Hawk

 

In the darkness, I sat naked inside a huge cage made of bleach-white bones. A broken purple moon hovered above. On the right side of the cage, a line of women sat on their knees with bloody tears dangling from their eyes. Their teeth fell out one at time. On the walls, severed testicles hung near razors and sharpened knives. More bones scattered the earth.

Shaking, I prayed for my life.

God never came. Just Lisa, cackling like an evil witch as she shoved a spoonful of dog food between the bars. A chill slithered into my pores and froze my body.

“No!” I screamed. “Not again!”

“Any other woman will be a miserable replacement of me.” Lisa laughed and flung a lit cigarette at me. “She’ll smell me on your skin.” She slashed at my chest with a rusted knife. “She’ll look in your eyes and always find me gazing back at her.”

A stack of pictures appeared in our hands. She slung them at me.

I looked at them. They were all old photos of us, happy and together.

“Eat them,” she ordered. “I want to move inside of you. I want to be devoured.”

“No!”

I woke up to soft, warm arms wrapping around my waist. Chest to breast. Skin against skin. The nightmare faded like wisps of smoke as I slowly became aware of everything.

Yaz was holding me to her small body, her breath warm against my cheek. “You’re with me, Hawk. No one else is here.”

I opened my eyes to the darkness around us and the scent of her skin. Moonlight lit the room, and the sounds of the beach through the open window soothed me.

“It’s me. No one else.” Yaz slid over me, a silky, moving shadow. She slanted her mouth over mine and kissed me slow and deep. “You’re here. Say it.”

I shivered in her arms. “I’m here.”

I slid my hands down her curves, wanting her body to drive the nightmare further away.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“No.” I ran my fingers through her hair, wishing I could see her beautiful face in front of me. “I just want to focus on you.”

I slid down and nuzzled between her breasts. I held them, and the nipples hardened against my hands. She gasped as I covered one nipple with my mouth and sucked. Her moan echoed through my bedroom.

She caressed my chest.

What?

I froze right there. It was that moment I realized my shirt wasn’t on. Yaz must’ve taken it off. When and how? I got off her and rolled onto my back, trying to remember how we’d gotten to my bedroom in the first place.

I didn’t forget the sex outside. It had been worth the huge dent on my car.

But when did my shirt go off? Did she see the scars?

“What’s wrong?” She rose, rolled to her side, and lay on my chest.

I tensed. “Nothing.”

How many years had it been since I’d let anyone be this close to me without my shirt on?

“How did we get here?” I asked.

“You drove us back.”

As she said it, the visual hit my head. In that moment, I remembered I’d wanted her some more and begged her to come back to my bedroom.

Yaz continued, “When we got to the house, Brett opened the door and yelled at you while you carried me upstairs like a madman, talking about police and money and hairy hippies.”

I nodded. “Okay. That memory’s coming back too. Why do I keep picturing a bottle of whiskey?”

“Brett brought it in, when he came back to apologize for yelling at you. And then the three of us had shots...lots of them. And then...he brought out another bottle.”

“I don’t remember the second bottle.”

“You passed out after we finished that one, and then he carried you to bed and closed the door. I followed and figured you were hot, so I took off your clothes.”

Dread always hit me the first time anyone saw the scars. I closed my eyes, glad she couldn’t see the uncomfortable expression I must’ve been wearing on my face. “And?”

“And then I turned off the lights and passed out next to you.” She caressed the top of my chest.

I bit my lip as her fingers got close to a scar, one that had long since healed but was still raised, rough, and weirdly sensitive. It was the smiley faced o that Lisa had drawn over my heart. But she didn’t touch it. Instead, those soft fingers traveled down the ribboned path of scars going to my navel.

Part of me wanted to stop her. The other part felt relieved she wasn’t disgusted.

She lifted her hand. “What’s wrong? You went stiff.”

“It’s been a minute since someone’s spent the night.”

“Oh...should I have left?”

“No. Never that. It’s just.” I cleared my throat. “I don’t like taking off my shirt.”

“Because of the scars?”

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“And you don’t want me to touch them, either?”

I rubbed my face with both of my hands and rose, switching the light on. “Why would you want to?”

Maybe, she didn’t get a good view of them.

I turned to her, sure that she would twist her face in disgust. Everyone else did. Maybe she’d been too drunk when she first took my shirt off. Perhaps, she hadn’t really saw what everyone else did?

