Swelter Page 9

  Bobby ran the tip of his middle finger from my shin, up the curve of my bent knee to my hip, and back down.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, knowing there was no good answer.

  “I don't know, Lil. I just want to lock that door and never leave.”

  “Me too,” I said. If we could, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

  “Do you love Rory?” he asked.

  “Yes . . . no . . . yes,” I shook my head. “I mean, I've known him my whole life and he's good and . . .” I pinched my eyes shut as I realized I had been trying to convince myself all along. Rory and I being the same age, our entire lives we had been unconsciously paired together. I was fulfilling someone else's prophecy. The person I truly loved, my soulmate, was the annoying little brother I couldn't even consider. Bobby was smart, he was athletic, he was full of potential, but he was never seen as the serious boy. Rory was the serious brother. Rory was the one you should marry. Bobby was always going to be floating around his life. Taking a year off from college. Passing classes based on his natural brilliance with no effort. He expressed a deeper love for fixing cars and boats than some high-level executive job. Bobby would never settle down with one girl. Rory had always made it clear he had eyes for me. It was like I had blinders that only allowed me to consider men like Rory.

  “Bobby, it's you,” I said through a sob.

  “It's you for me, too,” he pledged.

  “Why didn't you ever say anything?” I asked.

  He sighed and laid on his back, crossing his arms behind his head to stare at the ceiling with me. “Because I thought you hated me, that you just saw me as some annoying little brother. Because Rory has always been in love with you and you don't do that to your brother. I automatically just knew you were off limits.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “What about me?”

  “How long have you loved me?”

  “Since before I even knew what it was,” he answered nonchalantly.

  “I want to be with you.” I sat up, resolute. My heart was full of Bobby and there wasn't room for anyone else. It became all too clear to me how I had acted towards him all these years, trying to convince myself that the wrong brother wasn't the right one. How I mocked him to keep him at a safe distance. How I teased him about his girlfriends to protect my own heart. And now we finally said the things we needed to say and I was allowing myself to feel the high of being madly enamored with someone. I wanted to keep that feeling. To feel my skin quiver like a plucked string when he touched me. To almost feel sick when he was in the room because the love was too potent.

  On this night, we had released something powerful. Something dangerous. And once freed, we could not put it back.

  He sat up and kissed my shoulder. I turned to see the saddest look I'd ever seen in his eyes. “We can't do that to Rory.”

  I knew he was right, but I pretended to be brave. How could we step out tomorrow in front of hundreds of family and friends and tell them that not only was I canceling this wedding, but was doing so because we were in love? My parents would lose their minds over this. The Lightlys would be so disappointed in their son. We were raised better than this. We came from reputable, proud families. Families with expectations. That level of scandal made me sick to my stomach just thinking of it.

  Bobby rested his forehead against my shoulder, as if pained to deliver the next news. “I haven't told my parents yet, but, I'm leaving school again. I'm going to do some traveling.”

  “What?” I said, turning to face him. “You already took time from school. What about your future?”

  “It's out there, no matter what,” he replied. “College isn't for me. Well, at least not now it isn't. I want to see the world. I want to study it. I'll make a living. I've always managed to make things work.”

  “You've managed because of your parents. It's different out there.”

  “I know it is. Which is why I want to see it. I thought you wanted to see the world.”

  “I do. I just want to do it the right way.”

  “The right way . . .” he snickered.

  I shook my head. “Don't leave me here, Bobby. I don't think I can do this without you.”

  “I'm always going to be here for you. Always.” He ran his hands through my hair and mussed it up the way he always liked to do to annoy me, but this time it was gentler. “We'll always be in each other's lives.”

  I rested my head on his shoulder as we sat side by side, still nude, our bodies gleaming in the humid attic.

  “Lil, I don't know how to do the right thing. I feel like convincing you to be with me is selfish. I was never going to tell you. I was going to live with this pain alone and I feel like now I've included you in it. I was just going to come up here and numb my sorrows. And then you were there. And you looked so beautiful in that nightgown. Like an angel who came to take the pain away.”

