38
ATTICUS
The following day, I went out to check the fishing line and the snare traps; brought back one large catfish and cleaned it before Thais woke. I never wanted to see her cry the way she cried that day. I didn’t know what could’ve caused her to break down the way she did, but I knew she wasn’t ready to talk about it, and so I never asked.
More every day I saw that Thais and I weren’t as different as I’d thought. She was fighting her own demons, just as I was. She was trying to forget the things she had witnessed and experienced and had been torn apart by, just as I was. She was trying to put the past behind her, to forget her sister’s death, the death of everyone she had ever known and loved—not accept them, but forget them. Just as I was. She told me these things one day, but, as always, she was vague. Thais was strong, but she hurt as much as anyone. As much as me. Probably more, I decided. Because she was stronger than me and she rarely ever showed her pain or talked about the things that caused it. I envied her. I could never be as strong as she was. She was a soft and kindhearted young woman who often fell into the ‘girly’ stereotype, grossed out by things and skittish by other things and startled easy. But Thais was anything but a typical girl. Thais was anything but a typical anything.
“I can’t watch you skin it!” she said one afternoon, her eyes were screwed shut, and she shook her head at me.
I looked up at her from the bottom step of the back porch; a rabbit I’d caught in one of my snare traps dangled lifelessly by its feet from one hand. I hadn’t meant for her to see it.
“I’ll do it on the side of the house,” I told her, and stepped around George.
Days blended into weeks—two weeks must’ve passed since we’d found the cabin, and instead of keeping my distance, I only grew closer to her.
THAIS
And the closer he got, the more my heart ached for him.
I had always sensed his struggles, listened to him mumble curses in his sleep, toss and turn and sweat the way I used to after my mother’s death. Atticus did everything to hide his pain from me, I knew, and he fought every day to distance himself from me, but I couldn’t understand why. I wanted to know, more than anything. I wanted to understand him, but he only gave me a little of himself at a time. And when he held me and kissed me and touched me, I always felt a wall built high between us.
I was determined to chip that wall away.
I was fixated on finding the weak spot.
I ached inside that it was taking so long.
The July heat was unbearable. It must’ve been one hundred degrees. Atticus and I traded modesty for comfort to endure the heat, wearing less each day. We often looked at each other privately, but it was so hot that even looking took a lot of effort.
“Where are you going?” I asked as he walked down the creaking porch steps.
I sat on the rocking chair; sweat dripped from my face; my hair was pulled into a ponytail; I fanned myself with a plastic dinner plate.
“To check the line.”
“I’ll come with you.” I set the plate down and got up.
“No, you stay here in the shade. I won’t be long.”
“Atticus, put on your boots.”
He stopped, sighed, looked down at his bare feet, blades of grass poking between his long toes.
I got up and grabbed his boots from the porch railing, dipped my fingers into the tops to hold them together.
“The last thing you need is to step on a snake and get bitten.”
He took the boots from my hand.
“At least we’d have something to eat,” he joked.
“How are you going to eat it if it kills you because it’s poisonous?” I offered him a sweet smile.
Returning it, he said, “I’ll wear the boots” and then he put them on, leaving the long strings loose, tucked them into the boots rather than tying them.
I chuckled as I looked him over.
“What’s so funny?”
I pressed my lips together to tame my smile, and I shrugged.
Atticus looked down at himself—he looked ridiculous in only a pair of boxers and combat boots.
He pointed at me.
“Well look at you,” he said, trying to keep a straight face. “That dress really leaves nothing to the imagination, y’know.” He grinned.
My mouth fell open and my eyes grew wide. I looked down at my thin yellow dress, could almost see my breasts through the fabric, and I felt my face turn two shades of red.
ATTICUS
It drove me crazy to see her everyday parading around in that dress. Did she have any idea what she was doing to me? No, she didn’t, and that’s what got me the most. She never tried to be seductive—it nearly drove me over the edge. Her vulnerability. Her sweetness. Her seemingly inexperienced nature with all things intimate. She would smile at me and her eyes would tell me: You make me so incredibly happy, Atticus Hunt, and, Will you kiss me again? I love it when you kiss me. And sometimes they would tell me: Oh, Atticus, I trust you wholly—I know you’d never hurt me, or let anyone else hurt me. And sometimes, though on rarer occasion because Thais was so shy, her eyes would say without realizing: Please take me into your arms and fill me with every part of you. I wanted to do it, oh how badly I wanted to fill her with every part of me.
