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*
“How about a diamond pin?”
*
First kiss it was definitely not. No, first kiss was an estranged echo from very long ago. Second kiss then. Thoroughly and intimately on the mouth, on her lips, urged on by his desperation, by a feeling of her life falling between the cracks, of both wanting some kind of connection. Any kind of connection. And this was the only one available. The only one that kept him in orbit – a Jennifer centric orbit. The moon around the earth; the ebb and flow of the tide; the trajectory still within her sights.
He didn’t want therapy. He didn’t want change.
Kiss her. Fuck her. Devour her. That was what he wanted. Burn through her and leave a scorch mark behind. His desire an avalanche rumbling down to bury her, suffocate her. Kill every intention she had about keeping strict lines, about keeping up a resemblance of ethics. Erase professionalism – erase the very image she held of herself.
Saturate her with shame? No, not him. That was her own accomplishment, her own conscience drawing up battle lines preparing for a short-circuit of her systems, wide out alerts flashing red, an alarm blaring at an uproariously decibel. What was the warning? Flood surge? Reactor meltdown?
No handshake.
Instead her hand dragged him closer by the shirtfront, her fingers clutching the fabric of his polo, trembling. In opposition with her other hand; by her side, paralyzed, fearful. Internal conflict raging in discord as he deepened the kiss. Responding hadn’t been on the horizon – it hadn’t been a fucking possibility at all. Responding to him kissing her: impossible, the odds dismal.
Blundering ahead with a miserable feeling of sorrow, she had expected a kiss on the cheek. A cheek peck she could allow as a goodbye, and so when his lips pressed against hers, absorbing the space of air between them instead of pressing gently against her cheek, she was woefully unprepared. That first meeting moved fluidly into the next kiss, continuous, and, against all odds, her lips clung to his. The impossible bent before her and she melted against him. Not expecting the rush of emotions that flooded her, that made her respond, that made her eagerly, that made her desperately fasten her own lips against his.
Burned… too close to the sun.
Sun-kissed, she thought, as he burned away any shame she felt, his hands clamped around her arms, keeping her in place as he kissed her till almost nothing remained.
Kiss him, fuck him, devour him? Some madness shared? Folie a deux? Wasn’t that easier to believe in than her own morals crumbling into nothing by a simple kiss by this man – of all men?
*
“Look, no fault, no foul.”
*
Fourth kiss.
Was she going to keep count of every single kiss? File them away for perusal? For some introverted self-flagellation or a tally of some kind? Add them all up and what was the result?
The third was lost to her. Lost to some alienated and erratic version of herself who shamelessly straddled her ex-patient, of crucial essence to add the ex, ground against his willing hand and came while panting his name into his open mouth. Third kiss. Impossible to retrieve more than that.
Fourth kiss. That was different – it anchored her memory to consolidate. Hot and humid. The fourth kiss endured like summer endured the fatal approach of fall. Brazen and bold: he kissed her like summer incarnate. Seared his lips onto hers, white-hot pleasure the moment he pushed her skirt up, up and up, until it bunched around her middle. His fingers dipping under the waistband of her underwear. Blood aflame with adrenaline, her palpitating heart against the cage of her thorax, her skin sweltering with anticipation. The press of his hands against her skin, against her flesh, elicited fire wherever they touched, elicited whispers and moans… they pulled her apart at the seams, slowly, deliberately, threads unraveling… bursting… spilling out her own desire.
Fourth kiss was his rough hands bending her across a desk as he fucked her, her ass backing into his groin, pushing him deeper, savoring the feeling of a late summer, of his thickness, of him grunting out his release with the roar of the season ending abruptly.
The only reason it was still in her memory; the desk was neither his nor hers.
Fourth kiss endured.
It was him slapping her ass as he fucked her again some time later, the day persisting. Insatiable. If she stayed connected to him, kept him entwined with her body, kept him under the spell of sex, it staved off any second-guessing. There was no time for regrets then. No repentance for her. The air thickened with each trust, her need spilling out into the darkened room as she told him to slap her harder. Begged? Ordered? The unquenchable urge within her overriding whatever coherency that was left. What she wanted – urgently – was the imprint of his hand on her skin. She wanted the pain of it to sear her, to send her over the brink and into madness. Pain. Pleasure. Pain. Pleasure. He acquiesced and she came with a hoarse cry, her hands against the headboard of the hotel room’s bed, and her mind falling into a warm pool of bliss.
