14. Temperance
Title: Raise Hell
Author: SaintLi
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Robber/Driver (Eli/Gabe)
Wordcount (this chapter): 3,722
Fandom: Mint Royale
14. Temperance
"I tried so hard to fix what I'd ruined. I tried every single day to be what they wanted. I tried all the time to be better but I never really knew how."
--Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
He's above me, in me, filling me, filling my senses until there's nothing but him. Just him. He is all I need, pushing deeper into me, rougher, pushing all thoughts from my head. There is nothing but pleasure, the fuel for my burning need as his sweat attempts to quench my thirsty tongue. He's fevered above me, manic but determined. My hands attempt to find purchase on slick skin, slipping, slipping. He groans, the noise shaking my bones loose from their joints. His lips part, and he says,
"I love u xx"
His voice not his, robotic--as heavy and inorganic on his tongue as a Lego block.
"I love u xx", he says again.
I beg him, "Say it again. For real. Say it for real. I need to hear you say it. I need...I need..."
Someone shook my shoulder.
"Eli," Kat's soft voice sounded above me. "C'mon, Eli. You've got to meet Jen for lunch, remember? I made coffee."
I came to slowly, feeling first the pounding of my head, then the coldness of my feet, and finally the tightness in my groin. I groaned, rolling my body further away from her.
"I'll be up in a minute. I need a shower." I waited to get out of bed until after I heard her footsteps retreating down the hall. As distressing as my dream was, it was just sensual enough to make me so hard it was painful. Shielding myself with my suitcase, I stumbled down the hall and into the bathroom.
In the dense steam of the shower, I touched myself, my pace quick, efficient. It wasn't enough to soothe the ache inside me, no matter the technique employed. I sighed, head bowed. The head of my erection--dark and swollen--peeked out at me from my fist. Past that, blue and black love bites speckled the insides of my thighs. My cock gave an almighty jump remembering Gabe's dark gaze shooting up my body as he placed the marks there, raising bruises, raising my voice. His fingers worked inside me, pressing and rubbing so perfectly...
I grabbed the bottle of conditioner, breathing through my mouth so I didn't have to inhale the aroma of my sister's hair while I abused myself. I closed my eyes tight and the feel of my slick fingertip was the sensation of the tip of his tongue against my hole, working me open slowly. Images in my head kept flashing and switching--a porno on microfilm. Gabe, the night of the bite-speckled-thighs, pushing into me in one smooth motion, making me cry out, staring me down, his gaze intense. My legs hiked up high around his torso, practically bent in half as he pinned my wrists to the pillow either side of my head.
In the smothering reality of the shower, I moaned too loudly, reaching in a panic for the flannel that'd been laid out for me. I shoved the dry cotton into my mouth, and behind the safety of my eyelids, it transformed into Gabe's hand, stifling my moans. We're in a car park now--a thing that never happened, a fantasy--I'm on my hands and knees on the back seat, my head stuck out the window as Gabe, draped over my back, pounds into me relentlessly, breathing filth and endearments against the sweat-sodden fabric of my shirt, his hand clamped to my mouth to keep me quiet--fingers slipping past my lips and I suck them in, tongue swirling, delving between.
'I love you,' I heard him say in my head. But the tone was off, and so I replayed bits of conversation and dirty talk in my head until his voice was fixed so solidly in my mind you could reach in with tweezers and pluck it from my ear--and then again, I heard him saying 'I love you', but clearer now, more Gabe-like, and I bit down hard on the flannel as I came with a violent shudder, splattering bathroom tiling.
******************
Ten minutes later, I emerged from the shower clean and full of shame. I shivered in the cool air, the towel around my waist not enough to fend off the chill. I unzipped my suitcase, pulling out a pair of pants, my fingers brushing plastic. Confused, I pulled out the offending item--a large freezer bag containing Gabe's gun, a bottle of pills, some bullets, three joints and an acid green Post-It. I flipped the bag in my hands, reading the note:
This is not the end. Take care of yourself. Be smart.
Always,
Gabe xx
"Oh my god," I breathed into the dissipating steam of the bathroom. "He planned this."
******************
Jen's nail varnish was chipped. I noticed as she lightly drummed her fingers against her glass of water--twist of lemon. Our meeting was short, we barely spoke. It felt awkward, like a bad dream. I recalled that conversation Gabe and I had in his bathroom, about how Jen more than likely didn't recognize me anymore. How she never really knew me.
