Stray Fears - Gregory Ashe Page 0,20

even in New Orleans, December was cold. The frigid air came in like waves that hit me at the knee; in real life, everything had smelled like shit and piss and body cavities blown open, but now I tasted grass, tasted mud, tasted catfish, tasted the cool, wet gravel of the drive under the porte cochere. That night, I had thought the killer had escaped through the door. I went after him. I had some idea—I must have believed—that I could catch him.

And I had caught him, in a way, I guess. Gard was sitting in a webbed lawn chair, where he and Dad liked to drink on hot nights under the porte cochere. One hand was wrapped around the aluminum arm rest; the other held the .38, which had slipped out of his mouth and had snagged on the pearl-snap shirt he thought made him look like a cowboy. On the ground was the pillow he had used to improvise a silencer—why I’d heard thumps instead of gunshots, why I hadn’t interrupted my fuck. Gard’s back was to me, his head hanging over the lawn chair, facing me upside down. His eyes were blue, a bioluminescent glow.

He raised the .38. Some of the soft tissue from his palate clung to the barrel, a black clump that broke the gun’s clean lines. He traced a circle in the air.

Every night, I woke screaming.

Tonight was Sunday, almost a week since Mason had tried to shoot me on the steps of DuPage First Methodist. I sat in bed, hunched over, sobbing into my knees.

Richard’s breathing changed when he woke. His hand found my back, ran up my spine, squeezed my shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He pulled me down to lie next to him, hugging me against him while I cried, his chin resting on my shoulder. After a while, he started shifting around, trying to pull his hips back. I sniffled into the pillow, wiped my face, and scooted back until I made contact again. Richard pulled his hips back again. I slid with him, grinding into his erection.

“Elien,” he said, his breathing uneven. “I’m sorry, it’s just a reaction to . . . to what I feel for you. I know it’s inappropriate, and I—”

I pressed back harder, and then I took his wrist, and slid his hand down between my legs. I never got hard anymore. Never. Weight gain, emotional numbness, and sexual dysfunction—including the inability to orgasm. The holy trinity of side effects from antidepressants, and I had enough antidepressants in me to pep up a clown college. But I kept Richard’s hand in place. We’d done this before, and he knew what I wanted. He touched me for a while through my briefs. Then he rocked into me, slowly at first, then with more insistence. I wasn’t going to bone up, but it was still nice to be appreciated.

“Make love to me,” I whispered into the pillow.

He kissed my neck. “Another night, when you’re feeling better.”

Kicking my way free of the briefs, I wrapped his hand around me, still limp, and said, “Fuck me.”

“I don’t think—”

I rolled over, kissed him, and forced him onto his back. I worked his boxers down, took him in my mouth, and gave him some attention. First-class attention. I knew when he was close because he got mouthy, started saying dirty things he’d never normally let slip, and that’s when I pulled off.

“Fuck me,” I said, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

Richard pressed me into the mattress, got my leg over his shoulder, and worked a lubed finger into me. Then another.

“Just fuck me,” I said.

“You get what I give you,” he said. This was the side that came out during sex. His fingers twisted, punching the breath out of me. “Who owns this ass?”

“You do,” I whispered.

“Who decides what you get?”

“You do,” I said, a little louder.

He played with me for a while, and then he fucked me. At first, the pace was steady. Then it grew ragged, harder. I kept my eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. Not feeling anything, I had discovered, wasn’t the same as feeling nothing. It was kind of the opposite actually. It was intense. An intense inversion. A hunger to feel something. Anything. I hooked my free leg, trying to pull Richard into me. I put my arm over my eyes and started to cry.

Richard’s hips bucked. He had one hand on my chest like he was trying to stop a train. “Elien—Elien—”

“Just