––––––––

The radiation therapy is over, thank fuck for small mercies. I’m left a fucking wreck, too tired to move and still not knowing the outcome of all this torture.

If there is an outcome, a positive one. A pay-off. Or if it was all for nothing.

Though the exhaustion is a blessing for once, because it means my mind’s in a fugue and I can barely think.

My dreams more than make up for the lack of thinking, though, waking me up in a cold sweat, shoving me into the earth and closing the lid on my coffin even as I thrash and kick and beg to be let out. Even as Sophie is buried alive beside me, and I know it’s my fault she’s down here and not out, in the fresh air and the world of the living.

It’s almost time for my results, and fear is a stranglehold, a noose tightening around my neck. I struggle with it. Can’t sleep. Can’t eat, my stomach a bottomless hole of nothingness.

Even painting isn’t any help, an activity that used to be mine, that didn’t belong to the world that shut me out and kept me apart. The pencils, crayons and watercolors that got me through childhood and school, that allowed me to hide in the hues and shapes, the blending and overlaying and creating... they’re all useless.

I open the poetry book, its covers and pages worn from being handled every day and night, to stare at the words. They seem to move and glide across the paper, about to fall off the pages.

Rilke says:

“It seems that things are more like me now, that I can see farther into paintings.

I feel closer to what language can’t reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb

into the windy heaven...”

The book falls open on my lap. That’s it, that’s the truth. I see farther and yet can’t reach anything. I have Sophie, but I don’t know if I have tomorrow, if I have time on my side.

The sound of the apartment door opening startles me from my thoughts. Sophie enters and shrugs off her coat. As I watch, she hangs it on the hook, and slips her keys into her bag before hanging it, too.

“You’re early.” I can’t help but smile, so fucking happy to see her, my dark thoughts vanishing like smoke. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

She smiles back at me, and I push to my feet, pleased that my knees lock and my legs hold. It’s been a fucking bad year, mortifying when I couldn’t even get up, couldn’t get out of bed without help.

“Griff.” She comes straight into my arms and while I hold her, everything’s right, everything’s fine. “I just... I wanted to see you. I told them at work that I wasn’t feeling well.”

I pull back to look at her face. “You’re not?”

“I’m fine, I...” She gives me a quick, faint smile. “Griff...”

Her arms tighten around my middle, and despite the twinge of pain in my chest as she presses on the scar, it feels good. Though from the paleness of her face, her mouth, the way she clutches at me, I now realize why she’s here early.

She’s scared. The brave front she puts on doesn’t fool me, and it warms me up. Her cold fear warms me up, and somehow cancels out mine.

Because she cares enough to be afraid for me, to be sad if I go.

So I kiss her. I can’t stop kissing her these days. I kiss the cold from her lips, the rigidity from her posture, the fear from her breath. Cold fights cold, and now I’m warm all over.

And so hard. Getting harder by the second.

I walk her backward toward the sofa. Her hands are all over me, under my T-shirt, tugging down my sweats, and I tear my mouth from hers, panting, hissing when her hand brushes over my hard-on. I may be nowhere near one hundred per cent, but I’d have to be dead not to get hard around her.

And I’m not dead yet.

She falls back on the sofa, and I climb over her, torn between kissing her and getting her naked. I haul her dress off her, tug on her lacy panties—and then have to stop and suck in breath after breath, wait for the room to stop spinning.

Her hands are on my face, tracing the line of my jaw, my mouth, my eyes, my brows. Her touch grounds me, spells me back to reality, to life. I smile when her fingertips dance over my mouth, and I kiss the soft pads.

Her hand wanders down, over my chin, over my bare chest, over the scar, feather-light.

Burning like fire.

It ventures lower, over my stomach, below my navel, to my cock that’s straining inside my black boxer briefs.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I kneel on the sofa between her legs, bracing my hands on the backrest, looking down as she plays with me through the thin cotton, gasping when she massages the length of my dick, lightly circles the head.

“Sophie...” I grab her hand, then push her back against the cushions of the sofa and look into her eyes. “I want you.”

“Want you, too,” she whispers.