I realized belatedly that I never really knew myself.
Could I be the man she needed? The father our child would need? Did I have it in me? I didn't really know.
But I reached across the table slowly, and when she didn't pull away, I took her hand in mine.
"It'll be alright, Jenny," I said.
I hoped saying it out loud would make it the truth.
******************
An odd thing happened after that lunch with Jen.
I came back to Kat's, hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin, fell onto her sofa and into a dark, dreamless sleep. When I woke just before dawn, the fear was still there, but muted, like music heard underwater. I brewed coffee, drank it in the worn armchair as I smoked the day's first cigarette, watching the sun rise over a burnt-out old warehouse across the street. Everything in me quiet, cold and still--a winter landscape of freshly fallen snow. I still felt the pain of losing Gabe, the nervous excitement of becoming a father, the fear of things to come, but these things seemed far off--animals at the zoo, trapped behind glass. I could see them, but they couldn't touch me.
At eight, Kat stumbled out of her room in an out-sized KISS shirt, her hair a mess. She rubbed at her eyes, regarding me with a confused scowl. "What are you doing, Goose?" The mornings are not a good time for her, never have been, and when she speaks she sounds like a tot on the verge of a tantrum, her voice small and whiny.
"Drinking coffee." My voice was not my own. I'd stolen it from a much more capable man--a man who knew what he was doing, where he was going. I brought my mug up to my lips, took a slurping sip. "See?"
"Arse," she muttered, padding into the kitchen to pour a cup for herself. I watched as she dumped what seemed like half the sugar bowl in, stirred in a cow's worth of cream. She snatched my cigarettes from me before throwing herself down on the sofa, kicking my blanket out of the way. "How's Jen? Meant to ask yesterday."
"She's fine. Very excited. Wants to have a home birth. She seemed to think I'd fight her over that, for some reason. Told her I'd help her research midwives, so I might need to borrow your laptop later, if that's alright."
"Sure..." Kat squinted at me over the brim of her mug, brow arched. "And how are you?"
"I'm fine. Very excited. I've always wanted to be a father. Are you going to smoke my cigarettes or just keep them clutched in your talons? Because I want one. Of my cigarettes. I don't think that's asking for much."
She lit herself a cigarette and pushed the packet towards me across the scuffed top of the coffee table. "Question: Where's my real brother? What'd you do with him?"
"That's two questions." I lit my own cigarette, kept the packet on the table between us for her convenience.
"Seriously, should I be worried?"
"Three questions."
"Scary fucker," Kat muttered beneath her breath, leaning back into the sofa, shading her eyes with her palm.
I didn't want to tell her, but I was pretty sure Gabe killed the old Eli when he got himself arrested.
*******************
Three months.
Gabe was gone three months. Still, I always seemed to know what was going on with him. The coverage on the case was incredible. Not once had I considered how the robbery would have seemed to those not involved in it. The public lapped it up like a kitten with cream. I couldn't turn on the news without hearing about it.
The first time was incredibly disorienting. I'd turned the TV on in search of something mindless, and there was Gabe, looking so scared and small. He was handcuffed, being led into the courthouse. Two people--his parents, I found out later--trailed behind. His mother was beautiful, and from her I could see Gabe had inherited his high forehead and his nose, though hers was much more straight and narrow. It made me wonder if he'd ever had his nose broken. And her blue eyes--not bare, but wearing the kind of makeup designed to appear as bare skin--framed in long, fluttering lashes...My breath caught. She was mid-height and thin, and devastatingly elegant in her navy blue Chanel suit and pearls, her hair in a polished bun. His father--a broad man, slightly balding with a paunch, a bit ruddy in the cheeks--had the effortlessly assured way of moving only afforded to those with serious money. He looked nothing like Gabe. He also appeared to be at least ten years older than Gabe's mother, which was something I found myself unprepared for.
I panicked, shutting off the TV and tossing the remote away from me.
Later, I told all this to Kat as she ate cereal at the small kitchen table, hunched over her bowl and regarding me with bleary eyes. She'd only just woken up at noon, her mood agitated. I expressed my desire to know what was going on with him, and my equal desire to not know--to not watch it unfold before me. And so she took it upon herself to watch the news, reporting back to me at every new development.
On March 6, Kat cornered me on the way to the bathroom.
"Your boyfriend is a fucking genius," she smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Could you move? I need a piss."