Ribbons of damaged flesh decorated my abs. Lisa told me that no one would love me and that she’d make sure of it. She’d been right. Usually, women turned their heads in horror. Others cried. Lisa would’ve been happy to hear it all. She’d gotten what she’d wanted and had done it with hooks and knives, flame from a lighter, and even her own teeth.

“A mad woman’s canvas.” I studied Yaz’s reaction.

Her eyes held no sympathy, just rage. I had no doubt in my mind that if my fun-loving hippy Yaz ever saw Lisa, she would strangle the psycho.

“I couldn’t imagine making love to you and not touching you here.” Yaz extended her hand to me, but kept the tip of her fingers an inch from my stomach.

“And here too.” Yaz gestured to other parts of my chest.

I closed my eyes and breathed in and out.

“But, I won’t touch you there,” she whispered, “if you don’t want me to.”

What was it about her that made me not give a damn anymore? Was it that she hadn’t turned away? There was always that realization in everyone’s eyes, when they saw the scars that I was more fucked up, than I let on.

But most women left me after I woke up screaming from a nightmare.

When they left, it made me feel like a burden. Like I’d gone too far, revealed too much.

She didn’t leave. She’s different.

I kept my eyes closed and lay back down. “Touch me.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Everywhere.”

She slipped her hands over the scars. The bed shifted under me as she leaned down and kissed each one. Every burn. Every jagged line. Every inch of me that Lisa had made ugly.

“I want all of you, Hawk.” She landed kisses around my navel. “I want every bit of you.”

“I don’t want to be.”

“I’m not easy to love.”

“I’ve never liked easy.”

I held her close to me, burying my face into those soft dreadlocks and inhaling her scent. “If you keep this up, I may not let you go home. I might keep you in my bedroom forever.”

“Maybe I don’t want to escape. Maybe, I want you, and I’m going to have you—any way I like.”  She released me and crawled up my body, sliding her pussy against every scar, every wound, melding her fragrance into me. She continued her journey up until her pussy brushed against my lips. She smelled like soap and cherries. I moaned, and she moistened on my mouth.

My body trembled. No one had ever touched me like this. She lowered back down and balanced on my cock, dragging her nails around the outline of a scar, delivering sweet flutters of bliss along my skin. I groaned, closing my eyes and shuddering more, right under her touch.

Something in my head whispered I should stop her hands and make her leave those marks alone. They were my badges of survival, yet they represented something wrong in my life and in this world. Nothing sensual should’ve come from what had hurt before. Nothing so erotic should have risen from so much pain.

But it feels so good.

She caressed each wound, every healed gash, and dot of damaged tissue. She touched them like they were an extension of me instead of what made me hollow inside.

“Are there scars on your back?” she asked.

I’d barely heard her. I was so thrown into the moment of her hands on me. “Yes. There are some scars on my back, but not as many as are on my stomach.”

She rubbed her hands over the humps of chewed tissue. “Have you ever considered getting a tattoo over them? Lots of people do that kind of thing.”

No had ever asked me that, not even my family or close friends from my old college. They skirted around the topic altogether and pretend like nothing happened, meanwhile they monitored every mood I made as if I was a freak. I kept my eyes closed. It was hard to concentrate with every cell centered on her fingers. “I thought about getting a tattoo a few times, but I'm not ready yet.”

“Why not?”

“It would feel like it never happened.”

“And you're not ready to forget?”

“No.”

Silence filled the space as she explored.

“They don’t bother you,” I whispered.

“I’m a writer which means I’m an avid reader. Writing and reading go together like two horny lovers. And our skin, it tells stories.”

Unease settled in my stomach. “I don’t want you to read mine.”

As if she sensed my unease, she rocked her pussy on top of my cock. “Do you want to be inside me instead?”

And just like that, she'd shifted my mind from darkness to the lust swirling inside.

“Or should I leave?” she asked. “It might be too weird having me here after an appropriate time.”

I smiled. “I like how you think you have the freedom to leave.”

“I’m breaking your little ‘no spending the night’ rule.”

“You’re worth breaking rules over.”

“Hmmm. Since I’m here, what do you want me to do?” She dove her hands into my boxer briefs and clasped her fingers over my hard cock.

“I want you to ride me.”

“I bet you do.” She wrenched my erection out faster than I was used to with any woman. It put me on edge, yet pre-cum spilled out of the tip as if she’d been rubbing for several seconds. She stroked me, her hand moving up and down. I grunted in pleasure and ached for more than a touch. She tugged at the head of my cock…hard. The pressure tightened around the rim, stimulating all the sensitive nerves.

