The Story Guy (Novella) (13 page)

He looks down at my tattoo again, closing his eyes to leave a long kiss there, spreading his hand over my belly as if to keep me still.

When he glances up at me again, his eyes are bright with tears, but he still gives me a quick smile when the hand on my belly strokes down into my curls, lower, and unfolds me for his tongue, his lips.

I can’t help the pump of my hips into his face, but he just presses me even closer with an arm banded across my ass and groans, pumping his own hips into the quilt. He’s completely abandoned in this, and I prop myself up on my elbows to see, planting my feet on the bed to make myself more open.

It’s when the bristles on his chin sting at the same time he pulls my clit into his mouth that I start to shake. Start to ride what’s coming. He backs off just enough to ease in a finger, and it’s that slow, delicious pressure that sends my hips into slower, harder thrusts. Breathing is impossible. The world narrows down to his soft mouth and pressing fingers and the look of his dark hair against my hip. “Brian—” I groan, and I suddenly need purchase, need something more to fuck against. I need him inside me.

“Brian, please,
please—
” I scrabble against his shoulders, and thank God, he understands. In an instant, he is right there, feeding the taste of me into our kiss, his fingers still slick and perfect against me below. “Just like you fantasized,” I whisper to him.

He looks into my eyes and smiles, wild and flushed.

“You’d think I’d wear this fantasy out, as often as I’ve dreamt it.” He glides his fingers over the sweat along my hairline, cups my face. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you inside me.” He draws me into another kiss. Our hips have never stopped moving against each other, sliding and hot. “I have condoms right there in the nightstand.” He kisses over to my ear, sucking in an earlobe, and then moves only enough to open the drawer and rip a condom from the strip. After tearing it from the foil, he reaches between us to slide it over himself. He fumbles, just a little, so obviously turned
on and maybe a little rusty, and that strange tenderness comes back to me.

He fits himself against me, but then stops. I can’t help but pull my legs up so I can grip his hips with my thighs, and when I do, he sighs and rests his forehead against mine. “Carrie,” he says, and slowly, rubbing my cheekbones rough with his thumbs, he enters me.

I can’t breathe without taking in his breath as he pants alongside my mouth. When I feel that delicious dropping give deep inside me, I moan and hold him tight.

I am beyond ready to fly—I can feel him everywhere, hot and trembling; the sounds he’s making rumble from his throat to his chest. But he keeps his pace slow and measured, grinding against me when he’s deep, delivering kisses when he slides away.

“Brian, I have to—” I’m starting to spin out, but I can’t budge his even, relentless pace.

“Carrie,” he breathes. “Hold on,” and he drags one hand down to anchor my hip, driving me into a new angle.
Oh
. Now his thrusts come undone, and he’s watching me. When I meet his gaze, he reaches between us and rests a finger against my clit, gently pressing.

But it’s enough, and he keeps up, saying my name, even when I can’t hold his eye contact anymore because the world is dim and fuzzy. I reach into the orgasm, bending my head back, tipping my hips up, because it’s pounding, pounding, and I want it to get to every part of me. He’s almost still inside my tightness, moving in quick, telling jerks that stretch it all out.
God, oh God
. “Brian!”

“Carrie, honey, I’m right here, I’m right here.” He gets heavy over me with his last, lazy thrusts, and it’s so good. He rolls us onto our sides and grabs my nape to pull me under his chin.

“Jesus, Carrie. I’m right here.” He kisses the top of my head, and our breathing gradually gets soft and even.

“I can’t believe you decided to be a librarian when you were seven years old.”

“I don’t have an epiphany very often, but when I do, I guess I kind of internalize it.” I hold him tight.

“Huh.” His breathing has gotten a little sleepier.

“You’re an epiphany, too, you know,” I whisper. Maybe he can’t hear, is asleep.

He tries to hold me closer. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m starting to get that.”

Spring

Wednesdays are my favorite day of the week, because no matter what, I’ll see Brian. Even if all I have heard from him all week is one phone call at three in the morning that we both fell asleep to. Even if he sends me a long and frustrated email about coordinating the respite service with the home health aide with the nursing student intern with a big project at work. Even if the week was a perfect storm of unexpected doctor’s appointments for Stacy, a library pledge campaign for me, and a long round of calls to Brian’s insurance company that he had to sneak in at work.