She allowed me to push past her into the bathroom, but continued to speak to me through the closed door. She reminded me of the circumstances of Gabe's arrest, how he'd acted so unlike himself at the off-license. She told me how once he'd been arrested, he waited an appropriate amount of time before acting like an addict going through withdrawals. How he claimed three men approached him one evening, asking if he'd drive them somewhere. How he'd been tricked into participating with an offer of drugs.
"Do you think it'll work?" I shouted over the sound of the toilet flushing.
"Only time will tell."
I washed my hands and went to the kitchen, digging through every drawer until I found an old receipt to use as scrap paper. I wrote down the information Kat told me and tucked the scrap into my suitcase.
That's how I began journaling.
*****************
It began as a way to keep track of Gabe. Of the lies he told the cops and the court. Of how long I'd have to wait before I'd see him again. I researched sentencing related to offenders who are also addicts, trying to predict how much time he might get. All of this, I wrote down in a spiral notebook Kat bought me. He waited in jail for a month and a half before his court date. I researched what prison life is like, if he'd be able to have his daily cup of coffee, cigarettes. His acting and his parent's money convinced the judge to sentence him to a stint in rehab. After that, community service and mandatory therapy. I'd have roughly two more months to wait for him. Then I could see him again. We'd be together again.
All of this I wrote down. But once Gabe was sentenced, I had nothing left to write. Jotting down these things kept my feelings about them more or less at bay. Without anything to write down, I was left only with my feelings. I tried to write these down, but it felt strange. Who was I writing to? Me? The journal itself? God? All of these things seemed senseless.
And so I started writing to Gabe. It was raw, uncensored--the most truthful I'd ever been in my life. This carried on for weeks before I left Kat's flat in search of a journal fit for the task. I came back four hours later with something I thought Gabe would appreciate: a medium-sized journal soft bound in supple black leather, its recycled pages heavy and coloured cream. I carefully transcribed all I'd written for him from the notebook into the journal, my penmanship deliberate, spelling impeccable. I wondered if I would give it to him, and then I wondered when I would give it to him.
I tried to envision his reaction to my heart spilled across the pages.
I was angry and I was lost. I wasn't sure if he had ever told me the truth, and I decided in his absence that was all I wanted--the truth. No more lies. No more omissions. The truth, cold, hard and brutal. The truth, warmed by freshly spilt blood. I would write the truth and I'd rub his flat fucking nose in it. I would write my truth and demand his. I would hold him close and even in my anger I would make him promise to never leave me again. I wanted him to see what he'd made of me--a desperate, insatiable fool.
13 March, 2014
I sleep on Kat's sofa and search for you in my dreams. I find you in a tiny concrete cell. I touch your cheek, your thighs, your hair, your cock, your eyelids. I wake up painfully hard and touch myself in the shower, quick and rough, fingernails scraping my thighs, my stomach. I come into the empty air and am alone. I hate you for leaving me, but I want you back desperately.
You didn't have to do this. You martyr-idiot.
I read the words back and they all sounded like the ravings of a madman. Still, I carried on--this writing my only outlet since Gabe's arrest.
20 April, 2014
I dreamt you were a rock on the shore and I was the ocean. I beat against you in relentless waves and finally you broke down, into a million pieces of rubble, tiny stones, pebbles. I felt you plummeting through my depths, drowning in my belly, where you settled in the mouths of oysters, irritating them until years later these pieces of you were pulled from my depths in the form of pearls.
You always did know how to turn pain into something beautiful.
Some of them were incredibly short, but to the point.
24 April, 2014
I love you.
I hate you.
I miss you.
I need you.
Come home.
A lot of them were just plain embarrassing.
30 April, 2014
I don't know how you convinced me. To rob a bank. To put your cock up my arse. To let you bite me, scratch me, pinch me, slap me, and call it love. To let you be in charge, of the plans, my head, my heart, my cock.
I don't know how you convinced me. But there's no going back now.
2 May, 2014
I miss you.
I miss the way you'd stir your morning's first cup of coffee, standing at the kitchen sink, stirring in two spoons of sugar, cream. So I stand at the kitchen sink, stirring two spoons of sugar into my morning's first cup of coffee, cream.
I miss you.
I miss your arm draped over my waist, your chest pressed into my back as you sleep. So I press my back into the cushions of Kat's sofa, bunch the blanket up around my waist, missing the weight of flesh.
I miss you.