I stroke between her legs, under her panties, and find her soaking wet. Her breath hitches, and a pretty flush spreads over her face.

The fear is gone from her gaze, locked deep, as she pulls me on top of her and her mouth seeks mine. We kiss again as she frees my cock from my briefs, making me groan, and guides it to rub against her soaked panties.

We both moan at the sensation. God fuck, it’s been too long, and with everything that has changed between us, it’s even more intense, the sensations sharp as blades, the pleasure ratcheting up so fast I’m afraid to shoot my load all over her.

And wouldn’t that be a fucking great sight...

My dick jerks at the image, and I force myself to go still, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths to stop the orgasm threatening to blast through me.

“Griff?” The concern is back in her voice, and I smile, to show her I’m okay.

And a step away from coming like a freight train.

I distract myself by cupping her breasts, tugging the lace of her bra away and licking her hard nipples. I lick and suck until she hisses and grips my shoulders, rocking up. My cock rubs again between her legs, and my balls draw up tight. My cock swells more, hot and aching, and I need to be inside her.

She lifts one leg, wrapping it around mine, rubbing against my hard-on, and I arch up, lifting my head from her breast. Arousal is wreaking havoc with my senses, with my body and mind. My stomach is clenched so tight I can’t breathe, my legs are shaking, my dick is leaking and twitching.

Locking one hand behind my head, she drags me down until our noses are almost touching.

“Please, I can’t wait any more,” she whispers, “Griff, please,” and that snaps the last thread of my control.

Shoving the flimsy strap of lace covering her pussy, I nudge her folds with my cock. “Since you ask so nicely...” I grab my cock and push into her scorching, silken heat. “Oh fuck...”

I’ve never been a guy to sleep around and fuck anything in a skirt. But that’s not because I don’t get hard and don’t need sex. It’s just that... life has always been kinda hard for me to figure out, and I’ve wanted Sophie for so long, and now I’ve been sex-starved for a year, and...

Jesus.

I groan as I sink deeper into her. It feels so goddamn fucking good I can’t get over it—over wanting her, having her, sinking balls-deep into her, looking at her pretty face so flushed, her mouth open, her breathing shallow.

Her nails are digging into my shoulders. I barely feel it. My heartbeat is pulsing at the base of my cock, in my throat, in my mouth. I am the heartbeat, the rush of blood through my veins, flowing down, between my legs until I don’t think I can get any harder and the clench of her pussy around my dick is sweet torture.

“Oh God,” she breathes, moving with me, her leg curling tighter around my thigh, “oh yes, Griff, yes...”

We’re liquid, two waves moving together, merging, rippling, flowing as one. Never felt this way before, this connected to someone. This sense of completeness, wholeness as I rock into her, as her body hugs mine.

I’m so damn close, I can feel it starting deep inside me, in my gut, in my balls, in my dick.

In my head.

It’s a wave, a huge wall of pleasure coming to slam into me, and I try to push up, reach between us to stroke her clit, make her come with me. She grips me harder and bucks, crying out, her pussy seizing around my cock.

I growl, the sound rising from deep inside my chest, as my body tightens, bowing over, straining until I think the scar in my chest will rip open, and not giving a damn. No choice. Release is roaring through me, wiping everything in its wake, starting at the top of my head and streaking down my spine to my balls.

“Damn...” I gasp and spill deep inside her, more and more. It goes on forever, and I’m falling, tumbling through darkness, just like that day the Humvee exploded, like I tumble in my dreams.

This time the darkness is warm and smells of her, and I fall with a smile on my face.

Bracing my hands on the backrest of the sofa, I ride it out. I never thought pleasure could be a sharp as pain, and I’ve had plenty of pain in my life. It’s mind-blowing. I may never wanna leave her heat again.

“Soph.” I’m practically lying on top of her, my muscles like jelly, and I’m not sure I can get up. “Fuck.”

“We did,” she says, and the quiet laughter in her voice turns my smile wider.

We sure fucking did. It’s a goddamn relief.

At least now I know what it’s like, what she feels like, what she looks like as she comes. It’s a memory I’ll treasure, whatever comes next.

We shift so I roll beside her, wincing as the edge of the sofa digs into my hip, then drag her against my side to wrap my arms around her.