  “Did I? Make the pain stop?”

  “For a while. As long as we're up here. But it won't last because when you leave here you're someone else's love.”

  “I can't do this.”

  “My brother is a good guy. He'll take care of you. He'll give you a great life. That's the only comfort I can take in this.”

  “Please. Let's just go. I'll travel with you.”

  “Are you willing to wake up Rory right now and tell him that? Our parents? And that's not even including the people out in the cabins, all our cousins and our friends . . .”

  I sighed, collapsing my head between my knees.

  “You'll have a good life. You will.” Bobby tucked a wisp of my dark hair behind my ear. “You love him.”

  “Not like you. Never like you,” I said.

  Bobby kissed the top of my head and I turned to meet his lips. Our first encounter did nothing to sate the hunger we had for each other as I climbed on top of him and we explored each other's bodies again.

  As the navy sky started to pale to shades of violet, I knew I had to leave. Bobby slept peacefully beside me and I watched each breath, each flutter of his eyes, each time he moved his lips when he murmured subtly in his sleep. I tried to ingrain the picture in my mind of the time when my life had reached perfection, albeit briefly. I couldn't wake up Bobby to say goodbye because it would mean tears and protests, and it would hurt too much. I would see Bobby again, back out in the world, where I was someone else's love.

  Bobby said in the lake that he had hoped his happiest moment was ahead of him. Well, that moment was right here for me, in this attic as he whispered he loved me against my lips. If I could have grabbed that moment and held onto it and kept time from pulling me away, moving me forward, I would have latched on and never let go. I would have lived in that moment eternally.

  But it was already tomorrow. And I had made promises and Bobby had loyalties and the world makes other plans for you. I wept silently as I kissed him on the cheek, I grabbed my white nightgown, stained red where I used it to clean the evidence of my virtue, and slid it on. There was a small, faded mirror on the wall behind the couch, and I caught a glimpse of myself. So young at the time, but I already felt like my life had been laid out for me; plans that could not be changed.

  I looked at the deep red stain on the belly of the white gown that would never wash out, just like the memory of this night would always leave its mark.

  And then I left to prepare for my wedding.

  Summer 1957

  Bobby kissing me, seven years after that first time, felt just as apocalyptic. Earth-shattering, enlightening, frightening, hopeful, alpha, omega, death, life—it all erupted from the forbidden union of our lips. My heart jolted like it had been stunned with an electrical current.

  I knew I had made vows to Rory. I knew this was wrong. And yet, I was sick of being miserable doing the right thing. I picked the right boy. I was the loyal wife. I woke up every morning and cleaned, ran errands, and cooked. I fed the insatiable beast of Rory's insecurity by not pursuing a career and waiting for a pregnancy t
hat never came. And what had it gotten me but an empty marriage and a life that was nothing like the one I saw for myself that night I swam with Bobby under the moonlight. I had become an accessory to Rory's ambitions. We had things: a nice house, cars, good clothes, money. But they were nothing. They were just things. Things could be disposed of, people couldn't. I had gotten it backwards. I had disposed of the love of my life for the promise of a life full of stuff but void of experiences.

  This was right. For me. For Bobby. We deserved this. We had suffered long enough. That bullet missed his skull so he could return to me, and I wasn't going to miss this opportunity like I so foolishly had as a naive 20-year-old.

  I kissed Bobby back, our lips ferociously linking as he stumbled back towards the house, towards the light. Bobby lifted me off the ground as I wrapped my legs around his hips, one shoe falling to the grass as the other one dangled.

  Bobby tripped over the porch steps, easing the fall by planting onto them as I stayed mounted on, against his strong grip. My knees banged the hard wood edges of the stairs but the adrenaline rendered me immune to the pain.

  “Lil. I still love you,” he rasped, our lips in union.