On Wednesday, we’ll find each other standing under the pergola. Sometimes, there is nothing to say, and like the first time, we’re deeply kissing with relief and wonder within minutes.

Sometimes, we’ll actually eat lunch, talking, reminding each other that we have to go and then bringing up one more thing we meant to tell the other.

Sometimes, more recently, the aide or the respite worker or the nursing student will bring Stacy for a long lunch. It’s been a mild winter, so we’ve spent time pushing her through the park, talking a little as she frets and then relaxes in her chair.

It’s on those afternoons that he’s told me the most about Stacy, and when he tells a story about her I swear she settles, listens, and the smiles that her doctor tells Brian are just reflexive seem timed to the story Brian is telling.

Recently, when we have Stacy, Brian has finally agreed to let me help him take her back home, take on a few chores he can’t get to, learn how to make her comfortable and safe for him. He was so embarrassed at first, apologizing for everything. That their rooms are almost bare of furniture, so he can maneuver her chair through the small two-bedroom house. That we have to order takeout again, because the fridge is filled with her formula and medicine and he uses the kitchen cabinets for medical supplies.

But it’s finding out that Brian still sleeps on the same twin bed he had in college that chokes me up. It’s in a room without a door because all the interior doors had to be taken off their hinges to keep them from catching on Stacy’s chair and rolling bed.

Just once, I relieved him of her bed bath after learning the basics from the nursing student. I whispered to Stacy all the things I loved about her brother, and asked if it
would be okay if we shared him. I told her she would always be his little sister, but that I’d like to hang out with him, too.

The task was awkward, and I let her linger under a warm towel while I talked to her until Brian poked his head in and asked if I was okay. I was combing her hair and said, “Just girl talk,” and it was the first time I heard Stacy laugh—a kind of wet hiccup of a giggle that startled Brian and me into joining her.

Sometimes, the best times, neither of us needs to go back to work, and the home aide reports that everything is going well at Brian’s house. Those times, we turn our stolen afternoon into timeless time that seems like a week, a month, more. We live in the margin of our lives. But when it’s Wednesday, there are no rules, and I will see Brian.

Today, it’s windy and cool, but there is something in the gusts skittering old leaves across the park that speaks of spring. I’m in a good mood. I got word this morning that the famous Suki Malahar agreed to my proposal for a reading at the library centennial this summer, and that Justin accepted a librarian position in the city system and at the main branch where I work, no less.

Justin wants to celebrate, soon, with Aaron and me and Brian, Shelley and Will; since all of us have never gone out together, I’m hoping I can help Brian arrange to be there. I arranged to take the rest of the afternoon off
just in case
I could sneak in an early celebration with Brian—or at least linger over our lunch a little more.

I hear the ticking of his gliding bike before I see him, and I stand up so fast that I slosh my hot tea over the front of my blouse. He banks around the water fountains, lifting his hand to greet me as he stops and locks his bike in almost the same motion. He jogs his way over, and before I can get out a greeting, his hands pull me in by the hips and his mouth slants over mine.

He pulls just an inch away, releasing with a sweet suction my bottom lip. “Your mouth is hot and tastes like honey.” I show him the tea that I’ve been holding out of the way. “I see,” he twinkles at me and takes the travel mug, helping himself to a long sip.

He leans back in, and I guess what he’s doing just in time. His feeding me the hot sip of honeyed tea should be weird, but as usual, he’s so committed to the moment that I just enjoy the sweetness, the intimacy.

He slides his hand up my spine, pushing me closer to him as he makes his way to
my neck, then slides it back down, with the same slow pressure. Just as he rakes his fingers over my ass, I bite his cupid’s bow and he jumps, laughing into my mouth.

“You feel awesome,” he whispers.

“Yeah?” I slide my hand between us, over his chest, all slow so I can feel which little muscles jump.

“You do. You’re so warm. Soft.” He curls himself around me so that I can hold his whole big body next to mine.

“Thanks for calling last night,” I say, smiling against his lapel, and even though I can’t see his face, I swear I can tell he’s grinning.

