Abel carries me home.
He carries me out of that room, and through the heated and writhing warehouse. Still holding me in his arms, he puts us in a cab and doesn’t let me go until we reach our apartment. I don’t know where he gets the strength from after what we just did. But somehow, he does.
At home, we shower together. He washes my hair, my body, gently, reverently, making me feel cherished. He even washes my pussy, going down on his knees, his face coming up to my drenched breasts.
For a second there, I feel like his hands pause on my stomach, circling, tracing the soapy skin. For a second there, I think he closes his eyes, probably imagining what happened, what I asked him to do.
But only for a second because in a flash, it’s back to business. He finishes the task, taking a quick shower of his own, then he dries us both. We lie on the bed together and go to sleep, clinging to each other. Even when I feel like I’ll melt with his body’s heat, I don’t move away.
The next day I go to work in a daze. I haven’t talked to my husband in over twelve hours. We haven’t talked at all since we left that room. I don’t know why. It’s the longest we’ve gone without talking ever since we moved here. Things don’t feel right.
Or maybe they feel exactly right and I don’t know what to do with it.
I’m even more absent-minded than before, mixing up orders, spilling water, stumbling over nothing. Today’s my last day here, I can feel it. Even though I’m a sub-standard waitress, Milo hasn’t fired me yet. I think it’s because of my husband. Every time he stops by the restaurant, Milo and Abel glare at each other. It’s sort of funny and just the thought makes me giggle but today, I can’t.
It doesn’t matter. Milo’s going to kill me and even Abel can’t stop him. Maybe I should just quit anyway. I can always find another job. I can always…
No. Nope. Not gonna think about it.
I’m not going to think about that warehouse or the fact that people actually have sex on camera for a living. For us, it was a one-time thing. We acted out a hot and heavy fantasy, and fantasies aren’t supposed to last.
Right?
What if they did, though? What if we can turn our entire life into a fantasy?
Okay, stop.
This is great. My job here at Milo’s is great. I’m learning a lot.
Wait. Am I?
Yes. I am. And maybe one day, I’ll quit when the time’s right. This isn’t that time though.
I’m delivering another order with Milo staring daggers at my back when the front door whooshes open with a loud ringing bell.
My entire body freezes when I see who it is. It’s the man who can make everything better for me.
My husband.
He’s standing at the threshold, his palm wide open on the glass door. Our gazes collide through the space — his intense, filled with need, and mine must be shimmery, shining with love. He tips his chin at me and rumbles out my name. “Pixie.”
My muscles loosen up and the tray almost slips from my hand. But let’s face it: it wasn’t going to stay in my hold for much longer anyway. I catch it though and it comes down on the table with a thump and a clatter.
I grin. Why wouldn’t I? It feels like I can breathe for the very first time in hours, in days, even. I know Milo’s grumbling behind me and the couple on the table are looking at me weirdly. I don’t mind. I leave everything and run to him. He clutches me in a tight hug as soon as I touch his body.
God, his smell, his soft t-shirt, his strong, powerful arms. Everything makes me want to abandon the world and be with him, locked up somewhere for the rest of my life.
“You wanna get out of here?” he murmurs in my hair.
I kiss the center of his chest before looking up at him. “Yes.”
Then he’s giving me a boost and my thighs go around his waist and my ankles cross at the small of his back. We’re walking out in the wake of Milo’s shouts.
Something comes over me and I do what I’ve never done before. I flip the bird. Literally. I tell Milo that I don’t need this job or him by showing the most important finger of the human hand. I tell him that I have something better. I have my Abel, and he’s taking me away.
When we’re out of angry Milo’s sight, I move back and look at Abel. The sun is shining down on him, making his hair glow like a halo.
“I’m a bad waitress.” I kiss his nose.
Chuckling, he kisses my nose back. “I know, baby.”
I hit his shoulder. “It’s a stupid job, anyway. I don’t want it anymore.”
“Yeah? What do you want?”
There’s a ton of weight in his words, in his look. Maybe he’s been feeling the same thing that I’ve been feeling. Maybe he wants to continue this fantasy, as well.
“You didn’t say anything. You didn’t talk. I thought… I thought you were mad at me or something.”
“No. Not at you. Maybe at myself, though.” He swallows, his gaze flicking all over my face. “For thinking about doing it again and again and again. For thinking about never stopping.”
A relieved smile blooms on my lips. “Me too. I don’t want to stop. Not yet. Not when it makes me feel alive. Not when it makes me feel so close to you.”
He’s relieved too; I can see it. “Then we won’t stop.”
“But promise me that we’ll always talk to each other. We’ll always tell each other what we’re feeling.”
