Almost Crimson (24 page)

Then she felt him. Dub parted the wet heat of her with only the tip of himself and CeCe sizzled with anticipation. A small part of her was nervous about the pain, but the rest of her felt complete pleasure. His arms were firm about her—one around her waist and the other around her shoulders—and his breath was warm against her neck. CeCe pressed her back into Dub's chest and her hands across his forearms. She opened her eyes, waiting to cross the meridian of pleasure and pain, before and after.

Dub continued to trail kisses and nuzzle her neck as he circled his hips behind her. The slick between her legs felt decadent. He slid in and out of her, reaching farther inside with each slow stroke. He pulled back and relaxed his embrace, turning CeCe onto her back again. She looked up at him, wondering if she had missed a prompt or instruction, but he just gave a little smile before kissing her on the mouth.

Dub pulled back the bedding and ushered them inside. He moved on top of her, sliding his arms around her. He angled her knees wide and he pressed his body between them, easing himself back inside the warmth of her.

“You OK?” he asked low against her ear, as if there were others in the room he didn't want to disturb.

CeCe gave a small nod. Dub anchored his feet beneath her heels and began dipping himself in and out in a smooth, easy cadence. CeCe looped her arms around his shoulders. The glide felt unworldly good to her. A random punchline raced across her mind, a crude one-liner by a standup comic about “dead fish,” “dry hooch,” and the women who “just laid there.” CeCe wasn't naive enough to think she might impress Dub, but she didn't want to rank at the absolute bottom of his roster, either.

Closing her eyes in concentration, CeCe synced her body with the piano keys and saxophone chords that filled the room. She tried to visualize a ribbon unfurling from her neck and through her torso and hips. The image made CeCe snap her hips from side to side and caused her feet to keep scooting from under them. When CeCe fell completely out of rhythm with Dub, panic climbed her stomach. Desperately, she hunched and jerked her shoulders, trying to arch and grind a response to his body.

Dub stopped moving. “Relax,” he whispered in her ear. He planted a single kiss on her naked shoulder. “You're doing fine.”

He resumed his slow grind and CeCe allowed herself to think only of the slippery welcome between her thighs. The radio music danced above them and Dub moved deeper inside of her. CeCe could feel his pelvis flush against the inside of her thighs and the space behind her navel filled with his mass. She pictured the carnival game where the swing of a mallet could sail a metal floater clear to the top of a marking post to strike a winning bell.

CeCe clanged inside and thought,
I'm not a virgin! This feels amazing! I'm not a virgin! This feels amazing . . .

“OK?” he whispered again.

“Yes,” she was able to whisper back this time.

The weight of him wasn't uncomfortable or heavy, as CeCe had thought it would be. She'd often wondered how the women in big-screen sex scenes were able to breathe. Her body took in more and more of him. Dub suckled the crook of her neck, circling his hips faster and wider. He maintained his slow rhythm, and CeCe heard herself moan.

“Like it?” he asked in her ear.

“Yes,” she said in hollow whisper.

“Feels good?” he asked, his voice less steady.

“Yes,” CeCe said, her breath quickening.

“Yeah, feels good,” Dub said, pushing every inch of himself fully into her. CeCe tightened her circle around Dub's neck.

“Yeah,” Dub said. “Yeah, yeah.”

He thrust into CeCe a little deeper, a little harder. The added force didn't hurt her at all. In fact, it felt even better. CeCe was so wet between her legs. As Dub rocked in and out of her, CeCe felt something ignite in her depths. The ember grew with each stroke, growing brighter and larger and brighter and larger until CeCe burst into a shower of light and fire.

CeCe called out
Oh! Oh! Oh!
and rushed with warm, silky fluid. Dub grunted and cheered them as his hips pumped faster and faster until he climaxed with a low growl. His entire body went rigid, and then he let himself deflate on top of her. When Dub rolled away, CeCe heard the roll and snap as he removed the condom. She wiggled beneath sheets, looking up the ceiling. Stunned and smiling.

Dub lay flat on his back and CeCe expected them to separate to their respective sides of the bed now that their task was done. Instead, Dub slid his arm beneath CeCe's shoulders and curled her into his chest. CeCe rested her head there, listening to the boom of his heart and the lilt of a standup bass.