  “I love you,” I responded without hesitation.

  “What are we doing?” he asked breathlessly.

  “I don't care,” I replied, panting from the fierceness of our passion. “I should have left with you. I should have packed that night and left.”

  Bobby’s chest rose and fell like a stormy sea with each breath. “I should never have let you leave that attic.”

  I cupped his face and dove back into kissing him as he reached under my dress, running his thick, rough hands along my legs, triggering shivers from the thrill of being back in his arms.

  This wasn't my first time. And now it wasn't all about making me comfortable. Bobby had it hard these past few years, and all I wanted to do was make him feel good. I sat up, taking in the sight of Bobby taking me in, a mutual attraction so strong, it fed into the other continuously.

  I frantically unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt, and Bobby assisted by pulling it off over his head. The ripples of his abs moved with each breath like the ones on the lake where we had spent our perfect summers.

  I reached for the fly of his jeans, pulling open the buttons without wasted time.

  “Tell me what you want me to do Bobby,” I begged, feeling again like the girl who found herself in an attic with a boy much more experienced than her. “I want to make you feel good. I want to make it up to you.” I rubbed my hands over the mound in his jeans.

  “Oh, Lil,” he groaned, as if my offering as I knelt before him was enough to set him off on its own.

  With both hands, I pulled against the open fly with a sharp tug.

  “Tell me,” I commanded, looking up at him.

  He reached in and pulled himself out. I felt myself dampen at the sight of his strong fingers wrapped around his throbbing phallus.

  I kept things basic with Rory. He didn't expect much from me it seemed. Maybe that was my fault. But I learned from Bobby what sex could be. What it was like to have a cocktail of lust and love fuel you so powerfully that just that person's touch could make you combust. I recollected when I shook nervously under Bobby's naked body, and he used his mouth to comfort me. I wanted to do with same for him. I saw the conflict in his eyes, the tension in his body. And I wanted to be what he had been for me.

  I licked my lips before gliding them over his head, then his shaft.

  “Shit, Lil,” Bobby moaned, throwing his head back as he dug his fingers into my pinned-up hair. He always found a way to muss it up.

  I started slow, soft, easing my warm, wet mouth onto him. Slowly melting the tension away from his body. That signaled I was doing the right thing.

  “You feel so good, baby,” he muttered.

  I ran my tongue under the length of his shaft. “Tell me, Bobby,” I implored.

  “Take me in all the way with that pretty mouth of yours,” he replied in a thick voice.

  I followed his command as his hips slowly curved against the motion of my mouth. “That's it Lil, just take it nice and slow,” he murmured, guiding my pace without forcing it on me.

  “Fuck,” he grunted. “Oh god, you're so fucking perfect.” Bobby caressed my cheek reassuringly as I took him in and out of my mouth.

  “Come here,” He took my hands to get to my feet and pulled me onto him, pushing my underwear to the side as he guided me onto the raging hardness I had coaxed with my mouth.

  I cried out a moan as he slid into me, stretching me around his girth so that I was once again his, if only for a short while. He let out a grunt of pleasure into my ear, reaching back under my dress so he could fill his hands with my backside, his grip so tight, it stung.

  Bobby pushed against the stair behind him, supporting me with one arm as he stood up, carrying me into the house and collapsing with me onto the couch he had uncovered earlier. The comfort of his hot body pressing onto mine made the nervous doubts attempting to invade my thoughts melt away. They couldn't stand the heat.

  “I've dreamt about this moment for seven years, Lil,” he rasped into my ears, holding still inside of me. “But it was just supposed to be a dream.”

  Rory's shadow always loomed.

  “We're supposed to live our dreams.” I reminded him, using words he would have said to me as I grazed my teeth against the bank of muscle that extended from his neck to his shoulder. I had so many dreams that night before my wedding, and so many of them withered like a flower that had been neglected. It had been so long that there wasn't even a trace of those dead petals left. They had turned to dust and were swept away.

