Wow, life sucks, especially when it gets in the way of important things, like updating this story! Geez! So sorry to leave you guys hanging for so long... the next one won't take as long, I fucking promise! You guys hanging in there okay?
Part IV, Chapter 2 - I Try My Best
I send the text to Ted, asking him to check on Tegan, and walk through the quiet streets with nothing in my mind except the shock and pain in her face as she repeated my cold words back to me: Nightmare. She repeated it twice and and looked at me like she didn't know me, like I'd slapped her, and the memory of that is a blow to my stomach. I know her and I know what that look meant, and I know she won't think of it the right way. Nightmare, she will repeat to herself again and again and will tell herself that I compared being with her in that bed to a nightmare. Sometimes, her sensitivity makes her so dense. In her heart she must know that I didn't mean that. The nightmare is this situation we are in, this hell, which is destroying everything around us. I needed her to let me go. We needed her to let me go. If I'd said to her being with you is the only thing that could ever make sense to me then could I make her let go of me? If I said my entire soul belongs to you and I only exist because you do, could I then say never again? It is a paradox that the universe will never solve.
The canal is only a couple of blocks away. I reach it without seeing anyone and when I get there, I lean on the railing, rest my chin on my arms on top of it. The air is cold and crisp and brings water to my eyes, so I close them. There are lights on in one of the houseboats and I wonder for a moment about the people inside and what their lives are like. I see Tegan's eyes, glossy with pain, and I would like to be anyone else right now.
I sit then, on the little old bridge that arches over the canal, with my feet dangling over. Below, in the darkness, I see a few little ducks, gathering together where the slow water oozes and glistens. It would be so easy just to let myself topple over and slip beneath the water. There would be a splash that no one would hear, and then nothing. I would be found the next morning, maybe, already bloated and floating between the houseboats. Would the people on the boat hear the splash? Would they come for me? If they knew what I was, they would bring their children out on deck and point me out to them as I struggled to keep my head above water. This is what happens, they would tell their children, this is what happens when you violate all the rules of society, of morality. Of nature. You suffer, you hurt everyone, you destroy everything that matters. And then it's over and you don't even want to live anymore.
For a moment I ask myself why this is all happening, why I am losing everything, why Tegan's heart is broken and nothing makes any sense and for that moment I am almost sick because the word that comes to mind is sex. We are in this fucking disastrous nightmare - yes, nightmare - because we couldn't keep our hands off of each other. But that thought only stays with me for a moment because it doesn't come close to encompassing it. Saying that what we have together is sex is like reducing an entire orchestra down to one violin. One fucking incredible violin, yes, but it's only part of it.
It's chilly; I put my hood up and stuff my hands into my pockets and watch the little brown ducks bobbing slowly in the swells from the houseboats, wishing I had something to feed them. I haven't eaten anything since. . . when? I've had whiskey and beer and. . . when did I eat last? I feel queasy, and my head aches; I close my eyes and in an instant I am remembering a night on our bus, only a week ago now but it seems like forever ago because things were bad then but not hopeless like they are now. It was late and our bus was so quiet and I lay with Tegan's arms and legs still around me, her face still flushed, recovering slowly and quietly from her third orgasm. I didn't want to move because I could feel her heart racing, with my chest against hers, and her heat was flooding me and her arms around me so tight, the way she does when she comes, all filled me up. After a while of lying together like that, I slowly pulled out, and she drew in her breath and squeezed me tighter for a second. The first time that night, she came with my tongue pressing in slow circles, one of her legs trapped beneath my shoulder; the second time took three minutes and my fingers felt all the wet heat there from the first time. The third time, I fastened the harness because I wanted her arms and legs around me so she came again, naked and hot and wrapped around me and I watched her face when that happened and then I kissed her neck and her shoulder and her mouth and after she caught her breath and opened her eyes again she said I want to do that to you and my heart jumped because of the look in her eyes and because I'm afraid of that a little. But she slid her hands up my sides and then into my hair and kissed me and said please and then kissed me again and said I want to feel you like that so I couldn't say no.
So I lay there as she un-strapped me and felt so naked when she pulled the harness down off of my legs, and I watched her as she pulled the thing out of the harness and I didn't know why but she opened the nightstand and pulled out another one and it was smaller. She smirked at me because the thing wobbling in her hand was ridiculous but watching her slide the straps up over her naked hips was not ridiculous, and I suddenly felt the heat return to me. She climbed back on the bed with me.
"When did you get that?" I asked, feeling stupid over how shy it made me feel. She smiled.
"A couple of weeks ago. . ." She kissed me the way you kiss someone when you want them and you want them to know it. Her body was against mine, and I could feel the silicon pressed against my thigh and I felt anxious, but her mouth was so good and her body was so soft and warm and then I felt her tongue with my tongue and I wanted her to touch me - I'd felt her come underneath me three times and was so ready - but that thing made me nervous and as we kissed each other she felt my tension I guess because she lifted her face back and looked at me with a little half-smile and such sexy eyes.