“Well done, little sprout,” Dub said. CeCe laughed and pinched his side. He chuckled and kissed the top of her head.

“You good . . . ?” he asked. CeCe could hear sleep creeping into his voice. She gave a final small nod and wrapped her arms around his waist.

 

When CeCe pulled out of the parking structure the following morning, she wished she hadn't driven her own car. Her limbs were too weak and every inch of skin still tingled. The last thing she wanted to do was operate heavy machinery. She wanted to lie naked on expensive bed sheets all day. She wanted to mount him again, like she'd done after breakfast. She'd required minimal coaching that time.

Driving home, CeCe replayed how Dub had suckled her collarbone, his slow and certain kisses, the way he'd clutched fistfuls of her thighs and folded her body into proper angles. She did not mistake their night together as a budding of any kind. She also accepted that sex in the future would not always be perfect and holy. Aunt Rosie had once told her story about saving her money as a young girl to buy her first church hat. Girls couldn't wear hats to church until they turned fifteen. A tradition, Aunt Rosie had said, dating back to when marrying fifteen-year-olds was common. Aunt Rosie hadn't wanted a store-bought hat. She didn't want any duplications towering above the church pews. She wanted her first of many church hats to be the most special of any she might own.

Terri stood in the hallway with hands covered in paint when CeCe entered the apartment. She eyed CeCe nervously.

“I love you,” CeCe said dreamily and Terri smiled back.

CeCe dropped her bag on her bedroom floor and lowered herself to the bed. Her face still stretched into a smile as she drifted to sleep. As the sun poured over her in her slumber, CeCe dreamed of beautiful girls in a rainbow of church hats.

FORTY

OPAQUE

 

 

THEIR MEAL ENDED QUICKLY. HER mother, still barely a nibbler, only ordered a cup of soup. CeCe had been ravenous, gobbling her pasta, and they finished at the same time. CeCe joined her mother in ordering a coffee. They stirred the black liquid with their cinnamon sticks.

“This is new,” CeCe said.

“Different,” her mother said.

They laughed.

“He sounds nice,” her mother said, wrapping back to their exchange of short sentences about Eric.

“So far,” CeCe said.

CeCe's mother looked down into her emptied mug. “Two ways life consumes you,” she said. Her voice was weary but sure. “Swallowed or swept away. One way happens to you, the other happens because of you. Love can go either way.”

CeCe looked at her mother's small fingers curved around the coffee mug. They were bony, frail.

“Which is better?” CeCe asked.

Her mother lifted her eyes and looked at CeCe. “Neither,” her mother said. “Both make you fight for air. Both require small blessings. Both make your life . . . yours.”

CeCe considered this. “I think I'd rather get swept away,” she
said.

Her mother smiled. “If only choosing were an option.”

They let the barbed and weighted truth hover above the table for a moment. Both of them quiet.

“You were my one blessing, CrimsonBaby,” her mother said into the void. “Thank you. I love you so much.”

“I know, Mama,” CeCe said. “You don't have to thank me. I love you, too.”

“Carried such a heavy load,” her mother said. “Hurting so much. Couldn't help you. Wanted to. Couldn't. Want you to know that.”

“Mama, I know,” CeCe said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

Her mother leaned back against her chair's metal-pipe backing, spent from her confession. Her eyes were clouded and resettled on her mug.

“I'm thinking about getting a house,” CeCe said, shifting in her seat at the half-truth. Her mother met her eyes. A shadow of a smile hinted in her gaze.

“You should,” her mother said.

“Actually, I have a house,” CeCe said, the admission flying from her mouth like a trapped bird. They let the words flutter for a moment. CeCe continued, telling her mother about Doris' living will project with an unexpected nervousness making her tongue skip and speed.

Her mother nodded.

CeCe took in her mother's peaceful expression, the soft skin colored like warm bread. Neither of them had chosen this life; it had chosen them. They both had been swallowed, she decided.

CeCe leaned back in her chair and said, “We need to figure out how to get you back and forth to the Springer Center, but you're gonna love—”

CeCe cut her words short, as her mother's head moved side to side in a slow, somber swivel.

“Not going, CrimsonBaby,” her mother said. “It's time.”

CeCe's mouth fell open, while her mind tried to process. She started to protest but her mother shook her head more sternly.

