even as I pull him closer, isn’t there something at the forefront of my mind? Something aside from the postcoital glow, aside from my wishes for the future and my hopes of the present. Things have changed, oh yes. Make no mistake about that. But that’s the funny thing about grief and anger combined; even while buried in newfound happiness, it claws and it whispers. It begs. It howls.
It screams.
It doesn’t let go. And it demands retribution.
cross your heart hope to die
I am surprised, when I finally pull myself out from under Cal to get something to
clean us up with, to find it’s not even ten o’clock at night. It feels like days have gone by, the violence in the store this morning a distant memory. It could be the postfuck glow, or it could just be everything piled on top of everything else. I don’t know.
I need to talk to Abe tomorrow, though for the life of me, I don’t know what I’m going to tell him. The truth seems like a good place to start, but since I’m not completely sure of the full truth, I don’t want to end up making this worse.
I just need to figure out what to say to him.
But first, I need to figure out what to say to myself.
Always with the damn questions, I can hear Cal growl already.
No. I have to push through it.
I clean myself in the bathroom, a pleasant ache in my ass that I haven’t felt in a
long time. I look at myself in the mirror and try to see if I’ve changed outwardly to match the hurricane on my insides. I can’t tell. I still look like me. I look closer. There’s a small, dark bruise above my clavicle on the right side of my throat. I touch it, and it burns slightly. Cal likes to mark, it seems. There are red marks on my hips that stretch toward my back. His handprints, from digging into my skin, holding me to him as he thrust into me. They are fading already, but each finger is still clearly outlined against my pale flesh.
Changes, even on the outside.
I take a wet cloth out to the bedroom, light from the bathroom spilling out. My mouth goes dry and I almost stumble at the sight. Cal nude, stretched out on my bed, his white skin almost glowing in the dark. He has his arms folded up behind his head, the hair under his arms as dark red as the curls on his chest. His chest and stomach rise slowly with shallow breath. His dick lays spent against a thatch of pubic hair. He has long, hairy legs, muscled and relaxed. For a moment, I wonder if he’s posing and I want to scold him again about vanity, but I can’t seem to make any words come out.
I reach him to find his gaze on me, watching every step I’m taking, my every movement. There’s a low huff of air as I clean him off, the remnants of spunk caught in the red trail on his stomach, the muscles there clenching. I let my gaze trail up his body, and once he’s sure I’m looking at him again, he flexes his arms behind his head. I still my hand on his stomach.
“You like that I’m big,” he says knowingly, his grin all teeth.
“Vanity,” I accuse him weakly. I drop the cloth on the floor and climb onto the bed, suddenly unsure about where to put my hands, where to lie down. This hesitation only lasts a moment as he reaches up and pulls me down on top of him, pressing my face in his throat, his chin against the top of my head. My dick finds this a wonderfully interesting place to be and stirs, but there are other things on my mind.
Cal rubs my back slowly, making lazy circles that cause my skin to tingle. He kisses the stubble on my scalp and rumbles underneath me, a low sound I can feel in his chest.
So many things to say, to ask, and I can’t seem to focus on a single one.
But apparently there’s been something on his mind too, because he’s the first to break. “Benji?”
“Yeah?”
“Why were you at his house?”
I’m confused. “What? What are you talking about?”
“Griggs.”
Oh. That. Fuck. “Why do you think that?” I ask, trying to buy some time. For what, I don’t know. He’s surely felt me tense against him.
He doesn’t sound fooled in the slightest. “Because