Filling the Holes Ch. 02

II - Alone

In the mornings, I roll over and, with the light slightly blinding me, I forget that your side of the bed is empty. It is all just a terrible misunderstanding - a bad dream - nothing is changed. Then I blink, my pupils adjust and my senses reach out to verify. Yes, I slept alone again. The heating blanket is kicked to the foot of the bed, sheets tangled around my calves, pillows strewn in my attempts to create shapes that could cradle my limbs - the way I would have been wrapped in you over various positions throughout our sleep state. In the moments between dreams and waking, my reality is still unshaped, and my body warms with the sense that you will begin touching me as I stir.

This is not so. You have left me, or been stolen. However I work to phrase it, I am alone before I could possibly have been ready.

On this day, I have slept even later than the others in my attempt to delay knowing. The clock across the room indicates it is well into the afternoon. My nights have become more sleepless, distracting myself with writing and researching and pretending that I can do meaningful things if I can just understand more, find one more thing. The house is quiet, I haven't plugged the phone back in since the first day. No one needs me now, and I am tired of sympathy - the silence is as close to you as I can get. Peaceful, commanding, invasive.

I miss you so much. My heart clunks around as I let myself fall into the feeling.

There is a banging. It takes me a moment to realize it is coming from reality, not my imagined heart malfunction. I contemplate ignoring it. The rumpled bed is a haven we shared and I hate the intrusion of the outside world. The pounding on the front door continues with increasing insistence, so I sigh and unfurl, pulling your worn undershirt from the nest of pillows and tugging it over my head; I sniff to find a last vestige of your smell. I pad through the hall to the entryway of our house – it feels like an empty shell now. Looking through the hole I see the last person I ever wanted to see again. Sam. Fuck, shit, cunt, dick, Sam.

I should have known. I throw the deadbolt but keep the chain latched. Crack the door. "Go away." My voice is clear and I am impressed at the lack of emotion I manage.

His hands are in fists, and I guess that he never released the tight balls even once he realized he didn't have to beat the door down any longer. He steps as close as he can to the open space, filling the frame with his ridiculous body.

"Open the fucking door Love." The way he says fucking is so weird, it is almost sexy with his aggravated Southern twang, though the clipped delivery makes it seem inappropriate, like it shouldn't even be in his vocabulary.

I shake my head. "Really, I want you to go. I just want to be alone."

I sense his features tighten but then his face is a mask of controlled planes and smooth surfaces, unperturbed. "I am not leaving. You will let me in or I will break your pretty door."

I weight his words for truth. Not worth the mess.

I remember the time you pushed me up against it and fucked me off the ground. Your ghost is everywhere. I unlatch the chain and turn away for the kitchen; coffee is the only thing to look forward to now. I hear the door swing and shut behind me, the bolt hit home, and I move with intention so that I don't have to face Sam yet.

Pulling yesterday's filter from the machine that will prevent me from committing murder or suicide, I wonder if you'd be mad at me for being such a shitty hostess. Maybe I can dream up a spanking tonight. I feel Sam before I hear him, and then he is blocking my movements. I have coffee grounds in my hand. Get out of my way.

Instead I say nothing. I just stand still, waiting patiently until he caves and moves to let me throw them in the trash. The battle of wills won, I go back to my task of readying the coffeemaker, and he stands aside. I hover a finger over the power button. He reaches around me and presses it.

"Now, Love, we need to talk." No, no, no. No thank you. I don't want to talk. My head shakes with the cadence of my negative response.

"Love..." his eyes are boring into the back of my skull. I know what he is thinking. I am a broken toy now. I was yours and you are gone, now what am I? I think the same things. That means it's time to turn my brain off. I try to walk away and he snatches my wrist. I turn back and try to find my best glare. He looks at me as if he is genuinely curious, searching every line on my face. "Love. You have to stop this."

Stop what? Living? I wish. I shrug. What else is there to do?

He pulls me close with a tug, and I stumble into him. His arms envelope me. I am crushed to his warm and real body and suddenly the damn is broken; my shuddered sobs are wrenching the silence I prized. I cry and cry and cry.

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It feels like I have never not been crying. My eyes are sore and my throat is raw when the torrents begin to slow. My body is wracked as I hiccup great swallows of air in and out. I slump against him, emptied out. He gathers me up and carries me into our room, into our bed, and lays down with me in his arms. I feel him toeing his shoes off and then he is shifting to pull up a blanket. We are cocooned, I am tucked to his front. My breathing has begun to even out. He pets the hair away from my face.