I’m ready now, I think, ready for the end. And also not. Not ready to let go. Not ever.

Her hand ghosts over my face, her gaze dips to my mouth, and then up, to meet my own. “I’m going with you. To get the results. And whatever they are, I will be there with you. I’m not leaving you.”

“Why?” I whisper, the word barely making it past the ever-present goddamn lump in my throat.

“Why do you think? I love you. I love you, Griff, more than anyone else in the world.”

And I love her, too, so much I think my heart will fucking burst.

Shaking my head, I bury my face in the crook of her neck and will myself not to fall apart. Not today.

***

True to her word, she comes with me to the hospital, to the doctor’s office on the appointed day.

Christ, it sounds like the opening to a biblical tribulation, to a catastrophe. To ruination and misfortune, as my father often said. A military man himself, and also a believer. Conservative, absolute, immutable.

But today of all days, I wish I had his faith. Something to keep me going, keep me standing when my knees feel like rubber and sweat trickles down my back, soaking my shirt, sticking it to my skin.

The familiar stench of the hospital washes over me as I walk down the hallway, Sophie beside me. I didn’t use to hate the smell before, but I do now, that godawful blend of disinfectant, unwashed bodies, disease, and blood.

My stomach roils unpleasantly, and the hallway seems to stretch like dough, then tilt dangerously.

She takes my hand, gives me a small smile, and my balance returns.

She’s here, with me.

Whatever happens, she said.

I believe her.

We have to sit and wait for an hour, because that’s how the ritual to the hospital gods always goes, apparently. One hour is short, compared to other times I’d had to wait, so I’m not ready when the doctor’s secretary comes to call my name.

I doubt I’d ever be ready. Getting up from the seat is like fighting my way up from the bottom of an ocean, and when I start toward the office, my bad leg almost buckles, the damaged muscles jumping all over the place.

Sophie’s hand slips into mine again, and I squeeze it so hard I’m sure I’m hurting her, and still I can’t stop myself.

I’m always hurting her.

And she keeps smiling at me like it’s okay.

The chairs in the doc’s office are padded. A padded room is what I need at this point, to stop me from putting my fists through the walls and slam my head against them until the tension headache and the fear go away.

Sophie scoots her chair closer to mine, and I want to hug the hell out of her, burrow into her, but when the doctor comes in and sits down in front of us, I could be alone in the world for the impossible cold that spreads through me.

I swallow bile and command myself not to toss my cookies. I was in the war, for chrissakes. I faced death many times over.

Whatever comes... she’s here.

“Mr. Lambert.” The doctor looks up, gives me a brief, bland smile, then frowns at the computer screen on his desk.

Fucking shit. Why is he frowning? I can hear the clock ticking on the wall behind him, a cheap white round thing with a pharmaceutical company logo in the middle. I can hear people talking behind the door. I can hear my pulse racing.

Sophie is chewing on her lower lip, slender brows drawn together. She should be in class. She should be anywhere but here.

She shoots me a quick smile, then goes back to watching the doctor.

The ticking of the clock is so damn loud, and yet my heartbeat is louder, faster, beating double the speed of time.

“... soon these two worlds both leave you, one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth,

leaving you, not really belonging to either...”

“All good,” the doctor is saying.

“Griff!” Sophie is out of her chair and throwing her arms around me, and suddenly I have a pretty, squealing girl on top of me.

I grab her and haul her onto my lap before she falls off, all before my mind catches up. “What?”

“The doctor says,” she says all breathless, eyes huge and shining, “that the results look good.”

“The bloodwork?” I hold her against my chest and stare past her at the doctor who’s clasped his hands on the desk and is smiling at me.

Smiling.

“The bloodwork and the ultrasound you did two days ago show no trace of cancer,” he says. “Of course, we need to stay vigilant. We will repeat the tests and ultrasound in three months and go from there, but the odds... the odds look good.”

I blink at him, not processing his words. I shake my head a little, stare some more. “You mean... I’ll live?”

The doctor’s smile widens. “It does look like it, doesn’t it, Mr. Lambert.”

Holy shit, it does.