Scar Tissue
A/N: So, this chapter was supposed to go along with the last one, but I thought they stood better as separate chapters. Plus, I'm gonna be out of town on business for a few days, so I won't be able to update. (And to answer Stratusfied, I'm a Graphic Design Engineer) Anyway, I just thought I'd give ya a two-fer to get you through until Thursday or Friday. Hope you enjoy!
She was supposed to be gone by now. He had been asleep for more than an hour, and she was supposed to have slipped quietly into the night already. His arm was around her waist, but she could have rolled off with no fear of waking him. The drugs had taken him under, and he wasn't so much as stirring.
But Trish was mesmerized, held in place by a fascination with his shoulder. The scars from two past surgeries wove together there, barely noticeable against the bronzed back drop of his skin. She was sure that make up covered them for television every week, or that they were invisible to the camera, but she thought it was a shame.
They were the most beautiful things she had ever seen. He called his tattoos "art," but Trish thought they paled in comparison to those two precision lines, carefully crafted by a physician's skilled hand on the canvas of his flawless body. It wasn't so much the scars themselves, but what they represented, that kept her there as dawn broke outside the window.
They might fade over time, but they would never go away, those scars. They would rest against his skin forever, constant reminders of past agony that had put him out of commission, kept him from the one thing he'd always wanted. They would permanently stare back at him in the mirror, daring him to forget the times when his dreams had been weaker than the physical world in which he lived and fought. They would remind him that he was still mortal, that life still hurts sometimes, even when he thought he was better than the pain.
She was so taken in by those scars that she didn't feel him finally start to stir, trying to take back his arm. "Trish?" he asked, his voice laced with confusion.
Her hypnosis broken, she looked up into his drowsy eyes and bit her lip, waiting for him to ask what the hell she was still doing there. She waited for the tongue-lashing, for him to tell her she was breaking all the rules, but it didn't come. He just stared back at her, a slight tinge of perplexity in his crystal eyes.
"Your scars are beautiful," was all she managed to say as she raised her hand again and ran her fingers over them, for what seemed like the millionth time in the last few hours.
He nodded and chuckled, unsure if this was a dream. It surely didn't seem real. "Um, yeah," he whispered, unwilling to crack the stillness of the morning. "You like those, you should see the ones inside."
Trish bit her lip and struggled to recline her body, resting her head on her palm as she supported her weight on her elbow. "What do you mean?"
Randy cleared his throat and looked over at the clock. It was nearly seven in the morning. Why was she still in his room? And what the hell was she talking about his scars for? "Just that the tissue inside, all the scar tissue? It's way more impressive than those two little things." This had to be the dumbest conversation he'd ever had with a girl. Especially after sex. This is why he didn't invite them to his room, and why he never woke up next to them.
Trish touched the scars again, seemingly unable to pull her hand away. "Do they hurt?"
He grunted. No, but his knee hurt like a fuckin' son of a bitch. "Um, not really," he answered honestly, trying to move his leg a little bit. Was it paralyzed?
Trish felt him stirring beneath the covers and ran her foot past his calf, rubbing it gently over his knee in an attempt to get his blood flowing again. She understood how it felt to wake up with a sprained muscle, and the stiffness was not the same happy stiffness he was probably used to waking up with.
He wanted to thank her for the gesture, but the only place his blood was now flowing was not his knee. Her soft skin against his was the ideal wake-up call, and he wanted to roll her over and shut her up about it stupid scars and imperfections. Instead, he let his eyes drift shut. And then he answered her stupid, fuckin' question. "Sometimes it tightens up on me," he referred to his shoulder. "Sometimes I can't raise it as high as I used to."
She licked her lips and then pressed them to the lines. He groaned "But it's good as new, right?" she asked.
Randy shrugged. If she was gonna keep that up, he'd talk about whatever the fuck she wanted. "Um, doctors say it'll never be one hundred percent," he sighed as she straddled his thighs and moved her kisses from his shoulder to his collarbone, sweeping her tongue across his throat. "I've done too much damage," he gasped as she raised up and lowered herself onto his morning erection.
"Keep talking," Trish commanded, her voice deep in his ear as she started to rotate her hips and then concentrated on his left nipple.
"I'll never have the same power," he grunted, gripping her hips in his hands. But Trish laced her fingers with his and stretched his arms over his head, riding him at her own pace. "I can't really," he stopped and gasped as she leaned over him, her breasts inches from his face. "You are so fuckin' evil," he groaned, jutting his tongue out, in hopes of just tasting something, any part, of her baby-soft skin. "I can't really use it like I used to," he referred back to his goddamned shoulder when she slowed down again and sat up, her fingernails scraping his chest.
Returning his hands to her hips, Randy tried to brace his bad leg against the bed and thrust upward. He needed to be deeper, further inside of her. He needed to be closer to her. The story of his life lately seemed to be just that – he needed more of Trish.
Trish tilted her head back and allowed her body to feel his long, driving strokes. With one palm on his lower belly and the other behind her on his leg, she allowed herself to stop, as Stacy put it, worrying about what he was thinking, and just feel what he was doing. And what he was doing was the most amazing fucking thing anyone had ever done. This was, without a doubt, the best sex of her entire life.
And Randy could see it. It wasn't planned, and it wasn't anything extraordinary. He hadn't pulled out any kung-fu style moves or tried any porn star-like maneuvers. But she was in a pure, unadulterated state of bliss. It was the moment he'd been waiting for – the one when she gave herself over to him completely.
And it over as soon as they both came. Trish climbed off the bed, gathering her clothes such a hurry, Randy wondered if it wasn't a dream. "What the fuck, Trish?"
She turned, tearing her shirt in her haste to pull it over her head. "What do you want, Orton? Huh?" She zipped her pants and shoveled her hair out of her face. "You want me to stay and cuddle for awhile?" Biting her lip, she cursed herself for getting so carried away, for letting him have her like that. "You finally did it, Champ," she spat bitterly. "You finally found the combination to Trish Stratus. Congratulations." Sliding her flip-flops on, she forced back the tears that were threatening to fall. "You got what you wanted."
When the door slammed, Randy slumped against the headboard, his body still feeling the effects of that encounter. Then shouldn't I feel good about it?
Trish managed to make it back to her room before the dam burst and her uncontrollable sobs took her over.
"Sometimes it tightens up on me."
"Sometimes I can't raise it as high as I used to."
". . . it'll never be one hundred percent."
"I've done too much damage."
"I can't really use it like I used to."
While his scars, his damage, bore no philosophical metaphor to him, she had seen him as someone else broken, and torn beyond repair, just as she had felt for months. When she had told Stacy and Lita that she couldn't have the "best sex ever" with someone she wasn't emotionally attached to, she had been referring to love. But she had been wrong. It certainly wasn't love with Orton. It was the briefest shared understanding of deep, unseen pain that connected her to him more soundly than she had ever been to Carter, or anyone else.
And now, it was over.
