Page 72 of Havoc

"I keep seeing his hands," I say.

"Whose?"

"His. Doing the stitching." I'm looking at the ceiling. "Quarter-inch stitches, crooked, heavy thread. My father could not sew. He put a button on a shirt once when I was nine. It came off in the wash, and my mother laughed at him for a week.

"And he sat down somewhere in September of two thousand four with a needle he had to have gone and found, and he opened his own coat and put a page in it and closed it back up, badly, by himself. Nobody helped him. You can tell nobody helped him.

"He was scared, Eli."

Havoc takes his arm off his eyes.

"I've been trying all day to get to any other version," I say, "and there isn't one. Men don't sew things into their own clothes because they're organized."

He doesn't say anything for a while.

Then he turns over onto his side, facing me, and puts his hand flat on my stomach and leaves it there. Not moving. Not anything. A hand.

"Come here," he says.

"Come here," Eli says.

I slide across the sheets. The humidity sticks my skin to the fabric. I move into his space and let my legs wrap around his waist. He is heavy and solid. The black thorns on his chest press against my breasts. I want to disappear into the weight of him because the thought of my father's shaking hands is too loud. I need a different kind of noise.

I pull his head down. I kiss him with a lot of pressure. He doesn’t push back. He stays still and lets me set the pace. I reach down and unbutton his trousers. I pull his cock out. It is thick and hot. I wrap my fingers around the shaft and move my hand up and down. I look at his face. He has his jaw set. He is waiting for me to tell him the next step.

"I want you inside me," I say.

He moves. He shifts his weight and guides his cock to my opening. He enters me in one slow push, and I gasp. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him closer. I want the friction to erase the image of that hole in the coat lining. I want the physical sensation to override the grief.

I start to move my hips. I grind my pelvis against his. He holds my waist with his large hands. His rings are cold against my skin. He does not speed up. He does not change the rhythm. He stays exactly where I put him. I like the control. I need to know that nothing is happening that I did not authorize.

"Faster," I tell him.

He increases the speed. The bed frame knocks against the wall. The window unit clicks off. The sound of frogs fills the room from the basin outside. The air is thick and smells of damp earth and salt. I arch my back. The scar under my collarbone rubs against his chest. The yellow bruise on my hip presses into the mattress.

I want more. I want the sensation to be blunt. I want it to hurt a little bit.

"Harder, Eli. Fuck me like you mean it."

He lets go of my waist, plants his palms on the mattress on either side of my head, and drives into me with a sudden force. The impact jars my spine. I grip his shoulders. The muscles there are hard as stone. He hits my cervix with every thrust. The pain is a sharp line that cuts through the fog in my head. It is a clean feeling. It is a factual feeling.

I’m not thinking about the ledger page. I am not thinking about the men in the room on Sunday. I am only thinking about the way his cock fills me. I am thinking about the way his beard scratches my neck. I am thinking about the specific pressure of his weight.

I move my legs higher. I lock my ankles behind his back to pull him deeper. He doesn't take over. He doesn't try to flip me or change the angle. He simply follows the lead of my body. He is a tool I am using to survive the night.

"More," I whisper. "Right there."

He adjusts his angle by an inch. He hits the spot that makes my toes curl. I feel the tension building in my lower stomach. It is a tight coil. I want it to snap. I want the release to be violent.

I start to move faster. I bounce my hips up to meet him. The friction is intense. The sound of our bodies hitting is the only thing that matters. I can feel the pulse of him inside me. He is breathing hard. His chest heaves against mine. He says my name. Not a sentence. He just says "Lennox" like it is a question.

I don't answer. I don't want to talk. I want the physical reality of him. I want the weight of his built frame to crush the air out of me. I push my pelvis harder against his. I want him to bottom out.

"Harder," I command. "Don’t you dare stop."

He obeys. He slams into me with everything he has. The bed slides a few inches across the floor. I feel the orgasm starting at the base of my spine. It spreads outward in waves. My vaginal muscles clamp down on his cock. I squeeze him tight and hold my breath.

The climax hits me with a force that makes my vision blur. I shake. My internal muscles pulse around him in rhythmic contractions. I bury my face in the crook of his neck. I smell soap and sweat.