so, dressed in a robe with curlers in her salon-black hair, staring at me through a haze of cigarette smoke.  No doubt that’s where she gets her gruff voice. 

“I know the man who lives here,” I offer by way of explanation, like it’s totally normal to be spying on people through the windows just because you know them.

“He’s moving out.  I don’t even know if he’s coming back for his stuff, but my cousin Ruthy has already talked to him about renting this place, so you can just put any ideas about moving in here right out of your mind.”  She gives me the stink-eye, as though I’m poaching on someone else’s property.

“I’m not interested in–wait, what did you say?  He’s leaving?  The man who lives here is leaving?”

She nods emphatically.  “If he ain’t already gone, that is.”

I glance back in through the window again.  Surely Ebon wouldn’t leave all his stuff here.  Would he?

“Are you sure about this?  I mean, did someone talk to him?  That’s all I’m interested in.  I just want to find him.  I swear.  That’s it.”

She narrows her eyes on me.  “You really don’t want this place?  Don’t you lie to me, girl,” she warns sternly.

“I’m not lying.  I’m just looking for Ebon.”

After a few long seconds of her sizing me up, trying to determine my motives, I suppose she decides that she believes me.  She walks closer, leaning in conspiratorially.  “Truth be told, Ruthy didn’t really talk to him.  I just don’t want anyone else to steal this place out from under her, you know what I’m saying?” I nod as though I do.  “That boy’s momma killed herself in there.  ‘Course Ruthy don’t care about that.  She’s not superstitious.  She’s got God in her life.  No reason to fear the dead.”

“So you’ve talked to Ebon then?  The man who lived here?”

“Not so much, no.  I talked to the police several times. They came to ask me some questions, but I had some of my own.  I’m that kind of citizen, don’t you know?  Responsible and all.  But there was one cop in particular who said he’d moved to a hotel and that he won’t be coming back.”

I feel the blood drain from my face.  If Ebon leaves, how on earth will I ever find him?  How will he ever know that I’m so, so sorry?  Or that he has a child?  Or that my life will be empty without him?

“Did the officer happen to mention what hotel he was staying at?”

After a moment more of indecision, she sighs leans in even closer, as though I’m twisting her arm.  “I can’t say as I know that much.  Truth be told, I heard some of it from listening to that cop talk on the phone.  My window right there,” she says, pointing to the one closest to Ebon’s front porch, “is the one I blow smoke out of on account of I don’t want my house to smell like an ashtray.  It’s not my fault I can hear what goes on over here.”

I give her a shaky smile.  “Of course. You can’t help that.”  I’m frantic. I feel an urgency to find Ebon before he leaves, so much so that my muscles tremble with it.  “Well, thank you for your help. I guess I’ll try to find him later.”

I hurry off as fast as I can.  I’m sure the lady could do without having a stranger dissolve into a hysterical fit right on her neighbor’s front porch. 

As I start the car, my mind races.  I’ll call Ebon.  Maybe he’ll answer.  If not, I can leave a message.  I didn’t want to do it this way, I didn’t want it to be so….impersonal, but it seems I might not have a choice.  I have to do whatever I can to find him, to let him know…everything.  Even if that means leaving it all on his voice mail.

SIXTEEN- EBON

I’ve been tossing and turning for hours now, adrift in that place between sleep and wakefulness, that place where the line between dream and reality is blurred. I nearly miss the soft knock at my door.  I open my eyes and glance at the clock.  3:01 PM.  Dread penetrates my semi-conscious state.  The only visitors I’ve been getting are police because they’re the only ones who know where I am. 

That means something else has happened.

I listen to the ambient noise–the hum of the air conditioner, the whir of traffic outside, a vacuum cleaner being run in the room next door.  Among the familiar sounds, there are no voices, no evidence that there is anyone at my door or in the hall right outside my room.  And, after a full minute, when there is no second knock, I relax again.  I ease back into a sea of partial lucidity, my cognizant brain easily spinning my real-life wishes into the web of a dream, guiding it where I want it to go.

And it wants to go to Willow.  If only
she
was at my door…

In my mind, I slide groggily from the mattress and stumble through the dark to the door.  With my finger on the handle, I pause to peek through the hole.  Darkness fills the little eye.  That should cause me to hesitate. But it doesn’t. In sleep, I’m fearless.  I have nothing to lose.  No possessions, nothing I care about.  Nothing that’s not already gone. Lost. Not even my life.

I flip the lock and pull open the door.  I recognize the back of Willow’s head instantly.  The jet black hair that flows between her shoulders like an onyx wave.  My heart stops beating for the space of a few seconds before it starts back up at a faster, more excited pace.

“Willow?”

Slowly, she turns to face me.  Her face is pale, her expression hesitant, but it’s her eyes that tell the story. They are wide with uncertainty and regret and…something else.  Something that has called to me from the first moment I laid eyes on her.

“What are you doing here?”

“I…I just got out of the hospital,” she says.  “Can I come in?”