I stepped onto the porch. She stood to my chest, the top of her head just barely reaching the center of my clavicle. She was getting so skinny, I thought as my eyes swept over her.
“Thais,” I said, placing my hands on the sides of her neck, “if there’s nothing on the line or in the traps today, I’m going to have to go hunting.”
“But the gunshots,” she said, looking up at me nervously. “What if somebody hears them?”
“It’s been over two weeks, and no one has come through here—we haven’t heard gunshots, either. But you’re losing a lot of weight and I need to feed you.”
Her smile fled. She reached up and touched my chest.
“I’m just afraid,” she said in a far-off voice. “It’s been so nice here, us not having to run, just relaxing and…living for a change.” She raised her eyes to mine again. “I like it here.”
I cupped the back of her head with my hand.
“I know,” I said. “So do I, but we have to eat.”
There was no fish on the line, or small animals in the snare traps, and so I dressed more appropriately for travel and set out with a rifle over my shoulder.
“I’m going with you,” Thais insisted.
I didn’t like leaving her alone in the cabin, so I agreed to take her.
Four hours later and we still had no meat.
We saw an armadillo.
“Why not?” Thais asked when I refused to take a shot at it.
“I don’t want you getting leprosy,” I told her.
Five hours.
Six.
I often asked if she wanted to call it quits and go back to the cabin—Thais was drenched in sweat and discomfort—but she convinced me she was perfectly capable of enduring the same discomforts as me. Truth was, I knew she could endure it, I just didn’t like for her to.
She reached over as we sat together under the shade of a tree, and she pinched the flesh of my waist over the top of my shirt. “You’re losing as much weight as I am,” she told me. And we hunted another two hours before I finally spotted a wild turkey.
We took it back to the cabin, and I cut off its head and plucked its feathers and did the things to it that Thais never wanted to do.
“Would you ever do it if I wasn’t here to do it for you?”
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
I looked into my plate. I chewed for a moment. My father had said things like this to me, told me how important it was that I know how to do such things. But like with my father, I never wanted to think about having to do it myself. Because it meant that I would be alone and Atticus would be dead.
Atticus’ death was unacceptable. It wasn’t possible. No. I refused to believe it ever possible!
I looked up at him nonchalantly, and took another bite. “I know I won’t have to.” I didn’t want to be having this conversation; I looked back down into my plate.
Atticus sighed.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I did too answer it,” I said. Please Atticus, just stop talking.
“Do you know how to skin and gut a deer?” he asked. “Do you know how to pluck a chicken? Could you—would you—kill a turtle if it was all you had to eat and I wasn’t here to do it for you?”
Atticus, please…
(I just wanted to know if she would; I knew that she could.)
“Stop it!” I dropped my plate on the table beside me and sprang from the chair; it rocked back and forth wildly.
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
After a second, I sat back down, but refused to look at him.
Atticus set his plate on the porch railing, hopped down, and laid his arms across the top of my thighs, hooking my waist on both sides with his hands.
“Look at me, Thais.”
I wouldn’t look at him.
“I said look at me,” he ripped the words out, shaking me.
Reluctantly, I raised my eyes.
“I want you to promise me something,” he said. “Can you promise me, Thais, whatever I ask of you?”
No, I can’t. I can’t because whatever it is, in my heart I know it’s something I won’t be able to do—it’s something you’ll think is best for me, but my heart will think otherwise and I won’t do it. Because I always listen to my heart. Always…
“Thais?”
I shook my head; my eyes began to well up with tears.
(I cocked my head to one side, studying her, debating her defiance and what I would do about it, what I could do about it.)
“If you can’t promise me this,” he said, “then no matter what happens to me, or where I am, whether I’m alive or dead in the ground, I won’t be at peace. I’ll never know peace again like I’ve known it since I’ve known you. I’ll toss and turn in my grave, Thais, if you can’t promise me this one thing.”
