Gunner

This is what it’s all about. It’s pissing me off that she’s jealous. I love her. Only her. She’s my first and my last love. No, she’s everything to me and always has been. Her swollen stomach is everything to me. Others? I don’t even remember their faces. They were like a distraction, like a temporary relief from my yearning for that one unique woman I couldn’t have.

At the same time, I’m happy that Sol can feel something about me. That I’m not the grey shadow in her grey misty world. That I’m not the invisible cook in her kitchen, the forgotten cleaner in her bathroom, the gust of the wind ruffling the perfection of her sadness.

I turn on the hot water and strip then pull her into the shower cabin.

“Not too hot for the baby?” I ask.

“It’s fine.”

I turn her so her back rests against my chest. My arm crosses over her breasts. The warmth and steam from the water engulf us, separate us from reality. We’re in a timeless bubble. There is only this moment and her naked body pressed against mine. Her face turned to mine, her wide gleaming eyes, her full lips I could kiss for eternity.

“Why the fuck did you leave?” I rasp into her mouth and kiss her.

“That’s none of your fucking business.”

“Don’t be childish. Talk to me.” I kiss her again, thrusting my tongue in.

God, she tastes of strawberries. I love strawberries. I love Sol so much.

Her hand reaches down between our bodies and she closes her fingers around my hard dick.

No talking. Fine. We can talk in the morning.

Sol turns to face me and strokes my cock up and down.

I push the button of a shower gel dispenser and lather her chest up, focusing on her large breasts. I’ve never had a pregnant woman. Sol is my first. But, if that was my choice to make, I’d keep her pregnant all the time. Her breasts fulfil my every erotic fantasy.

My hands move up and down her back to squeeze her perfect ass as my eyes flick over the delicate lines around her navel. No big deal. I don’t understand why she’s making fuss over three stretch marks. I have scars on my back and limbs. Normal.

Sol lathers my chest up with the shower gel then strokes my cock again, harder, faster. I’m at her mercy.

“I can give you a blow job, but I need more space,” she says.

“Sol,” I growl as she drops her head. “You don’t have to do anything.”

Just smile for me. Love me. Let me take care of you and let me do all the job.

Sol extends her arm, pulling the shower curtain away and steps out of the cabin. I follow her, grabbing a white towel and throwing it over her back.

“Sol.”

She dives under the comforter.

“Sol, the bed will be wet.”

“Sleep on the floor then.”

I pull at the comforter, folding it, and lie down beside her. “You like sleeping in a wet bed? Fine. I can like it too.”

She shivers so I pull her to me and wrap my arms around her. Her face turns to mine as she settles her back against my chest more solidly.

“I’m not as experienced as your whores, right, Gunner?”

I press my lips against hers, slipping my tongue in and tasting her slowly.

“I’m dreaming of your mouth wrapped around my dick, Sol. It’s not about experience. It’s about having this one unique mouth wrapped around your dick. When the baby is with us, okay?”

She shivers again as her teeth chatter together.

“Cold, huh?” I graze her chin. “And wet. Very wet. The pillows are wet. The comforter is wet.”

She takes my hand and guides it to her mound. “I’m wet too.”

I run my thumb along her hot damp slit. My fingers circle and roll her nipple and it hardens as I insert a fingertip into her heat.

“It’s safe for the baby,” she murmurs. “I’ve seen a doctor. I had an ultrasound scan and everything seems to be fine.”

“But the wet bed isn’t safe for the baby. I’ll bring the blankets from the truck.”

I jump out of the bed and slip into my jeans then rush to the door as Sol crawls out of the bed and dries her hair with the towel. I run to the truck and grab the blankets. As I enter the room, the wet covers are piling on the floor and Sol is sitting on the mattress, naked, shivering. She crawls off the bed with her hand pressed against her stomach.

I spread one of the blankets over the mattress, strip and wrap the other around us both. We lie down on our sides, facing the same direction.

“You said the baby would be fine, right?” I say into her ear, pressing my hips against her ass so my dick throbs against her thigh.

“Yes, I said that.”

I hold my cock and push it into her heat. God, I could spend eternity with my dick inside of her. She moans softly as her back slides up my chest.

I stroke her head. “You know how beautiful you are?”

“You know how not Gunner you are?”