I miss your fingers, slick, twisting inside of me. Promises disguised as threats. Threats disguised as promises. So I replay them in my mind--your voice on loop--and wait for the house to be empty, three fingers knuckle deep inside of me, twisting, pushing, stroking until I come with your name smeared across my lips.
I miss you.
I miss the taste of you.
Sadly, there is nothing that comes close to it.
8 May, 2014
Jen asked me today if I'm gay. I could tell she had been wanting to ask me for some time now.
I told her I didn't know.
Truth is, I don't care.
All I know is I want you.
Desperately.
Always.
Desperately.
*****************
"The DNA wasn't his!" Kat whispers at me, eyes wide.
It was 2 April. I was sitting at the kitchen table, chain smoking as I scribbled in my journal. She slid into the seat across from me, leaning in, and hissed the news again.
"The DNA wasn't his! On that rag they found? Not. His!"
I looked up. She seemed slightly panicked, eyes wide, face pallid. I looked back down, continuing to write.
"Okay."
"Okay?! How is this okay?! Whose DNA was it then?" When I didn't answer, she repeated my name several times, finally settling for just banging her fist against my journal until I looked back up at her.
"It's not mine." I said, moving her small fist out of the way.
"Oh," she breathed, and then, "Are you sure?"
I was. The only time we had sex in the car, Gabe swallowed. Wiped his own release on the rag. But the DNA wasn't his. They tested it and it wasn't his.
"Positive."
"Oh."
We sat there in silence, both of us contemplating the question neither one of us wanted to ask.
If the semen wasn't mine and it wasn't Gabe's, then whose was it?
********************
I slept restlessly that night. I dreamt of Gabe, in his car, fucking the breath out of some faceless stranger. I woke with a start, angry and hard. Pushing the blanket off me, I sat up and checked the time. 3 a.m. Standing with a sigh, I pulled on my coat and stepped out into the night. I found myself ducking into an alley near Kat's flat, my cock still heavy in my pyjama bottoms. It was freezing out. Leaning up against the wall, back to bricks, I pushed my hand into my pants, stroking hard and fast. Pinching and twisting my nipples. My breath left me in hard pants, puffs of steam rising in the cold air. I brought my palm up to my lips, spat, stroked faster.
Gabe's flat stomach, dense trail of hair from navel to groin. His cock jutting out, hard and dark and leaking, between flaps of denim. Short nails varnished black digging into skin. His teeth nipping flesh. Eyes dark, intense. I imagine him in flashes, find his voice in my head, hear him saying, "Look at you. Dreamt of me fucking someone else and you're still craving my cock. Touching yourself in public. You wanna get caught, don't you? Just the idea gives you a little thrill, don't it? Naughty. Naughty boy. I ought to bend you over those bins and spank you til your arse is black and blue. Like your thighs. If I were there I'd smack you til your arse was on fire, then shove my cock into you hard and fast. Til you're a sobbing heap. That's what you need right now, ain't it? An excuse to break down. You wouldn't be able to sit right for weeks--"
I came in my pants with a violent shudder, a long groan. Bringing my hand back up to my mouth, I sucked my release off my fingers, just as Gabe would have instructed, were he there. I smoked a cigarette, waiting for my nerves to calm and went back inside. In the dim light of the kitchen, I wrote down what I'd just done.
I thought Gabe would appreciate it.
**************
It was the first of May. I was walking back to Kat's from another lunch with Jen. Jan was there, and shot daggers at me the entire time. I remained cordial, but largely ignored her. Still, it went fairly well. Jen and I discussed the pros and cons of water birth--one of the things I had researched at her behest. I also brought up the idea of having a midwife who was also a registered nurse, so if anything went wrong during the delivery process, the midwife/nurse would be licensed to handle it. It was a tip I'd read on one of the numerous Mummy blogs I'd found online. Jan seemed impressed by this suggestion, but attempted to hide it.
I was feeling smug. All and all it was a good day. I ducked into a small bakery and bought myself a small pink box of tiny cakes and tarts, eating them as I walked. I contemplated whether or not to write in my journal about the day I had, wondering if Gabe would care about the intricacies of planning a homebirth. Remembering my new no lies, no omissions edict, I decided I would write about it. The information would be there for him if he cared to know.
Turning the corner, about five minutes away from my old flat, I saw Jack. He was buying a bacon butty from the shop we used to frequent after card games. I froze. Dropped my box of baked goods. I felt cold all over.
