There was a knock at the door. She knew who it was before she answered. He was the only person who knocked on her door this time of night. She had dozed off watching TV…waiting for him. Waiting to see if he would come tonight. She looked at the clock, midnight, a little later than usual. When she opened the door she did not flinch at what she saw, but inside her mind was racing. The colors black blue and red took over his body. His white t-shirt was ripped and stained with blood. She went in to hug him, to comfort him in some way but he put his hand between them motioning for her to stop.
"Oh" she said, realizing it would cause more pain than it would heal. She helped him in and upstairs to her bathroom.
It had been a long time since the day they had met, or at least it seemed like it. Six months had passed, but she could still picture the first night he came like it was yesterday. She made the choice that Monday to stand up to her "friends" and be faithful to the breakfast club. Some friends wrote her off, some tried to understand and stayed, but her relationship with him grew into something almost poetic. First he would come just to hook up, determined to be her first even though she never gave in. Later, he came for the company. Some nights he would come bruised and cut, claiming a brawl at the local pool hall or being jumped on the street, but she knew better. Some nights he wouldn't even speak…those she knew were the worst. Whatever had happened on those nights at his home must have been terrible because he would lay on the couch with her silent other than kissing her deeply or breathing her in.
In the beginning he slept on her floor. For the first few months actually. Refusing to take her bed without her in it. Then one summer night he slipped off his boots and slid into bed with her, complaining of the air conditioning being too cold. At first she felt panicked, not sure what to do. Then she felt his hand reach out to pull her body closer to him and she relaxed feeling the way they fit perfectly in each others arms. She was his, and he needed her.
In the past few months the condition he came to her in had started to become steadily worse, but tonight was by far the worst. When they reached her bathroom she helped him strip off his clothes until he was standing there in just his boxers. This was almost a routine by now. She took a warm wash cloth and began to clean his skin, his wounds, and make things better. Tonight there were more bruises than normal, his ribs in the front and back looked beaten. She softly pressed the warm water on his bones. He winced but then breathed slowly letting the warmth heal him. She found some bandages and began wrapping them softly and firmly around his body supplying support and relief. She stopped for a moment and leaned forward to kiss his chest. She then focused on his face. Black eye, and bruised and cut cheek. He wouldn't look at her. She took his face into her hands and made him look up. She kissed his lips softly and then laid a feathery kiss on his hurt cheek. She wiped it again and then turned to go downstairs.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"To get you some ice." She responded. When she came back upstairs he was sitting on her bed. She pressed the towels of ice to his wounds. Then she kissed him. She moved from his lips to his chest, then around to his cuts and bruises. He sat with his eyes closed, and then opened them and stared at her with amazement. When she was done putting him back together she helped him into her bed and then stripped herself of her night gown. He whistled a cat call at her and she turned to see him smirking at her bare body.
"Am I getting lucky tonight?" He asked smiling. She crawled into bed beside him and pressed her naked body against him so he could catch her warmth.
"I don't want you to hurt anymore," She whispered.
"You could never hurt me princess," He responded. She kissed her way up his body until her lips found his and she delicately moved with him. She would be on top tonight to spare him the extra movement and pain. Softly and slowly they made love.
She remembers the first time being perfect. They had been hooking up for a couple months when it happened, and she couldn't remember why she had made herself wait that long. He had come in good spirits that night. No recent run ins with his father no stress from work.
"I like this. You being happy and carefree," she had said.
"Oh yeah?" He responded "That's cute Cherry."
"Why do you insist on calling me that?" She said.
"Because that's what you are. Red and luscious, and mine." She looked up at him and saw the passion in his eyes. She felt herself getting excited…she closed the space between them, put her hands on his chest, then he was kissing her. She gasped parting her lips letting him enter. Their hands were everywhere she cradled his face and he groped her hips until neither one could take it anymore, and he lifted her into his arms and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She had half her clothes stripped off by the time they got up the stairs and hit her bed. She now was working on his. He leaned back and stripped himself of his white t-shirt. She stopped for a moment to run her hands up and down his body. She felt his scars and saw a few faded bruises. They stood facing each other kneeling on the bed while she examined his body, getting to know it, memorizing it, searching it for hurt she could take away with kisses. When she was done she took his hand and kissed his finger tips. He leaned in to kiss her but stopped an inch from her face and just breathed her in. Then ever so slightly he let his lips brush against hers. It was soft and brief but the sweetest kiss he had ever given her. His hands guided her backwards and laid her down onto the bed. He hovered above her staring into her eyes and then kissing her. He moved from her lips to her neck and stayed there for a while. Leaving his mark. A brand that she belonged to him. He nibbled at her collar bone and then focused his attention on her breasts. He made a trail of kisses down her belly to her naval, and then below. When he returned to her lips she became quite aware of him hard against her thigh. Her eyes fluttered open looking deep into his.