I groaned. “As far as I’m concerned, you can move in.”

Desire blinded me. All I could think of was shoving myself into her.

She pulled my cock forward and pressed it against her stomach. “I’m going to put you back to sleep.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“All this time I’ve been dealing with insomnia and all I needed was your sex.”

“Exactly.”

Everything about Yaz invaded my space—her taste, her smell, her soft body against me. Fire blazed in my core. I arched into her, lost in the magic of her mouth as it moved over my chest, her tongue dipping into my navel, then sliding lower to the top of my boxer briefs.

My cock went hard. I opened my eyes and pulled her up to me, taking those demanding lips and sucking on her my lower lip. “You’re spoiling me, Cherry Bomb.”

I rolled her onto her back and devoured those lush breasts. She shivered against me. Breathless moans fled her lips as she looked at me. 

Not able to help it, I formed my lips into a frown. Sadly, the anger wasn’t for her. It was meant for the lust spreading heat all over my skin.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered.

“I hate the effect you have on me.”

“It can’t be helped. We’re good together. Stop fighting it.”

“We’re good together?”

“What else could it be? I’ve never felt this way before, not this fast. Have you?”

“No.” Still pissed, I devoured her mouth, unable to hold myself back. My heart feared her, but my body didn’t. Around her, my cock was always a volcano ready to erupt. And if Yaz was going to be my demise, I’d gladly die in her arms with no regrets.

There was a hunger that had woken me. My body throbbed with life. My vision seemed to transform to clearer eyesight. The effect was like placing a pair of glasses on a near-sighted person. Putting an oxygen mask on someone gasping for life. Giving a rope ladder to a starving and broken man down in a hole.

I made love to her until the sun came up.

We passed out and slept the whole day.

By night, Vera had slipped a note under my door, telling us that she’d prepared dinner for us and that it was in the oven. I went downstairs, grabbed the food, brought it up, lit some candles, and we had a picnic in the center of my studio.

It was hard to not smile in that moment. It felt so good. Being with her felt so good. I kept waiting for something fucked up to happen. It was too perfect. So great. The whole sensation put me on edge, had me looking over my shoulder and waiting for death to come.

After we ate, Yaz helped me clean up. “Okay. I should go.”

“No.”

I’d given her my shirt. The huge fabric looked hilarious on her.

“Stay.” I tugged on the shirt and pulled her toward me. “One more night.”

I kissed her before she could respond.

And that one night became another and another. It was frightening how the time had passed. We lay in bed for hours, talking and fucking, drinking and eating, and then fucking some more.

One morning, she told Vera to sit down and showed us both in the kitchen how to make a good fire engine. It was corned beef ’n grits, but with a Bahamian flare.  The meat was cooked with chopped onion, oil, thyme, tomato paste, and hot red peppers. No matter how many times I’d tried to make it, I’d never made any as good as Cindy’s.

That morning, Yaz surprised us all, making a fire engine to knock Cindy’s dish out of first place.

And I couldn’t lie, watching her in the kitchen made me feel like it was the best way to start off a day. Having her in my bed did the same job. Yaz made every moment special, and more and more I yearned to spend every second with her.

Although Cindy had texted her the first night, no one else bothered us. Vera left a few notes. Brett never came up. Everything was perfect. Frighteningly perfect.

And what scared me more was that I felt a change between us. That we were slowly becoming one. Already, I didn’t want her to leave, and this wasn’t a teenage crush or lust-filled need.

Is it infatuation? It feels too strong.

But I knew we wouldn’t remain perfect forever. At some point, we would have to go outside. She would need to leave. I would need to let her go. But still, I wrapped my fingers around her dreadlocks, thrust my cock into her, and held her to me, triggering the sweetest moans.

In the walls of my bedroom, we were alone in the world. We were a law unto ourselves. We could enjoy, squander, and waste like conscienceless gods, passionate lovers.

Inside our room was everything; the true meaning of life. I never thought I would feel this comfortable, this energized again. Granted, far outside, life went on and the ocean waves crashed and people worked and our families worried and Lisa sat in her cage, plotting.

But in my room, there was flawless stillness beyond time.

For two beautiful days, I found myself naked, comfortable, loved, and warm in her arms. We lay close together, complete and beyond the touch of time or change.

And then, on the third day, she went back home, and the world outside came rushing back to us.