Please, Atticus, don’t make me promise this!
Salty tears streamed down my cheeks; he wiped them away with his thumbs, then he kissed my lips.
“It’s the only thing I’ll ever make you promise me.”
“What is it?” I said, but could hardly get the words out.
“Make the promise first,” he said, his hands resting at the sides of my neck, his fingers splayed to touch my face.
After a moment, I nodded with reluctance.
“I promise,” I said, and regretted it.
“If something happens to me,” he began, “promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to get somewhere safe—promise me that you’ll fight to live. Promise me that you’ll go on to live your life to the absolute fullest, that you’ll be strong. Say it again.”
Tears tumbled from my eyes, tears of pain and of anger. How could he force me to go on in this godforsaken world without him? For a moment, I despised him for it.
“Say it,” he repeated, his features hard, his gaze penetrating.
“I promise. I promise that I’ll find someplace safe. I promise that I’ll fight to live. I promise that I’ll go on to live my life to the absolute fullest, that I’ll be strong—I promise.”
Atticus kissed my mouth.
Why do I feel like one day I will break that promise?
ATTICUS
By the end of July, there still had been no sign of human life in the Shawnee National Forest other than the two of us. And the solitude, the cover of the dense trees, the beauty of the cabin and the flora around it and the shimmering pond beyond it, it made us more comfortable.
We began to feel safe.
We began to get lost in one another as if we were the only people left in the world and there would be no one to tear us apart.
I even felt it was okay to let Thais stay alone in the cabin when I went out to hunt. But I never went far, and Thais kept a gun with her always when I was away. And I couldn’t get back to her fast enough. I couldn’t wait to see her. To kiss her. To touch her.
I was giving in to her more the past couple weeks. She had this way about her, how she’d look at me with sad eyes, and how sweet her voice was when she’d ask me to touch her. And I couldn’t refuse her. But I still didn’t trust myself with her, either.
“Why won’t you ever let me pleasure you?” she asked as she lay tangled with me on the sofa.
Because I don’t deserve you.
I stroked her hair, kissed her hair.
“Is it because you don’t think I can?”
I laughed out loud—that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard in my life.
She wasn’t laughing.
Oh, was she being serious?
“Oh, love, you have no idea,” I said, and squeezed her.
THAIS
I sat upright.
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” I said, refusing to find the same humor he’d found in it. “You do just about everything around here—hunting and fishing and planting and skinning and…well, everything. And you pleasure me anytime I ask for it—”
He laughed again, and then smirked, narrowing his eyes at me. “So you admit it then?” he said playfully. “You know I’ll do just about anything you want me to do.” He held up his pinky finger and swished it around as if to say “wrapped around your little finger”.
I did not laugh, nor did I smile.
“And,” he continued, “you do all of those other things too, so don’t try to make it seem like some unfair situation.”
I sneered and crossed my arms.
“That doesn’t count,” I argued.
Atticus’ smile broadened. He shook his feet crossed at the ankles on the end of the sofa. Then he crossed his arms, too, and just looked at me.
“Okay,” he finally said, “what would you want to do for me then? Go on, tell me what you had in mind.”
I looked away, feeling the blush in my face. But then I stood my ground; I wanted to be brave, to at least seem like I had some idea I knew about such things. I couldn’t let him believe otherwise. Because then he’d know the truth. And he could never know the truth.
I glanced at his lap nervously; he was grinning when I looked back up.
Why is he looking at me like that? Ugh!
I hated—okay, I kind of loved it—how he was looking at me, waiting patiently for me to answer. How dare he think I don’t know what to do! How dare he think I couldn’t handle him! But I really didn’t know what to do. I had an idea; I’d heard things, read things, but I’d never actually done any of them and thought it was probably different than I’d imagined.
And I wasn’t sure I could handle him. I had felt his hardness against my backside many times, but I had never touched it, I had never seen it, nor held it in my hands, nor put it in my mouth like I pictured myself doing right then. That’s the answer! I can tell him I’ll pleasure him with my mouth! I can one-up him because I hadn’t even let him do that for me yet! I may have been comfortable around him, but I was self-conscious about his face being between my legs. Oh, how awkward that would be!