“What?” CeCe said.

“It's time,” her mother repeated. “Now. We'll both be fine.”

The tears gave no warning. They fell as quickly as CeCe could wipe them away. CeCe did not dare language, knowing words would push a tidal wave. Her mother laid an open hand on top of the table and CeCe laid her hand inside. They used to sit this way on the courtyard bench, when her mother could excite her about gathering dandelions.

CeCe cried and, this time, her mother did not.

FORTY-ONE

WITHERING

 

 

IN BED THAT NIGHT, CECE stared up at the darkness. A rectangle of muted moonlight usually glowed on her bedroom ceiling, but the sky had been crowded with ominous clouds. Charcoal shadows crawled across her room and the night outside her window.

Walking from the restaurant to their car, CeCe's mother said she had always liked the eager smell of coming rain.

“And matches,” CeCe had replied.

Her mother had grinned faintly, disappearing into the passenger side. The air was, indeed, heavy with the promise of a storm, but CeCe looked up to the sky with a smile. It had been so long since her mother had made her smile, CeCe felt like she was being transported in time. Or, perhaps, she was being projected forward, since nothing in this moment with her mother felt familiar. The cords between them for so long had been tenuous and steady, anchored and fraying.

CeCe climbed into the driver's side and fastened her seat belt. The Lincoln pulled them under traffic lights, past retail stores and along refreshed pavement. They listened to music sliding in and out of the CD changer. Her mother watched through the windshield as the city approached and slipped past them. Her arms were crossed tightly at the waist and she cupped an elbow with each hand. Her mother relaxed this containment of herself once CeCe pulled the car under their carport. She tried to imagine her mother traveling back and forth to this apartment on her own. Getting groceries. Paying utilities. Remembering the renter's insurance premium.

Your mother took care of herself before everything fell apart
, Pam had once reminded her.

Her mother started her bedtime ritual as quickly as CeCe could unlock the apartment door. It was two hours past her usual bedtime, and CeCe knew her mother was exhausted. CeCe walked the length of the hallway to the front room and let herself fall onto the sofa. She was spent, too, but didn't want to surrender to her exhaustion yet.

CeCe was flipping through channels when her mother appeared at the edge of the couch. CeCe jumped, asking her mother if she'd been taking ninja classes at the center, too.

Her mother, eyes heavy with sleep, coughed a single, weary chuckle. CeCe swallowed the foreign sound, feeling sated and light all at once. CeCe could smell the fresh scents of her mother's soap and body cream. She held closed the modest vee of an oversized nightgown, her bare arm protruding like a small wing.

Looking at the bones and chords of veins that patterned the back of her mother's hand, CeCe marveled, for the second time in so many days, at how time and age were circling about them. Withering her mother's hands. Softening her own resolve.

Fixed on the hands, CeCe didn't register her mother's forward lean until the kiss landed on her forehead. It was more of a light press of flesh to skin than a puckered kiss, but CeCe was too captured by shock to criticize her mother's technique.

“Love you,” her mother said, her voice quiet and light. “Proud of you.”

CeCe's heart exploded. She looked up at her mother and said, “I'm proud of you, too, Mama. I love you. So much.”

Her mother's free hand landed on her shoulder and CeCe sat motionless, as if a butterfly had alighted there. Her mother patted her shoulder two slow times before turning to walk the hallway back to her bedroom. CeCe stared at the space where her mother had stood, her ears listening to the familiar clicks of the light switch, ceiling fan cord, and lamp, then the moan of the mattress. CeCe switched off the television and padded to her room, too. Even though every nerve ending in her body vibrated with joy, she knew she had to get some rest, too.

CeCe waited for sleep to find her, watching thunderclouds trace her ceiling and the sky. In an instant, she was gripped with the prospect of possibility. No longer elusive or theoretical, CeCe pushed back her approaching slumber and sat upright in her bed. She fumbled along the headboard shelf for her cell phone. Its screen illuminated her small face in the darkness.

She listened to its mechanical ringing. Two. Three. He greeted her by name.

“Hey, CeCe,” Eric said. “I was just thinking about you.”

“That's good,” CeCe said, holding down her inhibitions for a moment and letting her idea flood into the phone.

“Listen,” she said. “There's something I'd like to share with you.”