"Shhh, it's OK, it's OK, Love."

I want to fight with him, but I don't have the energy and my eyelids close before I can put together a undermining retort. My brain shuts down and I sleep.

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My eyes feel glued shut. It is comfortable and warm, I feel so secure, but my eyelids are weighty and resistant, it is worse than peeling off a band-aid to get them to separate. The room is dark and I am disoriented - did I sleep all day? The arm around me tightens and I panic a little as I remember.

"You're OK Love," Sam's voice is a husky whisper. My heart pounds at the unexpectedness of it all. He strokes my hair and my chest clenches. By what measure? Breathing?

I try to roll away but he doesn't release his hold. Instead he tucks me more solidly into the nook his body creates and begins to tell me a story.

"When I was a kid, my parents both died. They tell you that everything will be OK, but really, it never is. The world, it isn't OK. Your life, it isn't OK. But they're telling the truth when they say that you're OK. You're not broken. Missing someone doesn't break you, not you." I shiver. The vulnerability comes through despite the unwavering and strong voice. I can't picture Sam as a child, it is as if he was born a man. The image of a young boy with a honey voice just won't materialize.

My pulse has slowed. He must think he has me all figured out as he toys with a strand of my hair, gently manipulating it like my physical reactions. I am mad now.

"Why are you doing this?" I find it is hard to speak, my throat is so gritty.

"Why do you think, Miss Smarty Pants?" I try again to pull away but my struggle is laughable in the face of his insistent hug. I turn, trying to slip through the restraints and find myself planted face down on the bed, with his weight half over me. He is muttering something and I am fueled by indignity. I have the right to not be OK if that's what the fuck I want. Who is he to force me into some kind of catharsis? I hiss and twist, trying to shake him off.

"Love. Love. Stop." His voice sounds strangled. All at once I feel his erection, place the tone, smell the heat of his skin. I am mortified to feel an answering pang of desire in my center. I become utterly still.

He releases me as if burned. Pushing myself up, I shove the lanky hair out of my face to look at him. He won't meet my eye. I wonder if now he'll leave. "Go away Sam. I don't want your help or your psychoanalysis or your pity."

"You think I pity you?" He is over me in seconds, the emotion in his face thrilling. "Baby, I don't pity you. You're a mopey little girl who's wallowing in her own fucking pity - you don't need any extra."

I slap him before I even know what I'm doing. And then we are kissing.

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Oh, it is like my dreams, my muddy muddled dreams in which I can't quite tell whose lips are on mine. These taste like a hint of coffee and mint, and I devour them like I am starved, I feel like a strung out junkie. Every slip of the supple and velvety flesh over mine has an answering chord in my gut, a roller-coaster of a kiss. Dizzy, swollen, god fuck me now.

He pushes me back on the bed and I relish the pressure of him on top of me, his lips still teasing though his front is molded to mine. We rock against each other as we kiss forever. The fumble becomes frenetic, my hands are plucking uselessly at the fabric of his shirt, but my mouth won't release his long enough for it to come off. He shoves it up under his arms and then levers himself enough to to the same to me. As he settles back down my body zings at the naked contact, nipples tempered against his dampening skin. My belly is quaking and my hips are pumping, my bare skin chafing up against his denim imprisoned hard-on. This is what being alive feels like. Before I was a ghost. Now my whole world is vibrant, tangible, imperative.

He pulls away abruptly and I mewl in protest. His mouth is bruised and his eyes are so dark, I shiver as they search my face. I just watch his brain work. His brow line is furrowed and there is heat in his cheeks, a battle being fought between his body and mind. I tip my head back a little and look at him through glossy eyes, letting my chest rise with a full breath, tempting him with my surrender. He groans, and pushes further back. I think he will take more convincing, but then he is standing over me, spreading my legs, eyes searching all my naked flesh. Your shirt is still shoved up over my breasts, but I am otherwise bare, my slick cunt blooming and unfurling under his laser hot gaze. I turn my nose into my shoulder, catching a faint hint of you. The flash of arousal makes me drip.

Sam's eyes take it all in. He knows what has happened, that you're in the room. He takes in my reaction, the fueled need that must be plain on my face. He smiles at my pleading eyes and tugs his shirt off, toes his socks, then begins to unbuckle his belt. The jangle and clink sound take me further towards the edge of my sanity. I snake a hand down my front, I have to, there is no way to wait, must come now.

He seizes me by the wrist and pins it over my head. "Oh, silly little Love, you looking for a little punishment?"