I should be reluctant to be anywhere near her, but I’m not.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that I can’t stay away from her. No matter the consequences, if she’s willing, I can’t stay away.

“Of course,” I reply, stepping aside so she can enter.

When she’s standing in the small entryway, I shut the door and move past her.

“What are you doing here?” I ask again.

Willow stares up at me for a few tense seconds before she cups her elbows and walks to the window.  I cross quietly to stand behind her, the scent of her shampoo and that uniquely Willow aroma swirl around me, causing my balls to tighten.

“Are you okay?” I ask.  At first she doesn’t answer.  In fact, I’m not even sure she heard me.   “Willow?” I prompt.

“I know I shouldn’t have come, Ebon, but…but…” Her voice sounds desperate.  It sounds precisely like how I
feel.

“But what?”

She doesn’t turn toward me; she simply gives me her profile.  My fingers itch to trace her pert nose, her lush lips, her delicate chin, but I don’t. I know that if I touch her, I won’t stop.

“I can’t stay away,” she whispers miserably.  I say nothing.  I don’t know what
to
say. I feel the same way.  The exact same way.  “I fell in love with you a long time ago. It was so hard to shut you out then, but now…now that I know your touch, now that I’ve felt your kiss, now that I know what you can do to my body…”  She exhales a shaky breath, her body swaying ever so slightly toward mine.

Blood rushes to my cock, pulling me toward wakefulness.  Blindly, I reach beneath the sheet and grip my shaft before I guide my mind back to my dream.  Where I’m with Willow. The only place I really want to be. 

I raise my hand, pausing in mid air as I debate the wisdom of giving in to this.  But, as always, there is no real debate.  This is Willow.  She’s my Achilles heel.  She’s my kryptonite.  She’s the one thing I can’t resist.

My fingertips skate down the smooth skin of her arm like gossamer wings.  I feel her shiver.  I hear her gasp.

“I need to feel your hands on me, Ebon.”

“They are,” I respond teasingly.

“Not where I want them, they’re not.”

“Where do you want them?”

The air conditioning cuts on again, pulling me out of the fantasy for a moment.  I stroke my stiff cock and I concentrate, throwing my every synapse back into imagining how the scene plays out with Willow, filling in the blanks with everything I want to hear, everything I want to feel.

“Do you want me to show you?” she asks, still not turning toward me.

“Yes.”

With me standing behind her, neither of us saying a word, I watch as Willow undresses.  I’m spellbound by the way the city lights play off the satin skin of her stomach.  I’m tortured by the way she arches her back to push her luscious ass into my groin.  I lean into her, forcing her upper body toward the window.  I don’t stop until I see her nipples touch the cool glass of the window.  They pucker into tight little mouthwatering buds and she gasps again.

“Is the glass cold?” I ask.

“Yes,” she breathes.

I back away, pulling her with me, letting my hands skitter over her cool breasts.  I barely graze her skin, not even when she leans into my palms.  I pull away, but she follows my hands, a silent plea for me to touch her like she wants to be touched.  When I give in, I take her nipples so gently between my fingertips that I know she probably wants to scream in frustration.  She stills completely, waiting.  I do nothing at first.  I listen to her ragged breathing. I feel the soft tremor in her muscles.  And then, without warning, I pinch her nipples, twisting them just enough.  She lets out a pant-moan that has my cock straining toward her.

I push her against the glass again, sliding my hands down her sides and over her hips to the fronts of her thighs. I tease the soft skin there, flicking my fingers over it, massaging it, feathering them within a centimeter of the heat I feel coming from her.

I pull away, spinning her to face me.  Even in the low light, I can see her surprised expression.  And her anticipation. 

I drop to my knees in front of her, placing a chaste kiss just below her bellybutton.  Her abdominals contract under my lips and I smile against her stomach.

“Tell me what you want,” I urge, her skin hot against my mouth.

“I…I…”

I kiss her again, a fraction lower.  She shivers.  “Tell me all the dirty things you want me to do to you, Willow or I’m going back to bed.”

I stroke my cock harder and harder as I imagine all the things I’d like Willow to say to me. Right here.  Right now.  Even after everything that has happened. 

I dive head first back into my dream.

“I want you to lick me.”

“That’s not good enough,” I say, trailing my tongue around where her panties would go.  “Be naughty, Willow. Just for me.”

I open my mouth wide over the top of her slit and let my hot breath tease her damp flesh.

“Oh god, please Ebon.”

“Please what?”

“Eat me.  Eat my pussy.  Lick it, suck it, put your fingers in it, stick your tongue in it.”

God how I’ve missed this, missed
her.

“What else?”

“I want you to put your cock in me.  I…I want you to put your fingers in my ass. I want you to fuck me in every way you can think of. I want to taste your come. I want to feel it.  In me.  On me.  All over me.  Please.”

“That’s it, baby.  Keep going.”

Gently, I take two fingers and spread the lips of her smooth pussy and I press a kiss to her slick clit.  She mewls.  I stop.

“Tell me more,” I insist.

“I want you everywhere, touching me, licking me, sucking me, fucking me.  I want to be the best thing you’ve ever had.  I want you, Ebon! I fucking want
you!”