I felt brave and bold suddenly, and—no I didn’t; the second I looked into his grinning eyes, my bravery melted into a puddle of intimidation.
I took a deep breath, uncrossed my arms and coiled my fingers nervously down in front of me; I shuffled my toes in a little circle on the floor; my shoulders were drawn up.
ATTICUS
“I could…put my mouth on you,” Thais said in such a quiet voice I had to strain to hear her.
Oh, but I’d heard her. The grin I wore left my face in an instant, replaced by…hell if I fucking knew. Was it shock? Or maybe….no, it was certainly some form of shock.
“Come again?” I inquired.
Maybe I didn’t hear that right, I debated.
“I said,” she said a little louder, bolder, “that I could put my mouth on you.”
Oh my God, Thais…why’d you have to go and say that?
I could tell, by her shy demeanor, the look of pure terror in her eyes, that she was uncertain about everything she was saying; she was not prepared to actually do what she was proposing. She regretted ever saying it.
Hmm.
I thought I might just see how long I could play this out; teach her a lesson never to try being too bold—especially for the sake of getting me off. Maybe this would make her stop asking altogether.
“Oh,” I said casually, pursing my lips, “you’re saying you want to give me a blowjob?”
THAIS
I froze, and nodded timidly.
“Okay,” he said, and glanced at his lap. “If that’s what you really wanna do, love, then it’s all yours.”
I blinked—I thought he would say no!
My stomach swam with air. My hands were sweating and shaking; all the moisture in my mouth evaporated as if the sun had moved a mile closer to the Earth. I can’t let him see how terrified I am! I tried to counter the fear in my face with courage, and then raised my chin properly.
“Yes,” I said with a solid nod, “that’s what I want to do for you, Atticus Hunt.”
ATTICUS
I wanted to laugh at the formality but I didn’t laugh. I just smiled up at her, one side of my mouth turning up more than the other. Then I uncrossed my ankles and opened my legs. I reached down and slid the zipper open on my pants and then unbuttoned them. But I didn’t take it out; I figured I’d let Thais, bold and brave Thais, do that part.
I reached up both hands and fitted them behind my head. And then I waited; big close-lipped smile intact.
THAIS
I thought I was really in over my head. I looked down at him—at anything but his eyes now—and my hands continued to move restlessly, clasped in front of me. A lump moved stubbornly down the center of my throat.
Then I reached out a reluctant, shaky hand and placed it atop the very visible, very sizeable bulge in his pants.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
Stop looking at me like that!
I took a deep breath, knelt beside him and dipped my hand behind the elastic of his boxers, over the trail of dark hair beneath his navel that led to the center of my timidity, and I found him. I gripped it nervously, enclosing my small fingers about the girth and my eyes got bigger in my face and my heart beat more rapidly in my chest and I decided then that I was, without a doubt, in over my head. How am I going to fit that in my mouth? What if I do it wrong? I will definitely do it wrong. I felt like crying, ashamed I couldn’t get it together. I wanted to give him pleasure as he had given to me, but I was terrified of making a fool of myself. If he didn’t wish he’d taken Rachel with him before, he’s sure to now!
“Thais?” Atticus’ voice no longer held the playful undertone it had before—it was soft and consoling. The infuriating grin was gone from his face.
Without ever feeling his arm move as I sat there on my knees in a trance, I looked down to see his hand atop mine, pulling it out of his boxers—he’d never planned to let me go through with it, I realized.
Atticus sat up and turned on the sofa, setting his feet on the floor. He reached down and helped me up. I stood before him and he gazed up at me, taking my hands into his.
“Thais,” he said, “I don’t know what all happened to you while you were out there, surviving with your family, and you don’t have to tell me”—he tugged on my fingers so I’d look at him, and I did—“but I will never make you do something you don’t want to do. Never.” He tugged a little harder in emphasis. “You owe me nothing, and all I want from you is to know you’re safe and fed and always able to smile.” He smiled at me then.
He was breaking my heart. Not with pain, but with affection. Oh, Momma, you were wrong. Oh, I love you always, but you were so wrong when you said there were no good men left in the world! You were so wrong…