a mask and gloves. I’ve decided on the quarantine.
If Kellan has an opinion about the origami sparrows, he doesn’t let on.
A few times a day, he has to get up to “stay moving.” I lace my arm through his, but Kellan hardly looks at me. This afternoon, he does PT and chokes down some chicken and rice. His eyes are tired. His face is pale. He falls asleep with the food tray in his lap. I tuck pillows around him. I hang more birds. No one stops me. By the time the sun starts going down, one-fourth of the room is filled with sparrows.
I can’t.
I think of it. I map whole conversations. Jokes. In my mind, I tell her that I love her. How soft she is, how good she smells. I tell her to stay in bed with me all day, to keep her hands around my dick all night, because I need that. I need her.
But that’s a script. In the real world, I am silent. When she holds me in the daylight, I don’t move. Poison drips into my veins. I tell myself if I don’t speak, if I don’t move my mouth, I won’t get sick. I tell myself if I get sick, Cleo will leave. I can’t be here without her. She is holding up the sky.
“IF ALL ELSE PERISHED, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger.”
–Catherine, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Chemo day four, Kellan doesn’t eat his breakfast of bacon, a biscuit, and a TwoCal. Dr. Willard comes in and asks him how he’s feeling, and I’m shocked to hear him have a normal conversation with the doctor.
“My hips hurt some. Better, though...”
“We’ve dropped back on the Dil since that pain’s lessened,” the doctor tells him. “What about your stomach? Any nausea yet?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes. Not much.”
“We can go up on the Zofran.” Dr. Willard nods at the stationary bike and gives Kellan a crooked smile. “You been training on that thing?”
Kellan shakes his head, rubbing his forehead, like he’s tired. “I wish.”
The doctor pats his arm. “Take this pretty girl and dance around the room. Just keep him up and down,” the doctor tells me.
Kellan’s eyes meet mine, and I feel warm all over. When did he stop looking at me?
When Dr. Willard goes, I perch on the foot of the bed. “You want to play a game or something? Maybe watch a show?”
Kellan shakes his head. I notice he’s got his phone cradled in his hand.
“I think I’ll take a nap.” I swallow, because all of a sudden, my throat is aching. “Do you mind if I lie down beside you?”
“Go for it,” he says quietly.
I slip under the sheets, but when I go to spoon myself against him like normal, I find that I... just can’t.
I lie there, staring at the small sky light above the bed. I feel him shift beside me. He turns on his back. I catch his eye and realize he looks more alert than yesterday. As I just saw, when he spoke with Dr. Willard.
I blink, making the ceiling blur.
Did I do something wrong? I thought he’d want me here, but... I cover my face with my hand.
“Cleo?”
I peek my eyes open and see him leaning over me. He grabs my hand and puts it under the covers, where I find a rock-hard erection.
I stroke up and down his velvety length, slowly at first, because I’m not sure if I want to do this. But I find I do. I need him. I’ll settle for anything I can get. I trace around his bulbous head and roll his balls in my warm palm. His chest rises with his heavy breaths.
“Yeah... oh... fuck... Cleo.”
I feel a pearl of moisture on the head of him.
His thighs flex as he pushes himself into my hand. “Oh God... mm... underneath... my head again. Like that. Fuck.”
I feel his hips tremble. I stroke his balls. I jack him for a few and return to his head, to the silken rim, where the barest stroke of my fingertips has him snarling in my ear and threatening to blow all over me. I wrap both hands around his thick shaft. He thrusts as my hands pump, and when he comes he groans, “I love you.”
“And if you are not a bird, beware of coming to rest above an abyss.”