Apophis (23 page)

“Is that really a safe thing to do alone?”

It wasn’t and we both knew it, but it felt infinitely safer than being alone in this cozy space with her.  I needed a moment to clear my head.

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The wind that had been brutal just moments ago was subdued down here in the heart of the valley.  I did a quick circle around the log cabin.  Except for the cottage and skinny trees that sparsely populated the surrounding area, there was nothing else in the sunny valley.  I had hoped that maybe there would have been a shed behind the house, extra space where supplies might have been stored.  I snapped a low-hanging branch from a nearby tree and used the fanned out twigs to wipe clean the tracks I had just made along with our footprints that led to the front door.

I re-entered the cottage a few moments later.  Even though I was desperate to put some space between us, I didn't want Nora to worry that something had happened to me.
 I was met with a warm, dry blast of air.  The woodstove was really starting to kick off some heat. I stomped my feet on the welcome mat to knock the snow from my boots.

I didn't see Nora when I came back in and it made me worried. The open-floor plan of the first floor left little space where she could be hiding.

“Nora?” I called out.

“Upstairs!” she responded.

I let myself relax upon hearing her voice.  I quickly shed my boots, jacket, and snowpants, checked to make sure there was enough wood stacked in the woodstove, and climbed the stairs to the loft above.   

The lofted space was a little larger than my childhood bedroom.  It was large enough for a double bed, a rocking chair in one corner, and a stand-alone bookshelf.  Nora was sitting on the bed with my backpack beside her.  The contents of my pack were scattered across the patterned quilt.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

Nora’s head snapped up.  I’m sure she could hear the ice in my tone. “I was unpacking your backpack.”

I stormed across the length of the room and snatched my near-empty pack away from her.  “I never asked you to do that.”

Rather than wither under my defensive attitude, Nora’s posture became rigid and her chin elevated.  “I know you didn’t.  I don’t know about you, but I feel more human when I’m not living out of a canvas bag.  I put my things on that bookshelf.  I was waiting to see where you wanted yours.”

I held my pack in front of me like a protective shield.  “I’m sorry,” I said, the words not really reflecting my attitude.  “I just don’t like people rummaging through my things.”

Nora’s voice lifted an octave.  “I
wasn’t
–.”  She cut herself off and pressed her lips together.  She shook her head, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it to keep arguing over things of little importance.  This should have been trivial.  I felt foolish and childish for blowing up such a mundane thing.

I scanned over my meager belongings that Nora had laid out on the bed.  I picked up one of the photographs I’d brought with me.   Without a protective album, the corners had become slightly worn and creased.

“Is that your mom?” Nora asked.

I nodded.

“You look nothing like her,” she observed.

“I know.”  It had always been a corny family joke that if my mom hadn’t been present at my birth I might actually have been someone else’s kid.

Before I could stop her, Nora picked up the other photograph, the one of Andrea and me.  “Who’s this?”

“Just a girl.”

“Just a girl that you’ve been carrying with you across half the country.” Her eyebrows lifted.  It was clear she didn’t believe a word I said.

“We were friends,” I said, determined not to reveal too much.

“Oh, Sammy.” Nora’s voice dripped with regret and sympathy.

“What?” I demanded, feeling instantly self-conscious.

“She broke your heart, didn’t she?”

“She – no. No. It was nothing like that,” I protested.

Nora gave me a long, hard look. “Are you sure?”

Finally, I released a resigned sigh. “She didn’t break my heart; she ripped it from my chest and twisted it until it tore in half. Are you happy? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

Nora didn’t say a word.  She simply stood up, tilted her head to one side, and pressed her lips solidly against mine.

I pulled back abruptly. “What was that?” I snarled. “
Pity?
”

Nora bit down on her bottom lip. “No.” 

She kissed me again and this time I didn’t have the willpower to pull away.               

She slid her tongue along my full bottom lip, pulling a quiet sigh unbidden from my mouth.
I pulled away from the mouth that I knew would be my downfall.   I was out of breath.  “We should-we should stop.”  Stopping was the last thing I wanted to do. “We can't do this.”  I didn’t know what I was saying.  I didn’t know why we couldn’t.  But I did know there was no way this girl was actually choosing me.  I didn’t want to be pitied.

“Please, Sam,” she croaked. “I need this.”

I pulled back and inspected her features.  Her bright aqua eyes bore into me.  Her face, neck, and collarbone looked flushed.

“Why?”

“Because there’s a fucking hole in my heart,” she choked out, “and I need to feel something that’s not ugly or cruel.”

I sucked in a deep breath.  I was suddenly back in high school and the girl of my dreams wanted to be with me, if only for the night.

“I don’t know if we should,” I hesitated again.

“It’s not like it’s going to cause an apocalypse,” Nora assured me.  “I’m pretty sure Apophis already took care of that for us.” 

We stared at each other for a moment before Nora subtly leaned forward and into my personal bubble again.  I leaned forward as well, but I was determined to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground.  Nora closed her intense, penetrating eyes and I followed suit as we continued to lean forward. Her breath felt warm on my face as we narrowed the space between our lips.  Her nose slid along the side of mine as our mouths inched together.

I softly pressed my lips against Nora’s warm, inviting mouth. A low growl rumbled out of her throat when I dug my nails into her arms, unthinking.  My own aggressiveness surprised me, but there was also desperation and sorrow lingering in the air. 