Fourth kiss contained a multitude, all the kisses encompassed into one night, and fucking till she lost any semblance of herself.
*
“I appreciate everything you've done for me.”
*
Any other time, any other man and she would have declined the invitation – was it even an invitation? His hand heavy on her spine, the force of it exhilarating. Maneuvered into a restroom. Did she get off it...? Yes! Flushed with unbidden pleasure, pooling in her underwear, her thighs weak with excited dopamine. The suspense of the coming act. It left her mind in a supple mess, easy to direct, to guide – easy to lay claim over.
And then they were in a stall, the door locked and his hand slipped under the hem of her skirt, going upwards in a route that was hard to deny. Pleasure tingling like delirium beneath her skin, surging in her blood, thrilling in her mind. Temporary insanity this thing he afflicted on her.
If she, in turn, afflicted sanity on him then it wasn’t a transgression: that was the only solution to the entire mess that she could hold onto, the one thing that kept her sane throughout.
If she whispered words of love in his ear, pulled down the veil of her love, forced it out into the open, forced it to grow into something bigger than it was, pulled it down like a hood over his eyes, then it would make up for everything, wouldn’t it? Love creeping sweetly into the crevices of his fortress. If she could tear it down from the inside, it would be for the greater good, even if just for her own greater good, her own peace of mind.
The floor of the toilet was like a punch to her stomach when she looked down, a reminder of reality. Her underwear around one ankle, shame spiked hot in her but it was quickly swept aside. No room for shame, not when she was with him, not when she was drunk with desire. Shame didn’t keep her from spreading her legs, her heel with a precarious footing, seeking out his hand.
The moment he reached her, just the moment before he slid a finger inside her, then two, that was the moment he plied her control apart entirely, ripped it along its stitches purposefully. What public toilet? Anthony Soprano who? There was only the sensation of his fingers moving into her, out of her, coating her clitoris with her own wet juices, then into her again. Continuing, the rhythm of it hypnotic. The feeling of it electrifying.
The imminent orgasm eclipsed everything, his fingers deep in her, his other hand closing over her mouth to still her sounds, his eyes holding her in a vice. If he told her to scream his name, she would. If he told her to get down on her knees and suck him off, she would. At this point in time, in this moment, she was entirely his. Claimed to the atoms of her being.
She came beneath his gaze, his eyes black with want. A void for her to fall into. When he sucked the fingers that had made her orgasm, her breath became painfully stuck in her chest, even more so when he took hold of her jaw, made her look at that explicit declaration. His own fingers in his mouth, his tongue out, his smile hungry.
What was at the bottom of that abyss? Redemption? For who?
*
“Look, you saved my life in the beginning and for all the times I came on like an asshole, I'm very sorry.”
*
The world was tilted askew, her breath holding, waiting for something to break. Afraid a single word would send it all crashing down. Braced for the inevitable collapse, only, what would that entail? Dissolution and heartbreak? Counting down to the day when soul-crushing guilt would overwhelm her and she would expose her sin to the world? Counting down to the inevitable infidelity on his part? Wasn’t that the joker? However much she pretended there was something unique – about her, about him, about the two of them – it was hard to diminish the past, hard to ignore it because she could trace the lines of his trauma like sunspots on his skin. As malignant as cancerous cells.
Some kind of spiteful self-destructive feeling in her yearned to tell Elliot – to flauntingly rub his face in her unethical and doomed dalliance with a man who was abhorrent to everyone but her. What interpretative emphasis would he put on the sex? Pathological? And what would he say about her love? Pathological as well? Oh, he would submerge her in shame and keep her there, judgmental and superior.
This time it was more about selfishly coming than the other; each too committed to their own pleasure, their own high, to let the other come first. Oh Jesus fucking Christ. There was not a single thought in her head about his orgasm at all. She could only pinpoint her own on the horizon, coming closer and closer, fast-approaching with frightening intensity. She rode the high till it blew into her, the aftermath her body slick with sweat, warm with rapture, her mind blissfully blank.