Yes. Please. Fuck. I haven't been taken care of in endless days, weeks, who knows how long I've lived in this fog of dreams. He hesitates no more, there is no more concern in his face - only lust and something edgier, a darker emotion I don't name. I am handled, rolled until I am on my stomach, then he is pulling my hands back and the belt is looping around them. I struggle a little, and his implacable hands feed my fire. Then my wrists are firmly bound and he is pulling me up off the bed. I am stood beside him as he shucks the pants, leaving himself only in the soft and tempting fabric that wraps his pretty dick. Wish I could touch it, pull it through the pocket of cloth and run my fingertips down the head. He sits, on the bed and gestures to his lap. Oh, that I can work with.

I crouch and place my mouth on the strained material, breathing hot and wet through to reach his skin. His whole body jerks and he growls. "You know that's not what I meant." He pulls me over his knees and gives me a firm swat. "Count."

"One." The heat from the cheek he hit is spreading into my blood, heating everything. Crack. Hot, sharp, deep, the other cheek is flushing. I lick my lips and manage to rasp, "two." He rubs his rough hands so gently and lovingly over my ass. Smack. "Three." I am whispering now. My body is practically writhing. Four, five, six, building me up to something I desperately need. I can't even speak now. He growls something at me but I am mindless, and the words don't make sense. I rub my pelvis against his thigh to get the pressure I need, I need it now.

He suddenly stands and dumps me on the bed, my hands can't catch me so I land crumpled, face down. He pulls my hips up, shoving my knees wide and forward, presenting me as I am too far gone for my body to cooperate even if I'd heard him. He spanks me, solid, following through so my whole body rocks into the bed, once, twice, three times and then he spanks my cunt and I am coming.

My whole body feels red when I come back down. His hands are caressing my pink backside, rubbing and soothing. He bends and kisses each cheek, then nuzzles his face between my thighs. I feel him inhaling me, his nose and lips rooting, his whole face pressed into me. Lost, I cry out for him.

"I've got you." He is muttering into my swollen and puffy lips, alternating between rubbing and sucking them. I think I am going to fall over, but his hands grip my hips and hold them where they are. He brings me right to the peak, then pulls back. "You haven't been taking care of yourself, Love. I am very disappointed. What about your baby?"

Baby? I don't know what he means. I am about to dismiss the words until it hits me. I am pregnant. I can feel it in my bones, my swollen breasts, the tenderness of my nipples. How he knew is beyond my ability to sort out, but suddenly I know I haven't really eaten in week, bled in a couple of months. A baby. Yours or Sam's?

My brain has gone into hyper-drive, Sam gives me a moment before he shuts it down with his fingers on my slick folds. I cry out, more sensitive than I can ever remember. "Oh, holy mother, you're so ready." He pulls on my wrists, tugging me upright on my knees, and then works off the belt, while I quake, so off balance in every way. I turn my hands in circles and my fingers tingle, then they are catching me as he pushed me back down on all fours.

This time his voice is in my ear. His breath flits the hair of my nape. "I will take care of you now. I promise, Love." One of his hands slips round to cup my belly and rubs a thumb gently over the secret growing inside. "God, I want to watch your body swell. You're going to be such a good mother, Love. You're all woman." His cock is slipping between my cunt folds now, pumping against me in the world's most amazing tease. "These hips were made for it. Your pretty breasts are going to get so full of milk. I might get jealous if I don't get enough time with them. Good thing there are two." I am practically sobbing with need. He kisses my shoulder, my cheek, then reaches to guide the fat head of his thick stalk into my begging entrance.

It feels like I have been impaled with pure pleasure. My whole body contracts and then fills with such peace. He fucks me soundly, with firm and controlled thrusts, building me up until I am in the heavens, the stars at falling all around me. My body squeezes him, milks him to orgasm, ripping it from his control. He shouts above me, then buries his face in my neck, groaning as we come to hard together.

When I am back on earth, he gently pulls free. I moan in protest, and his seed seeps down my thighs. He turns me over and we roll, till I am splayed over him and nestled into his arms. His cock is still semi hard and he slips it back into my pussy with a few purposeful thrusts. His lips brush mine, the sweetness making me tear.

"Sam... I..."

"I know." His voice is gruff with emotion.

We lay wrapped up, our hearts slowing to share a beat, and I feel my chest crack open to him. As I investigate what was locked away inside all the tightness I realize he was right. I am OK. I am Love, and I conquer all.