"Don't be scared," she whispered, shifting and moving onto me, pressing down on me, warm.
"That thing is too big," I whispered back and she kissed me softly, touching my face.
"It isn't," she said, "it's not much bigger than my fingers. Open a little," she murmured, touching my thigh, and I did, I opened my legs so that her hips were between my knees and we kissed again because we can never get enough and her lips on my ear and my neck made me take a breath. Then she looked at me again and her face was so close.
"Are you. . . wet enough?" she asked me in a quiet voice. My face felt hot.
"I don't know. . .". She lowered her hand and touched me there, gently.
"I think so," she said, and my hands were on her hips, around her back, her skin the softest thing, it gave me chills. Her hands then were on my breasts, and then her tongue and lips on my nipple and I couldn't help but make a small sound in my throat. Then her fingers again, softly stroking there and I'm swollen already and I want her touch but she's waiting to come inside me with it and I'm still nervous but her fingers are making me feel ready so maybe it will be fine.
"Okay?" she whispers and I nod a little because I don't think I will get more ready. She uses a hand to guide it and the end is inside and then she slides just a little, so slowly, and I tense all up because there's some pain and there is more expected pain. I squeeze her hips but she is not moving. "Hey, you're all tense," she murmurs close to my mouth and I nod a little. "If you're all tense, it'll hurt."
"It already does," I tell her softly. She touches my face, kisses me.
"Relax and breathe," she says, and I try to do that. I take a breath with her and let it out and she moves her hips back, just a little, and then pushes gently and slowly into me and I close my eyes tight because it's too big. It's too big because it's Tegan, and she's on top of me and I can't relax, I can't control my thoughts, because when I open my eyes and I meet her eyes, I can't pretend anything. I can't pretend she's not my sister and I can't pretend that I haven't opened for her and it isn't my sister moving inside of me and it isn't my sister making my body ache like that. She moves so slowly, and my arms are around her, but I'm too anxious and I can't slow my breathing down and each time she presses into me, I get all tense again, against my will. "Hey. . . am I hurting you?" she asks, but she's moving so slowly and gently that it is just sad to say yes.
"A little," I say, but it's confusing because I'm so hot.
"Can you feel me breathing?" she asks, and I can because her stomach pulses against mine when she takes a breath. I nod. "Okay. . . breathe with me. Deeply," she whispers, so I do that. When she takes a breath, I do, and she's sliding inside of me and it is not burning and tearing like the Scottish guy because everything is hot and wet. There's too much pressure inside, but still, her body moving against me and my arms and legs around her, the heat from her skin, all of it is so good, so so good. But then she shifts somehow, and it goes deeper and I gasp and grab her hips and she stops moving, her eyes on my eyes.
"Are you okay?" she asks softly, but the sudden jolt kind of freaks me out, and I feel out of control with this thing inside me, even with Tegan, so gentle. "You're not okay," she says, and she's worried.
"I'm okay but. . . it. . . scares me a little," I tell her.
"Ohhhh," she says sadly, kissing my lips, and then my eyes, my cheek. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," I say.
"I'll. . . get out now if. . .".
"Okay. . .". She does, slowly, and it makes me gasp a little and after, I keep squeezing her. "Sorry. . ." I say because it's disappointing, and she's afraid she's hurt me.
"No," she murmurs, her warm breath on my neck making me shiver again. "But you aren't finished. . .". Her eyes on mine give me shivers, too. "What can I do?" The truth is, I want her tongue and her mouth but I'm still afraid of that too. Her fingers move through my hair and then she touches my face.
"Can you just. . . touch me?" I ask, wondering why she is able to make me feel shy like that when I've known her since the beginning of time. She smiles. . .
My mind returns to the present when someone slams a door on one of the houseboats and the ducks all take flight, flapping wetly and racing up the canal a ways before settling again, and I'm alone. I can't take it anymore. I can't look at Tegan's face, transmitting everything inside of her, and see that pain and know that it's because of me, that it's my fault. I can't be around her and know that as soon as we are alone, we'll be on each other again because we can't help it. I need to go home. Now.
I am back at the bus a few minutes later. A couple of crew members are still up and are talking in the TV room. I can hear them in the back. I go to my bunk and put a few things into a shoulder bag. Grab my passport. I think of going to the airport without telling anyone but my conscience, it seems, refuses to die. I quickly text Ted. Going home. Pls let Nick and Piers know. And look after Tegan. See you in three weeks.
I leave all the rest of my mess for them, and go down to the street to wait for a taxi. I don't feel anything anymore.