And then I ran.
Author: SaintLi
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Robber/Driver (Eli/Gabe)
Wordcount (this chapter): 3,722
Fandom: Mint Royale
14. Temperance
"I tried so hard to fix what I'd ruined. I tried every single day to be what they wanted. I tried all the time to be better but I never really knew how."
--Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me
He's above me, in me, filling me, filling my senses until there's nothing but him. Just him. He is all I need, pushing deeper into me, rougher, pushing all thoughts from my head. There is nothing but pleasure, the fuel for my burning need as his sweat attempts to quench my thirsty tongue. He's fevered above me, manic but determined. My hands attempt to find purchase on slick skin, slipping, slipping. He groans, the noise shaking my bones loose from their joints. His lips part, and he says,
"I love u xx"
His voice not his, robotic--as heavy and inorganic on his tongue as a Lego block.
"I love u xx", he says again.
I beg him, "Say it again. For real. Say it for real. I need to hear you say it. I need...I need..."
Someone shook my shoulder.
"Eli," Kat's soft voice sounded above me. "C'mon, Eli. You've got to meet Jen for lunch, remember? I made coffee."
I came to slowly, feeling first the pounding of my head, then the coldness of my feet, and finally the tightness in my groin. I groaned, rolling my body further away from her.
"I'll be up in a minute. I need a shower." I waited to get out of bed until after I heard her footsteps retreating down the hall. As distressing as my dream was, it was just sensual enough to make me so hard it was painful. Shielding myself with my suitcase, I stumbled down the hall and into the bathroom.
In the dense steam of the shower, I touched myself, my pace quick, efficient. It wasn't enough to soothe the ache inside me, no matter the technique employed. I sighed, head bowed. The head of my erection--dark and swollen--peeked out at me from my fist. Past that, blue and black love bites speckled the insides of my thighs. My cock gave an almighty jump remembering Gabe's dark gaze shooting up my body as he placed the marks there, raising bruises, raising my voice. His fingers worked inside me, pressing and rubbing so perfectly...
I grabbed the bottle of conditioner, breathing through my mouth so I didn't have to inhale the aroma of my sister's hair while I abused myself. I closed my eyes tight and the feel of my slick fingertip was the sensation of the tip of his tongue against my hole, working me open slowly. Images in my head kept flashing and switching--a porno on microfilm. Gabe, the night of the bite-speckled-thighs, pushing into me in one smooth motion, making me cry out, staring me down, his gaze intense. My legs hiked up high around his torso, practically bent in half as he pinned my wrists to the pillow either side of my head.
In the smothering reality of the shower, I moaned too loudly, reaching in a panic for the flannel that'd been laid out for me. I shoved the dry cotton into my mouth, and behind the safety of my eyelids, it transformed into Gabe's hand, stifling my moans. We're in a car park now--a thing that never happened, a fantasy--I'm on my hands and knees on the back seat, my head stuck out the window as Gabe, draped over my back, pounds into me relentlessly, breathing filth and endearments against the sweat-sodden fabric of my shirt, his hand clamped to my mouth to keep me quiet--fingers slipping past my lips and I suck them in, tongue swirling, delving between.
'I love you,' I heard him say in my head. But the tone was off, and so I replayed bits of conversation and dirty talk in my head until his voice was fixed so solidly in my mind you could reach in with tweezers and pluck it from my ear--and then again, I heard him saying 'I love you', but clearer now, more Gabe-like, and I bit down hard on the flannel as I came with a violent shudder, splattering bathroom tiling.
******************
Ten minutes later, I emerged from the shower clean and full of shame. I shivered in the cool air, the towel around my waist not enough to fend off the chill. I unzipped my suitcase, pulling out a pair of pants, my fingers brushing plastic. Confused, I pulled out the offending item--a large freezer bag containing Gabe's gun, a bottle of pills, some bullets, three joints and an acid green Post-It. I flipped the bag in my hands, reading the note:
This is not the end. Take care of yourself. Be smart.
Always,
Gabe xx
"Oh my god," I breathed into the dissipating steam of the bathroom. "He planned this."
******************
Jen's nail varnish was chipped. I noticed as she lightly drummed her fingers against her glass of water--twist of lemon. Our meeting was short, we barely spoke. It felt awkward, like a bad dream. I recalled that conversation Gabe and I had in his bathroom, about how Jen more than likely didn't recognize me anymore. How she never really knew me.