"I Love You" she whispered. He kissed her, and then buried his head in her neck. After a moment, his lips were at her ear
"I Love You too" he whispered. She positioned herself underneath him ready to give herself to him completely. "Are you sure?" he asked. She kissed him and nodded and he pushed himself in. She winced and dug her nails into his back from the intense pain that had erupted inside her.
"I'm sorry, it will be better soon" he breathed. They made love in a steady slow rhythm. After a while her pained lessoned and she could hear muffled moans of pleasure coming from him. His face was buried in her neck, and she wrapped her arms around him pulling him closer. His pace quickened and finally she felt his body tension and collapse onto hers. She held him close to her, both breathless and spent. He lifted his head up and kissed her forehead and face and then lips and then smiled. "You'll always be my cherry now."
She fell asleep thinking of this, their first time. She woke up with a start to John's nightmare. He was tossing and turning and muttering nonsense sentences filled with "no's" and "stops" She panicked feeling his body flail and hit hers.
"John! John wake up! JOHN!" He gasped, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Jesus Christ." He said, breathing deeply. He sighed and turned to Claire who was staring back at him concerned and bewildered. He pulled her close to him and buried his face in the curve of her neck. "I'm sorry," he whispered, "Oh god I'm so sorry."
"Are you alright?" she asked, "How often do you dream of him?"
"I usually don't when I'm with you, usually when I'm here I sleep well. But tonight…tonight was different."
He thought about what had happened before he went to Claire's that night. He had not gone to work that night because he wasn't feeling well, a horrible head ache along with some nausea. He went to bed hoping to sleep it off. He woke up to a bang following by a deafening blow to the side of his head.
"Yooou lazy son offabitch." Ah of course his father would realize even in his drunken state that John had skipped work. John lay on the floor feeling even sicker after the punch to the left side of his face. "You just thought it wouldn't matter if you didn't try to make money? You thought you could live off of my hard work for nothing you no good piece of shit!" His father kicked his ribs twice before John rolled over to protect himself with his back side. His father continued to kick his back, until John's mother starting screaming in the door frame. He turned his attention to her slapping her across the face with the back of his hand. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her into the hallway. The nausea in John's head and stomach had become unbearable. He vomited on himself and his floor. He heard glass breaking and figured in was his father tripping over his own empty beer bottles. He could hear his mother's sobs in the bedroom and finally his father's huge body collapse onto the family room lounge chair. It was hard to move. His head felt that it had shattered into pieces and his stomach and back felt paralyzed, at least with pain. When he managed to get up he walked to the bathroom to clean himself up. In the mirror, his swollen bruised bloody left cheek stared back at him. Too bad he was wearing his rings, he thought. He wiped his face of vomit, but wouldn't even look down to see his stomach and back. He could feel that there was blood from the bruised cuts caused by his father's boots but seeing the damage would make the pain real, and that might make matters worse. He grabbed a towel and wiped up the vomit on his floor. Then he put his boots on and opened his parent's bedroom door.
"Are you alright?" He asked. His mother sniffled.
"Just get out of here before he wakes up again looking for more." He shut the door and went to leave. As he walked by his father he didn't even look at him. He opened the front door and left, knowing someday when he did this he would never go back.
She always took care of him. Her parents were never home, and when they were it didn't matter, the house was so big Claire could have been running a drug ring and they wouldn't know about it. She was so small and petite, and yet she had the strength to put him back together again every time. As they lay in her bed after his nightmare, he pulled her close to him and buried his face in her neck. She smelled like flowers and baby lotion.
"I'm sorry, oh god I'm so sorry." He whispered. They talked for a little, and then he felt his head fill with nausea again. "I have to go to the bathroom." He sat up slowly and gently lifted himself out of bed. As he fumbled towards the bathroom he could feel the vomit rising in his throat. He made it to the toilet and let his insides go. When it was over he lingered there for a moment, closing his eyes and breathing heavily.
"Here." Like magic she has already gotten him some iced water and a cold wash cloth. While he cleaned himself up she poured a small Dixie cup of mouthwash. When he saw it he smiled. "What?" she said, "I don't want to smell that anymore than you want to taste it." He chuckled and she laughed.
"You're something else," he said.