“You bet. Good talk.”

I have to laugh, then. “You do, actually, give good talk.”

“You liked that, huh?”

“Definitely. That one thing you said? The thing with—”

“The thing?”

I sigh as he presses his palm over my hip. “Yeah, that thing. That was my favorite part.”

He moves back to angle over my mouth, fit our noses side by side. “This is my favorite part. Kissing you.” He’s gentle with his lips just for a moment before he guides the back of my head into something deeper, more insistent.

“Mmm,” I say when we pull back again. “I do like my tea.”

He kisses me again, running his tongue inside my bottom lip, slow and dirty. “I like your tea, too,” he says.

Laughing, kissing while his hands find every little dip on my body, this is the perfect way to end my morning and start my afternoon. Speaking of which: “Brian, I know we didn’t mention today, but I have the afternoon off and was thinking—”

“Actually, I do, too, but I was going to ask you something.” He got the tight look around his eyes that he still can’t shake, even while Wednesdays have managed to loosen a lot of his other tight places.
Stacy
.

“What’s wrong?” I can’t help my alarm. It’s been such a long winter for her. A lot of small complications have been adding up for a while, challenging the little Team Stacy that Brian had managed to assemble.

“She’s okay.” He takes both my hands in his. “Today, she’s okay. But I was wondering if you’d mind coming with me somewhere?”

“Of course.” I squeeze his hands tight.

“Just like that? You don’t even know where we’re going. In fact, I was going to boldly requisition your vehicle if you said you’d go.”

“I thought you’d figured it out by now.”

“What’s that, Carrie the Lieberrian?”

“I’m waiting here for
you
. That includes whatever it is you need. Let’s go.” I drop one of his hands and start pulling the other toward the path that leads to the library garage.

“Wait. The thing is, it’s probably not even fair that I ask you, but I can’t figure out how to do this by myself. I just—” His eyes get tight again, and he drops his head back to stare into the gray sky.

I just put my arms around him.
Mine
. This beautiful, make-do man.

“Brian, wherever we’re going, whatever this is, I’m in.” I say this to mean more than where we’re going this afternoon. He pulls me to him in a hug that smells like chain oil and cotton, like Brian and sweetness.

He doesn’t say much more other than to give me directions to a property about a mile away, on the edge of a residential area near downtown, that looks like a group of Tudor-style town homes.

When we pull in, I notice the discreet sign tucked into the formal landscaping:
Lakepoint Adult Residential Center
. As my car’s heater clicks down in the silence, I feel tears burn in the corners of my eyes.
Oh, Brian
.

He’s looking down at his hands, folded across his knees cramped against the bucket seat of my little car. His hair mussed by the wind, he looks like a sad teenager. Slowly, so slowly, he reaches over to unlock his seat belt, but instead he presses both palms, hard, to his eyes.

I reach over and squeeze him as tightly as I can against as much of my body as the console between us allows. His sobs are silent, shaking, so hard and deep that it’s difficult to hold him close.

His hands are still against his eyes, but tears are escaping anyway, and I put my
mouth softly against the stubble where they are collecting, to kiss them away. As he settles, I realize that I’m rocking him, whispering nonsense.

This is, of course, the privilege of love, to bear witness to a strong man’s grief over the little sister he could never save, as much as he has tried to, with every moment of life.

He looks at me, his eyes wet, the irises iridescent. “Will you come in with me?” His voice is a heartbreaking scratch. His vulnerability glows around his ragged edges.

“Jesus, Brian. Of course. Absolutely.” I trace his eyebrows, then rub in the rest of his tears with my thumbs. He lets himself grow still with my touch for a few seconds, and then takes a huge breath.

“Let’s go.” He swings out of the car, pulling back his shoulders. In front of the discreet security doors, he pushes the buzzer, and I lace my fingers through his.

For some reason, I had expected the center to be really quiet, like the way I imagine a nursing home. But as the efficient, surprisingly young nurse practitioner leads us through a tour, there is noise and activity everywhere. The main building is a U of internal offices facing a large, multi-room recreation center where mobile residents are watching TV, sitting at computer consoles, and participating in group activities.