The Storm Ch. 03

Mid-afternoon the storm abated and the plows slowly started making their way through the city. Wet snow clung to the branches and trunks of trees, to cars, to house windows. The last of the piercing light was fading fast, now blocked by the roofs of the rowhouses to the west.

Kate sat opposite her brother with a chess board between them. Julian watched from the kitchen, pasta on the stove, butter and garlic sauce in a pan. "Five more minutes," he called.

"Oh!" Kate jumped up. "Salad! Let me do the salad."

Tom groaned. "Nooo. No vegetables. Finish the game."

She ignored her brother, pulling lettuce and carrots and cucumber from the refrigerator. "Oh! I'm sorry," she said, bumping Julian. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"Get a room!" Tom shouted.

Kate and Julian glared. He didn't notice.

Dinner was fine. Kate and Julian both had a habit of putting their best faces forward, independently of one another. Any issue that arose between them was just that, between them, and neither would say or do anything to allude it in the presence of another person. It was understood; a silent pact.

There was one point, a stolen moment when Tom trekked out to the shed for firewood, that Julian acknowledged the night before.

"Can we talk? Later?" He whispered it, as if Tom could hear them through the closed door and howling winds. "Please."

"If you start with an apology."

"You know as well as I do that isn't going to happen. I told you my feelings -- that was my only regret, Kate, letting you think I didn't love you. The rest? Well, you know me. You've known me for years. When you told me how you felt--" he lowered his voice again, just in case, "you knew what you were getting yourself into. We both know that. I told you to get away but you didn't. I hurt you, you came back. I hurt you again, you came back. If you don't love me anymore, fine, just say so. But you have to say it. If you say it, I'll back off. If you do love me in spite of all this, everything I've done -- and I think you do -- I'm considering that consent. Just like always."

Tom came back in, the door banging behind him. "Woo! It's freezing. Help, I can't see. Julian take some."

Kate stood back as the boys fumbled with firewood, fuming only because Julian got the last word. He always did. What he said was reasonable enough. She did knew him. Not only through her brother, but in high school when he spent the night but couldn't sleep she stayed up with him to play video games, watch movies. They spent hours upon hours confiding things to each other; Tom was not only oblivious to the time spent, but also the secrets they shared.

Once, in early fall, when Julian was in his senior year, he confided a particularly hefty secret.

"I knocked her down," he said, telling Kate of a softball game in gym class. "It was an accident, but I slammed right into her and knocked her down." He shook his head, remembering. "You have to swear you won't tell anyone."

"I won't," she whispered, fifteen years old, enamoured.

He lay his hands, palms down, fingers spread, on the carpet in the basement. "I liked it."

Kate was confused, only slightly. "Because you don't like her?"

"I like her just fine. I think she's pretty, even. I just...would sometimes rather knock a girl down than, you know."

Kate nodded, her stomach in knots, half out of jealousy, half excitement. "I would..." She stopped, blushing a deep red. "Nevermind."

"What?"

"I'm embarrassed."

"Tell me anyway."

Burying her face in her arm, she admitted, "I would sometimes rather get knocked down than...you know."

Julian nodded, taking note. He was eighteen and still thought of Kate as a little sister, but in the future, he realized, this information might come in handy.

And now, over a decade later, it had.

Hours later, Kate lay on the living room floor, asleep, beside her brother. Tom, yawning repeatedly, squinted at his cards. "Do you have a...two?"

"Go fish."

He scowled and took a card.

Julian now. "Do you have a four?"

"How -- how do you know?" Tom handed the card over. "How do you know?"

Julian shrugged. "Jack?"

"You motherfucker." Tom handed his jack over as well.

"That's it," Julian said, placing the matched pair aside. "I'm out of cards."

"I hate you. Fuck you. I'm going to bed now." Wearily, Tom got to his feet without so much as a glance toward his sister.

"What about Kate?" Julian asked. "Are you gonna take her up?"

Tom laughed quietly. "You've lost your mind if you think I'm going to try to lift her after all these beers. If she likes the floor she can have it, fuck if I care."