Suffocating in the feeling of post ecstasy, all she wanted was to bury her head into the soft mattress and disappear, not particularly caring he had yet to come. Maybe because the emotion of her orgasm had peeled away another layer and soon she would be all bared. It quivered and trembled, a choked up feeling that would soon spill from her lips, unwilling and forced out. She wanted to cry in solitude, not cry as he fucked her, buried deep in her, his hands rough around her hips, keeping her up on all fours. Holding her in position, keeping her from slumping down unto the mattress. He kept at it, pushing into her with rigor and just when she thought it would undo her again, her walls about to clench, she heard his tell-tale grunts as he came.
Untangled, she crept under the cover, hid her face, hid the anxiety that must be evident on her face. Her eyes on the ceiling keeping back tears as she heard him go out to the bathroom, disposing of the condom. Just the emotion of it, she recited to herself.
He came back, scooted under the covers with her. His warm body against hers, insulating against any outside force, against the upheaval she felt within her. He was not supposed to kiss her softly, to linger in it, bring her against his chest as he held her, soothed her with touches and caresses. He was not supposed to watch her with something that ached in her heart – the whole reason, wasn’t it, for the upheaval?
If it was only about sex then why was he whispering secrets in her ear, nuzzling his lips against her skin, whispering about things to come. Of all the certain ways he would make her happy. All the certain ways he would change for her. All the certain ways this whole mess would not explode in their faces. She knew better, didn’t she?
He whispered an apology. For what she didn’t know.
The true joker. His vocation.
*
“Come on, I'm a fat fucking crook from New Jersey.”
*
Unprecedented he slept in her bed the whole night. Usually he sneaked out at an appropriate time after the act, leaving enough space between it and leaving her, for it not to feel cheap. Left her to ruminate about her life, without any interruptions. This time he stayed – determined in his demeanor, dismissive of her reluctance. He was single after all, he told her with a halo of happiness about him – or not, he was taken by her, he re-iterated, pulling her into his lap, kissing her, already hard and guiding her down onto him.
She took him in, the feeling of his girth pressing the breath from her lungs. From his perspective she was the predator. Circling in the air, swooping down in surprise with her talons out. Mind games, he said with a sloppy kiss, the vibration of his tone full of affection and of pride. High risk, high reward? Her breath snagged in her throat and her skin prickled as she rode him. Her heartbeat raced, picked up speed, and her skin flushed hot. A game of predators? The bear and the hawk, brute force versus stealth. Of course, he couldn’t see the fucked-up significance of telling her she was equally in control, equally to blame for the mess – that she’d ambushed him as much as he’d taken the opportunity. The gravity of it punched through whatever lies she had been telling herself. Punched the air from her lungs, thoughts from her mind, and all that was left was the upending feeling in her body; that made her tilt her hips and seek out pressure.
This was by design – by him, by her, folie a deux indeed.
This time her orgasm hit her hard; she rode him to completion, her hand braced against his chest, her mouth against his, breathing him in, expelling him in a breath, humid air keeping their lips clinging to each other.
It was entirely impossible to fall asleep with him in her bed. Surrounded by his arms, one of his legs moving in between hers, cocooned completely by his embrace, and the hot breathy kisses he peppered on her neck, her cheek, the spot behind her ear, every other moment, just as sleep was about to lull her under. It was effective in keeping her awake and yet, sometime during the night, at some indefinable point, she fell asleep. Drifting off and only woke when the early morning light appeared, awakened by his kisses again.
He’d stayed.
Her orphaned bear, her rottweiler. Whatever image she had of him, flickering between apex predators of various categories, he was a solitary stray. Unstoppable when provoked, but more often than not preferring the easy route. Could she train him? Enlighten and guide him to change? Unlearn all his bad habits, all his aggression? A stray in need of a home and in need of a caretaker. Predominantly in need of unconditional love, and was she not in need of unconditional love too?
Love?
If she deserved his love, he deserved hers.
Absolute.
Would love fix it?