I move my hips and my cock goes deeper into her tight cunt. Sol yelps into my mouth.

“So good with you,” she gasps. “Never been this good.”

Her comment hits me. For a split second, sadness floats inside of me. Shay was a good man, a simple man, devoted to Sol, as virgin for her as was she for him. He was better than me in many ways.

But, I’m going to make his afterlife peaceful. I’ll fucking invest one thousand percent of effort in making Sol and her baby feel safe and happy. They’ll feel loved, nurtured, admired.

“When the baby is born, we’ll do really horrible things together.” I capture Sol’s lower lip with my lips and suck it gently, pumping my cock in and out slowly. “Horrible things.”

Sol’s breathing accelerates and she lifts her knee to give me access to her clit. I massage her sensitive nub as her muscles tense and relax.

“Tell me,” she moans, meeting my thrusts impatiently.

I suck on her earlobe then lick the area just below her ear. “I’m gonna work your tight cunt with two fingers, Sol, then I’ll push a finger into your asshole and make you cum on my fingers.” I hold her chin and push my cock deeper into her. “I’ll fuck your every hole. I’ll gag you on my dick, Sol. You’ll scream with pleasure when I fuck you raw.”

Her breath halts as she jerks her body away, but I hold her tight against my body. Her scream of pleasure whips through the air as her cunt contracts around my dick.

My woman is screaming with pleasure in my arms. I don’t need more.

I push my cock into her, balls deep, and my body trembles against hers.

“Fuck,” I growl.

Then there is an explosion of pure whiteness in my head. Everything is white and hot. Quiet.

Sol’s chuckle seeps into me like a delicate mist of sweetness.

“The baby okay?” I ask and glide my palm over her stomach as my cock slips out.

The baby kicks me and Sol laughs.

I haven’t heard her pearly laughter since Shay’s accident.

“More than okay,” she says.

I kiss her lips. “Mommy okay?”

She nods and strokes my cheek.

“Sol?”

“What?”

“We could stay here for a few days.” I kiss her deeper, palming her breast.

“This is a motel room.”

“So what? We’ll eat in the café downstairs and make love in bed.” I lever myself up on my elbow and kiss her tit then draw the firm bud into my mouth, suckling gently.

“Make love?” Sol chuckles. “I don’t want to make love. I want to fuck.”

I rearrange my body and plant a kiss on her stomach. “Mommy is so impatient. But Daddy will make her feel happy and relaxed. Daddy is going to look after you and her out the best I can.”

Sol stiffens and takes a sharp breath. “What did you just say?”

I sit up. “The baby needs a father, Sol.”

She sits up, hitching the blanket up. “You’re not the father. Shay is the father.”

“Shay is dead and he would want us to be happy. He was a good man, remember? The best of the three of us.”

I stroke her arm, but she sweeps her hand and shoves my hand off. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

“Sol, for fuck’s sake—“

“I want to go home.”

“In the morning, okay? Let’s get some sleep.”

She rolls on her side and pulls the blanket. “Don’t fucking touch me again.”

I roll on my side and move to the opposite edge of the bed.

I fucked up even though I tried so hard.

What the fuck is wrong?

She likes my dick.

She likes my cooking.

I can work hard.

I said I loved her.

Why can’t she let me be her husband and the father for her baby?

Sol

We get up and put the clothes on, a mortal silence thickening between us like a storm cloud hanging above a cemetery. After breakfast, I get into the truck and wrap the blanket around my chest, resting my head against the window.

Gunner wants to take everything from Shay. It’s like every memory of my husband is losing its colour, its emotion, its meaning. Gunner is stealing Shay away from me. Gunner is stealing the baby and me away from Shay. I can’t let that happen. My baby needs my vivid memories of Shay. My baby needs my hot love for Shay.

I’m not going to let my life with Shay fade in my head. I’m not going to let that filthy passion I’m sharing with Gunner replace that delicate first experience of intimacy I shared with my husband. No way.

I won’t build my happiness on the foundations of guilt and death, devastating everything Shay and I had together.

I can’t do that to my baby.

No. Fucking. Way.

The vehicle sways on the bumpy road, lulling me to sleep.

We stop later this afternoon to eat something and visit the toilet. Gunner fuels the truck and flashes me his signature cocky grin.