“I promise.”
I kiss his cheek. “Now, take me home and fuck me like a good husband.”
“Ah, bossy. Did anyone ever tell you that, Pixie?”
“Yes, my husband.” I grin.
“Smart man.”
“Eh, he’s all right.”
He bites my lower lip, making me squeal. As he starts walking, I remember something. “Oh, I have some ground rules.”
That amuses him. “Okay.”
I bat at his chest. “I’m serious.”
“Me too.”
“No coming inside me.”
He frowns, still walking. “Fuck that.”
I knew it. I knew it. I knew he loved that. I loved that too. I don’t know what happened to me back there. I was in a trance, too much in the moment.
“Abel, what we did was stupid, okay? It was beyond stupid. I’m not on the pill, and you’re such a freaking baby about wearing condoms.” I press my forehead against his, trying to get my point across. “We need to be smart. We’re so young. We’re not ready for a baby. How are we ever going to raise a child?”
“If you think I’m coming anywhere outside of your tight little body, you’ve lost your mind.”
I can’t believe we’re having this discussion. On a sidewalk. People brush past us, some bumping into our bodies, but Abel’s like a rock. His steps hardly falter.
He thinks the world’s only made for the two of us.
“Fine. Then I’m going on the pill.”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“Really?” I am suspicious. “You don’t mind.”
“Nope. Can’t say that I do.”
I study his face. “Oh, I know. You’re planning on doing something fishy about it, aren’t you? If I find my pills missing or if I find out that you’re switching them, I’m going to kill you.”
He smirks. “I don’t need to do that.”
“Why?”
He presses a hand on the back of my head, bringing me closer. “I don’t need to do any of that because every time you take a pill, I’m gonna pump you so full of my cum that your body’s gonna bend to my will.” He captures my gasp with his mouth. “Don’t you know that by now, Pixie? If I want you knocked up, you’re gonna get knocked up.”
I bite his lower lip as a punishment but the jerk only likes it. “That has to be the most arrogant thing you’ve ever said. No, actually, that has to be the most arrogant thing anyone’s ever said.”
He shrugs again, like he has no care in the world. None, whatsoever. “Call it whatever you want.”
“Okay, husband. I love you but let’s see who wins: science or the man who thinks he’s God.”
“I don’t think it. I am your god.”
I roll my eyes at him, annoyed. Even so, nothing can put a damper on my happiness. Nothing can destroy what I have: Abel and our fantasies.
***
A few days ago, I walked out on my job. It was irresponsible, childish and it’s exactly what we needed to do. We have new desires now. New needs. New wants.
New fantasies.
We’re living in a new world. A world that Abel promised he’d build for me. I made him a promise too. I told him I wouldn’t shed a single tear for that town, for what happened, and I haven’t.
In fact, in this world, I laugh a lot.
We both do. We get up in the morning and make slow, lazy love. Then we take a shower together and make crappy breakfast, which usually ends up being burnt because my husband’s on a mission now. To knock me up.
I got my period confirming the fact that I wasn’t pregnant after that one accident. I was strangely disappointed. But it’s good that I’m not. We can’t have a baby right now. When we’re starting to explore new territories with each other.
I went to a free clinic and the doctor started me on the pill. Makes me wonder why I didn’t start it sooner. Makes me wonder if I secretly want a baby, something of Abel’s inside me. It doesn’t matter, though. It’s not happening any time soon.
I usually make a big deal of popping it, right in front of him and gulping it down, and he takes it as a challenge. And then he fucks me like only he can, both with tenderness and brutality. Not to mention every night, he sleeps with his large hand covering my flat stomach, like he’s letting our skins talk, working his magic.
After I quit my job, Abel told me that if we keep crashing at Ethan’s apartment a little longer, we can make it work money-wise. I already knew he had some money saved up when we moved here, and now he says he can pick up more gigs. Also, we can get some percentage of the cash when we perform for the camera. That’s one thing I didn’t factor in when I went there for the first shoot. Obviously, I knew that people got paid for this kind of stuff, but money was not on my mind, only this strange and strong desire to do something drastic.
Neither did I think that they’d put our tape online. Not after the way I freaked out. But they did and we can go back if we want to.
We aren’t under a contract or anything, which I learned is a thing in this business. We’re free agents, who choose them, who choose to go into their room, and have sex on camera. It’s our choice to show our love to the world on our terms. It’s our choice to celebrate what we have, what we should’ve celebrated all along but never got the chance.
After our first shoot, Abel brings home a hand-held video camera. On the mattress, he kneels between my naked legs, my hips on his brawny thighs, my sex open and pulsing. When he whips out the camera and that red blinking light comes on, I want to hide my face. My heart both soars and dips to my stomach.