“Give me your leg,” I command gruffly.  Automatically, she raises her right leg, which I throw over my shoulder just as I wrap my arms around her and lift. 

I stand, pushing Willow’s back up against the cold window as I dip my shoulder under her other knee, my face inches from the apex of her legs.  I wrap my arms over the tops of her thighs until my hands are between them.  I pull her folds apart, pausing to give her time to anticipate my touch.  I blow warm air on her until she gives me a garbled groan and then I do as she asked.  I eat her, licking and sucking until I feel her legs tighten around my head.  I pull back, not touching her until she looks down at me.  “I don’t want you to come yet.” 

Her breathing is shallow and I can almost feel her frustration.  When I’ve given her a few seconds to withdraw from the edge, I move one hand back around her thigh, coming at her from below. I swirl my tongue over her clit just as I force my thumb into her pussy and my first finger into her ass.  I thrust and rub and fuck her until she’s riding my face with nothing between her and the fourteen stories of black night air at her back except a window. 

When her muscles tighten again and her hips writhe against my face, I stop again, letting her legs fall from my shoulders.  I kiss my way up her belly to take a nipple into my mouth, nibbling.  Willow wraps her arms around my head and holds me to her, winding her legs around my waist. I feel her wetness against my stomach.

I carry her to the bed and lay her down on her side, tucking one leg under my arm and the other between my legs, leaving her open and vulnerable to me.  I nudge the head of my cock until I’m barely inside her, then I stop.  We watch each other for untold seconds before I remember that I’d been drinking a beer before bed.

I reach for it where it rests on the nightstand and I drink the last warm sip.  I flex my hips just enough that I can feel resistance, feel her beginning to stretch to accommodate my thickness.

“If I had two cocks, I’d fuck you with both of them at the same time.  Do you think you’d like that, Willow?” I ask, reaching around to tease between the cheeks of her ass with my finger as I run my tongue around the mouth of the bottle.

“Yes,” she says, desperately, automatically.  She’s mindless with want now. I don’t think she even knows what I’m asking.

“But since I don’t have two, this bottle will have to work.  Can I stick this bottle in you?”

I feel her muscles clutch at me. Her eyes are dark and wide and her lips are parted into a small O. She says nothing.

“Does that scare you just a little?”

Again, she says nothing.

I pull out and take the bottle into my right hand, ringing her entrance with its long neck. 

“Is
this
glass cold?” I ask, pushing it an inch or so inside her.

Still, she says nothing, only nods.

I pull out and go back in a little farther with the bottle.  I slowly penetrate her until the bottle widens and I stop, stretching her with it.   “Can you feel the shape of the neck?  Can you feel it with your pussy, baby?”

I push more, knowing that the widest part of the bottle is pressing against her now.  I hear her gasp and I withdraw it almost completely.  When it’s nearly out of her, I force it in and out quickly, in several short bursts before I pull it all the way out.

I lean toward her, replacing the bottle with my cock. I resist the urge to throw my head back and ram into her as hard as I can. Instead, I bring the bottle to my lips and I lick around the mouth.  “I love the taste of you,” I tell her, lowering the bottle back between her legs and dragging the tip from pussy to ass.  I circle the tight little opening until I feel the resistance relax a bit.  Then, with a gentle rhythm, I rock my cock and the bottle into her at the same time. 

In and out, a little bit farther with each stroke.  As if for the first time, my eyes see what I’m doing, they see the bottle mimicking the movements of my cock, sliding into and out of her delicious body. 

My breath sticks in my chest and I twist the bottle slightly, feeling her pussy tighten around my dick.  “Oh god, baby, that’s it. You like that, don’t you?”

Willow says nothing, but she’s moaning and grunting with increasing frequency. I can feel her legs twitching and flexing around me as her pleasure escalates. 

“I’m going to come inside you, Willow, but I don’t want you to come yet.  Do you understand?”

Her cry is just that—a cry.  Of frustration, of pain, of pleasure.  I know she wants to let go and the sadistic side of me wants to make her hurt with it.  With my free hand, I reach between her legs, my cock pumping in one hole while the bottle fucks another, and I pinch her clit between my fingers, tugging on it until she literally screams my name.

“Ebon, no!”

Just before she pops, her muscles clench around me and I feel like my balls are going to get lost inside her, I’m fucking her so deep.  And then I’m losing it.  I’m slamming into her, coming inside her, coming on her leg. I’m jerking with spasms that I can’t control.

Willow sounds like she’s near tears when I pull out and let her relax onto her back.  I drop to my knees, bending her legs and pushing her thighs onto her chest as I kneel between her legs.  I spread them as wide as they will go and I feast on her sopping pussy.  As I tongue her folds and suck on her clit, I fuck her ass with the bottle, turning it again and again until she can’t take it for another second.  I know the instant she loses it.  She comes so hard it spurts against my tongue and runs down my chin, causing more semen to shoot from the head of my cock, my abs contracting like I’ve been punched in the gut.