I realized belatedly that I never really knew myself.
Could I be the man she needed? The father our child would need? Did I have it in me? I didn't really know.
But I reached across the table slowly, and when she didn't pull away, I took her hand in mine.
"It'll be alright, Jenny," I said.
I hoped saying it out loud would make it the truth.
******************
An odd thing happened after that lunch with Jen.
I came back to Kat's, hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin, fell onto her sofa and into a dark, dreamless sleep. When I woke just before dawn, the fear was still there, but muted, like music heard underwater. I brewed coffee, drank it in the worn armchair as I smoked the day's first cigarette, watching the sun rise over a burnt-out old warehouse across the street. Everything in me quiet, cold and still--a winter landscape of freshly fallen snow. I still felt the pain of losing Gabe, the nervous excitement of becoming a father, the fear of things to come, but these things seemed far off--animals at the zoo, trapped behind glass. I could see them, but they couldn't touch me.
At eight, Kat stumbled out of her room in an out-sized KISS shirt, her hair a mess. She rubbed at her eyes, regarding me with a confused scowl. "What are you doing, Goose?" The mornings are not a good time for her, never have been, and when she speaks she sounds like a tot on the verge of a tantrum, her voice small and whiny.
"Drinking coffee." My voice was not my own. I'd stolen it from a much more capable man--a man who knew what he was doing, where he was going. I brought my mug up to my lips, took a slurping sip. "See?"
"Arse," she muttered, padding into the kitchen to pour a cup for herself. I watched as she dumped what seemed like half the sugar bowl in, stirred in a cow's worth of cream. She snatched my cigarettes from me before throwing herself down on the sofa, kicking my blanket out of the way. "How's Jen? Meant to ask yesterday."
"She's fine. Very excited. Wants to have a home birth. She seemed to think I'd fight her over that, for some reason. Told her I'd help her research midwives, so I might need to borrow your laptop later, if that's alright."
"Sure..." Kat squinted at me over the brim of her mug, brow arched. "And how are you?"
"I'm fine. Very excited. I've always wanted to be a father. Are you going to smoke my cigarettes or just keep them clutched in your talons? Because I want one. Of my cigarettes. I don't think that's asking for much."
She lit herself a cigarette and pushed the packet towards me across the scuffed top of the coffee table. "Question: Where's my real brother? What'd you do with him?"
"That's two questions." I lit my own cigarette, kept the packet on the table between us for her convenience.
"Seriously, should I be worried?"
"Three questions."
"Scary fucker," Kat muttered beneath her breath, leaning back into the sofa, shading her eyes with her palm.
I didn't want to tell her, but I was pretty sure Gabe killed the old Eli when he got himself arrested.
*******************
Three months.
Gabe was gone three months. Still, I always seemed to know what was going on with him. The coverage on the case was incredible. Not once had I considered how the robbery would have seemed to those not involved in it. The public lapped it up like a kitten with cream. I couldn't turn on the news without hearing about it.
The first time was incredibly disorienting. I'd turned the TV on in search of something mindless, and there was Gabe, looking so scared and small. He was handcuffed, being led into the courthouse. Two people--his parents, I found out later--trailed behind. His mother was beautiful, and from her I could see Gabe had inherited his high forehead and his nose, though hers was much more straight and narrow. It made me wonder if he'd ever had his nose broken. And her blue eyes--not bare, but wearing the kind of makeup designed to appear as bare skin--framed in long, fluttering lashes...My breath caught. She was mid-height and thin, and devastatingly elegant in her navy blue Chanel suit and pearls, her hair in a polished bun. His father--a broad man, slightly balding with a paunch, a bit ruddy in the cheeks--had the effortlessly assured way of moving only afforded to those with serious money. He looked nothing like Gabe. He also appeared to be at least ten years older than Gabe's mother, which was something I found myself unprepared for.
I panicked, shutting off the TV and tossing the remote away from me.
Later, I told all this to Kat as she ate cereal at the small kitchen table, hunched over her bowl and regarding me with bleary eyes. She'd only just woken up at noon, her mood agitated. I expressed my desire to know what was going on with him, and my equal desire to not know--to not watch it unfold before me. And so she took it upon herself to watch the news, reporting back to me at every new development.
On March 6, Kat cornered me on the way to the bathroom.
"Your boyfriend is a fucking genius," she smirked, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Could you move? I need a piss."