"Fair enough."

It was quiet in the house, save for the soft hum of the appliances. Snow was falling lightly, sprinkling a new layer across all that was outside. Julian watched Kate sleep, unable to fall asleep himself, wondering if he should bring her up to the guest bed, leave her there, or wake her.

She shifted, then sat up. In the darkness she was just a shape.

"Katie?"

She rubbed her eyes. "It's Kate, jesus christ," she groaned sleepily. "I'm a grown woman."

"Sorry."

She was quiet.

"Have you give any thought to what I said earlier?"

Silence.

"Kate?"

"I'm in love with you," she said finally. "But you're a real fucking jerk sometimes."

"Well, you can take it or leave it." Then, in a moment of total honesty, "Sometimes I worry there's something wrong with me. I used to be able to have normal," he laughed, then lifted his hands to do scare quotes despite the fact that she could not see him in the dark. "I used to be able to have 'normal' relationships, 'normal' sex. I don't want that anymore, and I don't care. I'll never..." He faltered, unsure of how to continue. "I'll never land you in the hospital. That sounds so terrible. I'll never...I'll never give you more than a bruise or a welt. I can promsie that. I'll never break a bone, I'll never hit you with a closed fist. I want...I just want to hurt you, I don't want to injure you. Does that make sense or should I be committed?"

"It makes sense," she said quietly, butterflies rising in her stomach.

"You need to trust me." He was growing hoarse. "If you don't trust me completely I don't want this."

"I trust you."

"Completely?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"I trust you completely."

"Good."

"But," she continued, "I'm not committing myself to anything. Not yet. I haven't even been single for two days, and I...what if Will wants to get back together?"

"You tell him no."

"It would be really disrespectful to just jump into another relationship."

"Do you want to be with him?" Julian asked. "Instead of me?"

"I was happy with him," Kate admitted. "I hadn't thought of you in weeks. And I was getting by, just fine, without you."

Julian sat up, his face getting hot. "You know what I think?" He growled.

"What." She was challenging him.

"You don't want to prove him right."

"Fuck you."

"When he left he said you broke your promise. What promise was that, Kate?"

"None of your fucking business."

"That's what I figured." He got to his feet and stood over her, growing hard. She looked up at him, feeling small.

"Take your panties off."

Hands shaking, she did as she was told.

"Give them to me."

"No."

"Give them to me."

She obliged.

"You're wet." He smiled down on her. "So either you got wet just thinking about being with me, or you got wet realizing what a slut you are, or both."

"I'm not a slut."

"Get on your knees, face to the ground."

"No."

Before she could even finish the word, Julian had her by the hair and was pressing her face roughly against the blanket on the floor, her ass suddenly in the air. He put one, two fingers into her slit, then a third, a fourth. She tried to pull away.

"When I fuck you," he growled, pumping his fingers, "I want you to think about all the times you were picturing me when Will was inside you. And when I'm done, I want a number."

"What if it's zero?"

"I know you well enough to know it's not zero." He pulled his pajama bottoms down to his knees, positioned himself briefly at her entrance, smiling as her body stiffened. Then he was inside her, suddenly, tearing at her insides, and he covered her mouth with his hand to stifle her whimpers. "Think about all the times he wasn't fucking you hard enough," he hissed in her ear, "all the times he caressed your face during sex, all the times he made love to you. You ungrateful slut, you never enjoyed any of it."

Hot tears pricked at the corners of her eyes as he pounded into her. She tried once, twice, to escape from his grip but he was too strong. One hand traveled down, found her clit, and just the slightest touch sent her over the edge; as her insides gripped him he came too, biting her on the shoulder, pulling at her hair.

She collapsed, knees weak, and he fell beside her.

"What's the number?" He asked a few moments later, pulling her close, running his fingers through her hair.

"Off the top of my head?"

"Mhmm."

"Twenty-four."

He nodded, pleased. "Good. That's how many lashes you'll get with my belt, panties on, the next time you piss me off."