“Fuck off,” I growl and curl into the passenger seat.

He starts the engine. “You want two separate cabins on the ship or one?”

“Two.”

“What if you feel horny again? I heard pregnant women are very horny”

“I will have to find myself a handsome guy to entertain me, I guess.”

His arm shoots towards me as he grips my chin, his eyes boring through me. “I will kill whoever dares look at you, Sol. I’m warning you.”

He releases my chin and my glance shifts to his. I’m looking into a killer’s eyes. I know he’s not joking.

“You’re sick,” I say.

His lips curl into a half-smile. “Sleep. We’ll have one room on the ship.”

Gunner

She doesn’t talk to me or look at me. I’m more transparent to her than the air she’s breathing in. Back to square one.

I wish I could open her skull and learn all her concerns and thoughts. I wish I could erase the memories of Shay’s accident away from her mind. I wish I could force her to love me as much as I love her.

I don’t know what else to do, what else to say, so I just drive and don’t say anything.

We reach the port and step onto the transatlantic ship that will take us home.

The weather is perfect—the sun shines brightly as the ocean waves glitter like the surface of a mirror.

Sol’s staying in the cabin while I’m mainly on the upper deck, inhaling the tranquillity oozed by the expanse of water. We’re eating together and sleeping in one bed, but there is a wall between us, thicker with every day that passes. A wall of ice. A wall of gloomy silence. A wall of suffering.

She’s not staring at other guys though. There’s a lot of guys her age on the ship—handsome guys, rich guys, hardworking guys, but she’s obeying the rules. Good. I don’t want any trouble on the ship.

A week and a half later, I get out of the truck in front of Sol’s house. Sive and Axel greet us so I leave her with them and go to my house. Dad hugs me for ten minutes and Mom greets me with a pale smile.

I don’t visit Sol for a month.

I fucking promise myself that I won’t visit her at all, but after a month passes, I run to her house like I have some fucking angel wings attached to my back. I run to her house to just look at her.

I find her in the garden. She’s sitting on her heels, palms on her stomach. Her eyes are fixed on the cross.

Ash clouds gather in the sky as the wind blows, lifting her hair and ruffling her flowery dress and scarf. Every molecule of the air rings silently the warning of the upcoming storm. Two streaks of light slice through the bright greyness of the sky, illuminating the fields that are stretched along the horizon, and silence falls upon the world like God has decided to notice Sol and me at last.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Sol says, her face turning to me.

She looks like a marble sculpture from a medieval church, so close to me, so very far from me, unavailable like some fucking higher being, beautiful in a cold way like some fucking snow queen.

“You’re fucking wrong,” I say. “I am here because I should be here.”

She scrambles to her feet and passes me like I’m a monument she’s seen a number of times. I follow her as she walks out of the garden through the back gate and rushes towards the hill inhabited by low vegetation.

“Sol, are you crazy? Where are you going?”

“Far from you, you fucking dick.”

“You’re so fucking unfair.”

“Fuck you.” She picks up the pace and climbs the hill as I catch up with her and grab her hand.

“You want a walk?” I say. “Fine. Walking is good for you. But you can’t wander on your own.”

I lace my fingers with hers and let her guide me wherever her tormented soul is heading to.

“Talk to me,” I say.

Silence answers me.

She’s doesn’t want to talk? Fine. I can be with her in silence. It’s enough for me.

Maybe it has to be like this.

Maybe you can’t build peace on someone’s death. Maybe you can’t build peace on your crimes.

Maybe you can only yank off tiny pieces of happiness illuminating your life for a split second then going off and leaving you damaged even more.

We move along a path meandering among the ribbons of fields then we enter the woods that stretch along the coastline.

Now, I know where she’s heading to.

There is an abandoned wooden house Shay and I discovered as soon as we moved in here. We used to get drunk and smoke weed there. We used to be naughty there until Uncle Axel sniffed weed from me one day. He said three words ‘don’t you dare’ and I knew I wouldn’t touch weed until I was an adult. Shay kissed Sol for the first time ever in this house.

Shay fucked Sol for the first time ever in this house.

