by Trisky
Violets were her favorite flowers, still are, so I never bring her any. They were always kind of strange looking to me, not quite red, not quite blue. I just find the closest place selling a bouquet and stuff them in her hands whenever I get around to one of my bi-annual visits. And she gives me that smile, the same smile she always gave him. I think she told me once that she likes them so much because they refract the light better than any other flower, because of their color. Figures that we can't even agree on that much. She was never very successful at keeping up her own small garden, though she'd attempt it every year. She was lucky though. Violets tend to grow closer to the ground, so he never got a chance to ruin them in one of his fits of rage, because he wouldn't notice them. He just picked at the first bunch of flowers he saw, his face red with rage and too many beers, grabbing and pulling and crumbling up petals until they became part of the mulch they grew in. He thought it was a waste of her time, that it distracted her from other pressing matters like mopping the floors or doing his laundry. He couldn't have that. Personally, I was surprised he wasn't happy just having her out of nagging mode for a little while, but whenever any of us had our own sanctuary, he always wanted to ruin it.
I would survey the disaster area after he'd plowed through, and there her sturdy violets stood in the corner, still intact. I could feel my own face growing more and more red with disconcerting anger, until I was almost stumbling blindly back into the house. She'd be sitting and staring at nothing with a cup of tea, or maybe it was brandy in that teacup, now that I think about it. Her face was just a blank slate, her eyes dead, and I can so clearly remember her telling me one time "why do you care, at least it wasn't you," as if she was upset at that very fact, because after all, it should have been me. Her precious flowers were always so much more of a sanctuary she wanted to protect, more than her own children.
That's what I felt this morning, that same red hot heat rising up my neck, but when I looked around, I didn't see any mess or any cause for such an irrational response. All I saw was him standing there helpless, trying to hold me back from flying off into a rage. It was the sound of the door shutting that snapped me out of it. I'd forgotten where I was for a moment, just so consumed with this violent urge to scream "you have no fucking idea" over and over, until the kid shit in his pants and ran off, but the little fucker just stood there in all his judgmental arrogance, so convinced he knew everything, and that just made me angrier. Who the fuck gave him the gift of second sight?
I guess I expected Justin to follow him like the good little boyfriend making amends, and I felt this... I don't even know, just this burning feeling in my lungs pass over me in waves while I waited. Like when you swallow that salty water from the ocean unexpectedly, and in those few seconds that you spend choking, you think you'll never breathe again. You can't even remember what it feels like to breathe naturally, though you've spent your lifetime doing it without thinking. It's just this panicking sensation that sets in. But Justin didn't leave, he just watched him go and then looked back at me with the same expression he gave me that night he came home, after I found out, as if *he* was the one who was drowning. *Him*. His blue eyes just looked like they had been wrestled out of the comfort of his own complacency and thrust into confusion, and they blamed me for putting him in that state. At least that's what it felt like. But something changed the more he stared at me, waiting for me to calm myself down. His fucking blue eyes just started to sear into my skin with this look of possession.
I couldn't watch him. I just turned my back, not even seeing what was in front of me, just grabbing desperately for a shoe, for my coat, for whatever would get me out of that apartment more quickly. I felt like such a fucking fool, *such* an ass, losing it over some inconsequential little thief, like some jealous spurned lover. It was just such a trite cliche, and the thought of Justin standing there in all of his smug insight just pushed me further and further towards the door. Then that little son of a bitch grabbed my arm, he just fucking grabbed it and spun me around, as if to tell me I couldn't leave until he said what he had to say. Only I didn't want to hear any more words, any more explanations or apologies. I want the last thing out of his mouth to be "I fucked up and it's all my fault" and we'll take it from there, but the look he wore on his face told me I'd be waiting a lifetime to hear something like that, even though it's something I probably deserve. At least that much. But he's already let me get away with much more. He won't be offering up all his dignity as an act of conciliation.
I kept waiting for the feeling to pass, for my blood to stop coursing at full speed through my veins. But everything was compounded by the fact that he had my arm in such a tight grip and would not let go of it, no matter how much I tried to pull away, *everything*, it was just all rushed together. His blue eyes blazed, just wanting to devour me, his hand held me steady, a thumping sound of someone hammering a nail into a wall in the apartment underneath our feet drifted through the floor, the sun poured in through dirty windows making it seem duller than usual, my fucking body felt like it was on fire and my vision settled somewhere between peripheral blurriness and razor sharp focus on his face.
It was that one word, just one word, that's all it took.
"Stay."
And everything just refracted. I never wanted something so badly in my life. I know what they mean now, wanting it so much you can taste it. I know what it tastes like, like a pool of sodium filled saliva rising out of your throat and filling your mouth.
I yanked, I just yanked so hard I almost knocked him over when I pulled my arm out of his hold. I couldn't even hear myself think, if I was thinking at all, much less hear anything else. I couldn't see anything but him, and my body felt like I'd finally released the stranglehold it was in for several moments, so I just grabbed at the first thing I saw, his shirt, to steady myself. Grabbed so hard the collar tore a little, but I didn't care and neither did he. I don't even know how I knew where to find the bed, but I did and I just tossed him on it, like a rag doll.