She allowed me to push past her into the bathroom, but continued to speak to me through the closed door. She reminded me of the circumstances of Gabe's arrest, how he'd acted so unlike himself at the off-license. She told me how once he'd been arrested, he waited an appropriate amount of time before acting like an addict going through withdrawals. How he claimed three men approached him one evening, asking if he'd drive them somewhere. How he'd been tricked into participating with an offer of drugs.
"Do you think it'll work?" I shouted over the sound of the toilet flushing.
"Only time will tell."
I washed my hands and went to the kitchen, digging through every drawer until I found an old receipt to use as scrap paper. I wrote down the information Kat told me and tucked the scrap into my suitcase.
That's how I began journaling.
*****************
It began as a way to keep track of Gabe. Of the lies he told the cops and the court. Of how long I'd have to wait before I'd see him again. I researched sentencing related to offenders who are also addicts, trying to predict how much time he might get. All of this, I wrote down in a spiral notebook Kat bought me. He waited in jail for a month and a half before his court date. I researched what prison life is like, if he'd be able to have his daily cup of coffee, cigarettes. His acting and his parent's money convinced the judge to sentence him to a stint in rehab. After that, community service and mandatory therapy. I'd have roughly two more months to wait for him. Then I could see him again. We'd be together again.
All of this I wrote down. But once Gabe was sentenced, I had nothing left to write. Jotting down these things kept my feelings about them more or less at bay. Without anything to write down, I was left only with my feelings. I tried to write these down, but it felt strange. Who was I writing to? Me? The journal itself? God? All of these things seemed senseless.
And so I started writing to Gabe. It was raw, uncensored--the most truthful I'd ever been in my life. This carried on for weeks before I left Kat's flat in search of a journal fit for the task. I came back four hours later with something I thought Gabe would appreciate: a medium-sized journal soft bound in supple black leather, its recycled pages heavy and coloured cream. I carefully transcribed all I'd written for him from the notebook into the journal, my penmanship deliberate, spelling impeccable. I wondered if I would give it to him, and then I wondered when I would give it to him.
I tried to envision his reaction to my heart spilled across the pages.
I was angry and I was lost. I wasn't sure if he had ever told me the truth, and I decided in his absence that was all I wanted--the truth. No more lies. No more omissions. The truth, cold, hard and brutal. The truth, warmed by freshly spilt blood. I would write the truth and I'd rub his flat fucking nose in it. I would write my truth and demand his. I would hold him close and even in my anger I would make him promise to never leave me again. I wanted him to see what he'd made of me--a desperate, insatiable fool.
13 March, 2014
I sleep on Kat's sofa and search for you in my dreams. I find you in a tiny concrete cell. I touch your cheek, your thighs, your hair, your cock, your eyelids. I wake up painfully hard and touch myself in the shower, quick and rough, fingernails scraping my thighs, my stomach. I come into the empty air and am alone. I hate you for leaving me, but I want you back desperately.
You didn't have to do this. You martyr-idiot.
I read the words back and they all sounded like the ravings of a madman. Still, I carried on--this writing my only outlet since Gabe's arrest.
20 April, 2014
I dreamt you were a rock on the shore and I was the ocean. I beat against you in relentless waves and finally you broke down, into a million pieces of rubble, tiny stones, pebbles. I felt you plummeting through my depths, drowning in my belly, where you settled in the mouths of oysters, irritating them until years later these pieces of you were pulled from my depths in the form of pearls.
You always did know how to turn pain into something beautiful.
Some of them were incredibly short, but to the point.
24 April, 2014
I love you.
I hate you.
I miss you.
I need you.
Come home.
A lot of them were just plain embarrassing.
30 April, 2014
I don't know how you convinced me. To rob a bank. To put your cock up my arse. To let you bite me, scratch me, pinch me, slap me, and call it love. To let you be in charge, of the plans, my head, my heart, my cock.
I don't know how you convinced me. But there's no going back now.
2 May, 2014
I miss you.
I miss the way you'd stir your morning's first cup of coffee, standing at the kitchen sink, stirring in two spoons of sugar, cream. So I stand at the kitchen sink, stirring two spoons of sugar into my morning's first cup of coffee, cream.
I miss you.
I miss your arm draped over my waist, your chest pressed into my back as you sleep. So I press my back into the cushions of Kat's sofa, bunch the blanket up around my waist, missing the weight of flesh.
I miss you.