  My life hadn't become a nightmare. No . . . nightmares had adventures, and battles, and heart-pumping moments. My life had become barren. Purgatory. One of those free falls where I never hit the bottom.

  Bobby was the fertile ground where I could plant my new dreams, where I could regrow them and see them come to fruition.

  He plunged into me, causing me to gasp for air as if I was drowning, swerving his hips against me as I cried his name like they were my last words.

  Bobby thrust into me over and over as I dug my nails into the skin of his back. The old house was muggy from months of being shut, and our skin glinted with perspiration. Bobby's coifed hair had rebelled, and small strands were glued to his forehead and cheeks. I pushed them away from his face, for a clearer view, and to touch him. He said sometimes he touched himself to see if he was really alive. I had wanted many times to reach out and touch him, across the dining table, in the truck, while he was chatting with Rory, just to make sure that he was here. That this wasn't an extension of a purgatory where an illusion of Bobby existed to taunt me. That I wasn't losing my mind from the pills, lack of sleep, and unrelenting heat.

  But now I could touch him. I could feel his blazing, damp skin on my fingertips. I could feel him inside of me awakening pleasures I had forgotten I was capable of. I could stare into his eyes and not have to pretend I wasn't looking just to enjoy his face. He was real. He was really here. I could stop the free fall by holding onto him.

  I tugged the top of my dress down and pressed him against me, his sweaty bare chest sticking to my bare breasts. Skin to skin. Our hearts as close as they could be to touching. There's no way to be closer to someone than to hold them against you while they are inside of you. I finally felt grounded as he grinded against me, the base of his firmness rubbing against my most sensitive spot.

  “Bobby, never leave me again.”

  “I'm back, Lil. I'm really back,” he answered, making sure to look me in the eyes. Then he sat up, whipping me on top of him.

  “I want to watch you, Lil.” Bobby gently pressed one of my breasts in his hand and brushed his tongue against the tip. His stubble singed my delicate skin, leaving faint red marks like flames. But I didn't even care if he turned me into a pile of ash. “No matter how much I studied your body, it was never enough.” He w
atched me intently as I slowly snaked against his rigid shaft. His fingers traced a path along my body as if he were surveying it for a map, to imprint it in his memory forever. The touch was so soft, it sent shivers along my skin. My thighs. The fabric covering my hips and waist. Arms. Shoulders. Collarbone. The crook of my neck. My jawline. I closed my eyes so I could glory in the feel of his touch and swayed my head towards his fingertips as they reached the end of their voyage. I nuzzled against his palm as his thumb rubbed against my lips, tugging on the plump flesh. I grabbed his large hand with both of mine and kissed his fingertips tenderly, one by one, never opening my eyes, yet still feeling his scorching gaze.

  With each kiss, I ground my hips deeper against him. I couldn't get close enough, but this would have to suffice. My soft kisses became hungrier as I slowly sucked on his fingertips. He swelled inside of me, taking me to a place that didn't have a map. It wasn't in an atlas or on any globe. Where obligations and loyalties didn't get in the way of the heart. A place where the body burst like white hot stars. Where it blazed as hot as the summer sun. Where it crashed like a furious ocean. Where it exploded like a volcano and raged like a hurricane. Where the mind and the body separated and connected all at once.

  I cried out as I thrust my head back and arched my spine, tears streamed out of my eyes as I trembled, my body becoming as rigid as steel and crumbling like clay. Bobby gripped my waist as he let out a throaty growl. And I knew he was real because I could feel him pulsate inside of me, a sensation that stretched out those last moments of transcendence.

  I wilted onto Bobby's chest with him still inside me, overcome by the intensity of physical and emotional sensations—the betrayal I had committed, and the fact that I would do it over again if Bobby asked. Because despite getting married, a war, death, tragedy, drugs, time and dreams deferred, when it came to me and Bobby, and the way we felt about each other, nothing had changed.