I feel both turned on and a little uneasy.
What are we doing, bringing our fantasy into our daily lives?
“Ever since my first day down there, I wanted to bring home one of these. Just for us, you know,” he says, panting, fiddling with the buttons. “You’re gonna look so pretty, Pixie.”
The pleasure and wonder in his voice, banishes my doubts – it’s Abel; he won’t let us fall – and makes me bold, and I give him my best show once we start fucking.
“Fuck, Pixie. You love it, don’t you? You love the camera. You’re fucking made for it,” Abel rasps, while watching my movements on screen. He has it pointed to where we are joined, recording the stretch of my core over his abusing cock.
I flush with pleasure, my movements becoming even more seductive. Though somewhere deep down I want him to look at me, instead of that object in his hands. But it doesn’t matter because the orgasm I have is out of this world. It’s like a freaking train-wreck, which triggers my husband’s exploding climax.
I watch people in the warehouse and even though I know it’s all fake, their moans, their lust, their arching bodies, I don’t have it in me to judge them. There’s still a little bit of honesty in them. They are doing what Abel and I are doing.
The real world isn’t enough for them. So they are building their own world, making their own fantasy. They have their reasons like we have ours.
As soon as I step inside that room, I feel like I’m home. Maybe because the walls are painted the exact same color as my treehouse: sunny yellow. It’s both poetic and comforting. The treehouse was where we fell in love in secret and in this room, everything we do together is exposed.
In this room, we take back what we lost. Our power. The time we spent apart.
Abel takes back me. And I go to him without reservations, with all the love I feel for him.
On our first shoot, Abel asked me to look into the camera and imagine everyone from our town, and tell them how good it felt to get fucked by him in our imaginary church. In our own place of worship.
He asks me to do that every time. It’s a ritual for us. A cleansing ritual. He grabs my hair, pulling my neck up so I can stare at the light, all the while slamming inside me from behind. In my ear, he whispers bad things, illicit things. Possessive things. Things that turn me on and make me love him even more.
Tell everyone you’re mine, Pixie.
Tell them you love me. Tell them how good I fuck you.
Tell them you’ll never leave me. You’ll never go back to them.
His words make me want to absorb him in my body, hide him away from everyone who can do him harm. But all I do is scream out my love for him. I look in the camera, and declare my love to the world, to anyone who’ll listen. With pleasure. With anger. With a smile on my lips.
I’ve become comfortable with having people inside the yellow, hopeful room. Not a lot of them but a couple. Usually Blu’s husband Nick is in there with us. He’s so silent that I never feel or hear him around. Besides, with Abel inside me, I don’t feel anything else. The other guy is the one who was working with the lights that first time. I’ve since found out that his name is Gavin. He’s shy and nice, and he’s saving up to study electronics and communications.
Those two are the only ones who are allowed inside with me and Abel. My husband won’t let anyone else — namely the shaggy-haired guy who got mad the first time — come inside. My big, fierce protector. Nick and Gavin are friendly, and sometimes I catch a light of appreciation in their eyes. They even compliment us sometimes. It makes me laugh. I don’t know why but it does.
Most of all, it makes me feel validated. In fact, it’s the ultimate validation of our love, affecting people the way we do, getting a positive reaction out of them. The ultimate stamp of approval that our love is not wrong. That the way we love, crazily, madly, without limitations, is okay. Loving Abel like this is not a sin.
Loving Abel Adams might be the purest and truest thing I’ll ever do.
After every shoot, he carries me out, like he did the first time. He takes me home, washes my hair, presses a kiss on my tummy, and then we cuddle. There’s no sex or lust, only companionship. His movements are so gentle, his fingers such balm to my aching soul, and thoroughly vandalized and pleasured body.
He’s so layered, my Abel.
He is a product of this society. He’s a product of all the hatred and narrow-mindedness of my hometown. It makes me think that monsters aren’t born, they are made. Not that my Abel is a monster, but still. We make them, through our actions, through our thoughtlessness. We make them with our own hands and then, point fingers at them.
It makes me cry. It makes me see how capable my husband is of being hurt, of being angry over his past. It makes me realize how angry I am, and how my fury has been growing over the years.
It all comes out now, in front of the camera.
So this is basically our own fucked-up version of therapy.
But when I see other couples on the street, laughing, kissing like they have no care in the world, like they don’t have any burdens, I wonder. I wonder if we will ever get to their place, all happy and care-free.
I wonder if we will ever get to a place where we’re not angry anymore. Will we ever move on?
Where does this fantasy end?