My heart hurts. It hurts so much I want to kill. Shay didn’t tell me any details. He just said ‘We did it’. When I asked how it’d been, he said ‘Man…’. I didn’t ask him more questions. The gleam of his eyes and the love for Sol written on his face told me everything. I wanted to kill him and I wanted to be happy for him. I got really drunk on that evening. I threw up the whole night and my dad sat with me by the toilet, patting my back and guffawing at me.

As the house rises in front of my eyes, Sol slows down and puts her palm on her stomach, her breath heavy. Her cheeks are pink like those of a porcelain doll.

The broken glass in two windows at both sides of the roofed front door brings a sense of gloom to my head. It’s broken like my heart.

“This is our place,” Sol says with anger. “Shay and mine.”

“Shay and mine too.”

“No.”

“Can’t you see that? He belongs to me and to you. And I fucking want to keep him in my heart, but I want to live as well. To breathe, Sol. To love. To be happy.”

“No.”

“You’re so fucking stubborn.”

She drops onto the rotten bench by the house and puts her hands on her lap. Her eyes wander off to somewhere in the distance. I watch her unearthly face, drinking in every tiny detail of her beauty.

I want to kiss her, feel her, and be inside her.

She raises her eyes to mine and winces, as a delicate murmur makes me freeze.

“Fuck,” I say as my eyes travel to the pond forming around her feet. “Is this what I’m thinking about?”

“I think it is,” she shrieks.

“Fuck, don’t move.”

I shove my hand into the back pocket of my jeans and take my phone out, calling 999.

“There is no reception here,” Sol says as her forehead wrinkles and her face turns red.

A fat drop of rain splashes against my forehead as Sol lifts herself and puts her hand on her lower back.

I shove the phone back into the pocket, leap to her and scoop her up in my arms. “It will be alright, baby.”

“Oh really? Do you know anything about labour?”

“I read something. In case.”

“So tell me what to do.”

“Breathe, baby, just breathe, okay?”

“Very fucking funny. You saw it in the movies, you dick.”

“Trust me.”

I carry her inside the house where two dirty blankets are spread on the floor in the living area. I lay her gently and gather her dress up, exposing her stomach.

“This is going to be funny,” Sol says then gasps like there is no oxygen around her. “Fuck. It hurts.”

I pull her panties down and remove them. “You have an imprint in your brain.”

“An imprint of what?”

“Of how to give birth to babies.”

“Gunner,” she growls. “I’ll fucking—“

“I know what to do.”

Theoretically. I saw my dad’s mice being born a few times and I read a medical article on labour. In case.

Sol spreads her folded legs and leans against her elbows. The rain taps against the roof as the wind howls through the gaps in the walls.

Soon, her cheeks turn dark red and sweat beads her forehead.

My face burns too.

Adrenaline circles in my veins.

Hours feel like seconds and I feel her pain like it’s mine.

But, she’s so is brave. She doesn’t scream or swear. She gasps and tries to do her job as well as she can manage.

I massage her back, hold her in my embrace and kiss her head. My every attempt to soothe her with words is met with her furious growl. But that’s okay, I guess.

The storm rolls over the house and ends abruptly. The evening sun’s rays filter into the house and illuminate the holes and cracks in the wooden floor.

The baby is coming out.

I know what to do. I shake off my cut and t-shirt, clamp the umbilical cord with a piece of string and cut it with my knife disinfected by my lighter.

“You’re a tough bitch, Sol.”

She growls in response.

Then I pull this tiny red thing to my chest. It’s a boy. His tiny chest oscillates against mine like I’m holding a startled hummingbird as his tiny heart beats three times faster than mine.

He feels so mine. I know he’s Shay’s, but he’s so mine too.

I throw my cut over him and shelter him in my arms. His mouth pecks my chest.

“Not here, little guy,” I say. “That pretty chick behind you owns the buffet.”

“Asher,” Sol murmurs and chuckles. “His name is Asher.” She leans against her elbows. “He likes you.” She shakes her head and beams at Asher and me.

I know I should give him to Sol so she can feed him, but I struggle to release him. Me and him—it’s like a fucking prefect rightness. Like a fucking prefect oneness.

The door of the house creaks open and the wide stream of light pours inside, cut off by two figures walking in, my dad and my mom.

“Mom,” I rasp as tears blind me. “Look at him. He is so beautiful.”

My dad sniffles. My mom smiles brightly and I know she’s resurrected at last.