I miss your fingers, slick, twisting inside of me. Promises disguised as threats. Threats disguised as promises. So I replay them in my mind--your voice on loop--and wait for the house to be empty, three fingers knuckle deep inside of me, twisting, pushing, stroking until I come with your name smeared across my lips.
I miss you.
I miss the taste of you.
Sadly, there is nothing that comes close to it.
8 May, 2014
Jen asked me today if I'm gay. I could tell she had been wanting to ask me for some time now.
I told her I didn't know.
Truth is, I don't care.
All I know is I want you.
Desperately.
Always.
Desperately.
*****************
"The DNA wasn't his!" Kat whispers at me, eyes wide.
It was 2 April. I was sitting at the kitchen table, chain smoking as I scribbled in my journal. She slid into the seat across from me, leaning in, and hissed the news again.
"The DNA wasn't his! On that rag they found? Not. His!"
I looked up. She seemed slightly panicked, eyes wide, face pallid. I looked back down, continuing to write.
"Okay."
"Okay?! How is this okay?! Whose DNA was it then?" When I didn't answer, she repeated my name several times, finally settling for just banging her fist against my journal until I looked back up at her.
"It's not mine." I said, moving her small fist out of the way.
"Oh," she breathed, and then, "Are you sure?"
I was. The only time we had sex in the car, Gabe swallowed. Wiped his own release on the rag. But the DNA wasn't his. They tested it and it wasn't his.
"Positive."
"Oh."
We sat there in silence, both of us contemplating the question neither one of us wanted to ask.
If the semen wasn't mine and it wasn't Gabe's, then whose was it?
********************
I slept restlessly that night. I dreamt of Gabe, in his car, fucking the breath out of some faceless stranger. I woke with a start, angry and hard. Pushing the blanket off me, I sat up and checked the time. 3 a.m. Standing with a sigh, I pulled on my coat and stepped out into the night. I found myself ducking into an alley near Kat's flat, my cock still heavy in my pyjama bottoms. It was freezing out. Leaning up against the wall, back to bricks, I pushed my hand into my pants, stroking hard and fast. Pinching and twisting my nipples. My breath left me in hard pants, puffs of steam rising in the cold air. I brought my palm up to my lips, spat, stroked faster.
Gabe's flat stomach, dense trail of hair from navel to groin. His cock jutting out, hard and dark and leaking, between flaps of denim. Short nails varnished black digging into skin. His teeth nipping flesh. Eyes dark, intense. I imagine him in flashes, find his voice in my head, hear him saying, "Look at you. Dreamt of me fucking someone else and you're still craving my cock. Touching yourself in public. You wanna get caught, don't you? Just the idea gives you a little thrill, don't it? Naughty. Naughty boy. I ought to bend you over those bins and spank you til your arse is black and blue. Like your thighs. If I were there I'd smack you til your arse was on fire, then shove my cock into you hard and fast. Til you're a sobbing heap. That's what you need right now, ain't it? An excuse to break down. You wouldn't be able to sit right for weeks--"
I came in my pants with a violent shudder, a long groan. Bringing my hand back up to my mouth, I sucked my release off my fingers, just as Gabe would have instructed, were he there. I smoked a cigarette, waiting for my nerves to calm and went back inside. In the dim light of the kitchen, I wrote down what I'd just done.
I thought Gabe would appreciate it.
**************
It was the first of May. I was walking back to Kat's from another lunch with Jen. Jan was there, and shot daggers at me the entire time. I remained cordial, but largely ignored her. Still, it went fairly well. Jen and I discussed the pros and cons of water birth--one of the things I had researched at her behest. I also brought up the idea of having a midwife who was also a registered nurse, so if anything went wrong during the delivery process, the midwife/nurse would be licensed to handle it. It was a tip I'd read on one of the numerous Mummy blogs I'd found online. Jan seemed impressed by this suggestion, but attempted to hide it.
I was feeling smug. All and all it was a good day. I ducked into a small bakery and bought myself a small pink box of tiny cakes and tarts, eating them as I walked. I contemplated whether or not to write in my journal about the day I had, wondering if Gabe would care about the intricacies of planning a homebirth. Remembering my new no lies, no omissions edict, I decided I would write about it. The information would be there for him if he cared to know.
Turning the corner, about five minutes away from my old flat, I saw Jack. He was buying a bacon butty from the shop we used to frequent after card games. I froze. Dropped my box of baked goods. I felt cold all over.
And then I ran.