My skin felt so warm. This unmistakable burning sensation just seemed to pour out, the more he stared up at me with those blue eyes, waiting in silence. Eyes that just speak a thousand fucking things all at once when they're filled with life, and that kill me when I've made them blank and unresponsive. But they were alive, so terrifically alive and welcoming and safe. I just shrugged my shirt off, dismissing its buttons for getting in my way. Almost immediately I felt his hands roaming all over my skin, sure it was burning him, and that's what I wanted. I just wanted him to feel it, if only for a moment, feel that all consuming heat I was feeling. He let me raise his arms over his head and collapse on him, with all my weight. Let me bury my tongue so far in his mouth, giving it over to him, he wouldn't need one of his own to speak any longer. Even the sheets felt warm, slept in and comfortable, for a minute. He just wrapped his legs around me and his hands around my neck, with no intention of letting go, never letting go. I could feel him pulling my mouth into his lungs it seemed, daring me to dive further and offering up his breath for me to breathe in, if I took the dare, and I did. I'd do it a thousand more times if he asked.
His hands moved down to my ass, reaching into my pocket for my wallet, like I was a pimply senior back in high school with the same condom I put in there when I started in freshman year and he was the jock who was finally going to give me a reason to use it. But hey, drastic moments call for drastic measures and I was never more glad to always be prepared. The funny thing is I thought he was going to play with my ass, and I was about to stop him when his hands got down there, because playful just wasn't a mood I was in. I just wanted to be inside him in every way I could imagine, up his ass, in his mouth, in his blood, wrapped up in his skin. I wanted him to feel me all over every part of him, every time he lifts his foot, or blinks his eyelids, just feel me cloak his every movement, leave a red hot impression stamped on everything that is him.
I could feel from the way his fingers gnawed at my skin, leaving a trail of unintended pinches, that he was trying to find some way in, some place to possess that was all his own, down my back, over my shoulders, sliding up my chest and over my face, into my hair, rolling me onto my back and jockeying for position, but he didn't stay there long. He changed direction at some point, his hands pulling at the zipper on my jeans, trying to possess my cock. Even his feet got into the action, trying to loosen the grip of the denim around my calves, but I grabbed his wrists with one hand, just held them at bay, and pulled the material off, kicking myself free from its entrapment, loving the feeling of his smooth khaki's riding my bare legs and his ripped t-shirt grazing my chest, my dick rubbing against the zipper of his pants, tempting him, the bulge from his own straining to meet my touch. I finally let his hands go, and they were on his shirt pulling it over his head in record time. I helped him out of his pants and his underwear and he offered himself to me, to take over, take every part of him with no inhibition, and I want that so much, want to be able to do the same in return, but I can't. Especially not when he's grabbing at me and looking up at me with those blue eyes and trying so hard to find some way in. So I just flipped him onto his stomach, pushing his hands away from their treasure hunt, trailing my mouth from his ass, up his back, to his neck. He already owns the most important parts of me, the parts he can't feel with fingertips. Maybe out of desperation or insanity caused by my quickly subsiding, blinding rage, I wanted him to know that. It's just this overwhelming feeling that if he doesn't, if I can't do this right, this is the end of the line. I stopped, I just stopped right at his ear, looked at the way his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, anticipating my cock being buried up his ass where it belongs, and I opened my mouth and I could just feel *them* rise up naturally, like breath, and I feel them tumble out in a sea of salty saliva. I'm so sure he's heard me but he squared himself away, trying not to make a big deal out of it. His eyes just rolled forward staring at the sheets underneath him trying to hold onto his last breath, and he did the most amazing thing, just the most fucking amazing thing ever. He ignored it. He bucked his hips up, threw his head onto my shoulder, grabbed my arms and wrapped them around his chest with his own and didn't say a word. Told me what he wanted, told me how he needed me, told me where I should be, inside him always, without ever saying a word.
That first push in was slow and strained, my dick acclimating itself to the confines of his ass. It'd been so long since I was in there, like eyes trying to focus when someone suddenly switches a light on in a room you've been in a million times. I could just feel all that heat falling away from me and being pounded into him, mingling with the vision of his blue eyes glazed over with some kind of obsessed desire. That's what I saw in my mind. When I came, it was like some force just charged through my body and rammed him so hard his head sprang up, and his own cock just leaked for what seemed like hours, like I'd pushed it out of him from behind.
He fell asleep in that position after a few minutes of panting, lying underneath me, me still inside him, bathed in our sweat mingling with the puddle on his sheets. Neither of us really cared and I had no place else to be, so I stayed and slept for a few hours more, just lying there, half on him, half off, so he could breathe, on those itchy sheets.
I watched him for a little while, pulling out of him as quietly as possible. He stirred but didn't wake up, just settled into the emptiness of being left alone. I just sat there and watched him sleep, before I got dressed and left without so much as a shower. If I were going home to someone I'd have been totally fucked from the smell alone. Amazing how blind you can be when you want to be.
I knew I shouldn't be there when he woke up, for too many reasons. I'm sure he's upset about that, about me breaking some imagined promise or being left on his own without any explanation or discussion about what it all means. It doesn't mean anything, at least nothing more special than it always meant, maybe he'll finally realize that. It was no big deal, the world didn't end, like he thought it would.
He asked me to stay and I stayed as long as I could. And I'll be there with him, long after I'm gone. I certainly made sure of that this time.
The absurd thought crosses my mind, lying here staring at the beams of my ceiling, that maybe Jack had it right all along, and I could have stopped all of this before it even had a chance to start.
I sigh to myself, it bounces off the walls and back into my ears, too much silence around here.
I should have just bought the fucking roses...