This time, Nora as the one to pull away first. “See?” she slightly panted. “That wasn’t so bad. And the world didn’t blow or up anything.”

“N-no,” I stuttered. “Not bad at all.” Although Nora had ended the kiss, I wasn’t ready to lean away from her mouth just yet.  It was as if she had magnets in her plump lips and my mouth possessed the opposite charge.

Nora looked down, and her face revealed her surprise when my hand fell on her knee.  Encouraged by her lack of Running Away, I slid my palms along her upper thighs and up her tiny waist, lingering at the hem of her light thermal top. The bandage on my palm, the one she had made for me when I’d cut my hand, caught and rolled.  I was acutely aware of how I needed to see more of her and how much I wanted my mouth on her.  In my frustration I tore the bandage away.

Nora looked at me, puzzled by my actions.

“I just want to feel you,” I explained. “I don’t want anything between us.”

“Not even a Band-Aid?” she lightly teased.

The answer was obvious enough so I didn’t waste time with a reply.  Instead, I pressed my mouth against hers once again, darting my tongue into her mouth. She moaned throatily, a kind of approving hum.

I slid my hand under her light thermal top and beneath the elastic band of a sports bra.  There’d be no sexy lingerie tonight.  It was a little disappointing because she had a body built for lace.  I’d have to save that imagery for my daydreams.  I couldn’t justify making a Victoria’s Secret run on our way to Eden.

I cupped the slight swell of her breast in my palm and gently squeezed.  I raked my fingernails down her breast, making sure to let my short nails scrape against a rapidly hardening nipple. I tugged at the bottom hem of her shirt. “Need this off,” I grunted like some sort of Neanderthal.

She immediately reached for the lower hem and pulled her shirt off.  I didn’t allow her the moment to feel self-conscious about her partial nakedness.  I grabbed the straps of her racer-back bra and yanked them down her pale shoulders until her breasts fell free of the restrictive material.  I immediately dove for a nipple, tonguing and nipping at it with my teeth.  Her fingers snaked to the back of my head and she pressed me more firmly against her chest. 
I ran my palms flat against the smooth planes of her back. Her skin was impossibly soft.

When my fingers curled beneath the waistband of her spandex pants, her hands fell on top of mine, stilling the motion.  I looked up questioningly, confused as to why she wanted me to stop. 

Her eyes, large and unblinking, studied me.  “Have you…done this before? With a girl?” she clarified.  I could practically see her self-confidence fading in front of me.  The way she shamelessly flirted and tempted me had had me under the impression that she was a pro.

I sat up slightly, but kept my fingertips just under the elastic band of her pants.  I could feel the soft swell of her stomach and the heat of her skin.  “Just once,” I admitted. “Have you?”

Her gaze cast to the side.  “No.  Not-not this far,” she admitted.

I started to pull my hands away from her waist.  Her eyes widened, looking almost panicked. She firmly held my wrists, pinning my hands against her.  “But I want to,” she breathed.

I didn’t want to draw out this conversation and figure out labels and sexual identities.  I had never labeled my own sexuality, so I didn’t expect her to either.  Besides, I wasn’t going to fool myself.  This wasn’t about love or romance or a burgeoning relationship.  This was about convenience and the need to distract ourselves from loss and life.

I tightened my grip on her pants and began to shimmy them down her slight hips.  She lifted her backside from the bed to help.  I pulled her pants down her slender legs, past trembling knees and ankles, and down over her feet.

She grabbed fistfuls of my shirt and yanked me back up to her face.  “You don’t have to…you know…”

“Eat you out?” I posed with a small smirk.  She was so bossy and controlling all of the time.  It was more than nice to be able to take some of that control back. 

Her eyes darted to the side.  “It’s just that I haven’t gotten to shave since we left Hot Springs,” she lamented.

I reached between our bodies so I could trail my fingertips over her naked sex.  My fingers were met with nothing more than a soft peach fuzz, sparse and fine.  I ran a single digit along her outer folds and she let out a soft sigh.  She arched into my touch, but continued to hold her body rigid, clearly anxious that she wasn’t impeccably groomed.

“I want to taste you, Nora,” I encouraged.  I made eye contact while I continued to stroke my fingertips along her soft, swollen lips.  Her legs twitched beneath me when I swiped the pad of my thumb over her clit.  Her breathing had become uneven, short little gasps every time my thumb made contact with her clit.

I wanted to say more.  I wanted to tell her how long I’d wanted to touch her like this, but I kept my confessions to a minimum.  I didn’t need to give her any ammunition to use against me at a later time.  I worried that if I shared too much of myself that she’d throw it back in my face at the next available opportunity.

When I pushed my middle finger inside her, her hips jerked upward to meet me.  Her legs spread wider for me and a small groan escaped her mouth when that single digit turned into two. She writhed on top of the mattress as I sank deep into her.  She reached for me and pulled me up to her so she could kiss me while I continued to slide in and out of her in solid, rhythmic thrusts. 

She tilted her head back and made a guttural noise, so I took the opportunity to drop my head to one of her bare breasts and take a pert nipple between my teeth.  Her fingers thread through my hair, pulling me at the roots.  She pulled me back up to her mouth and gasped into my mouth, trying to kiss me, but unable to without making those sexy little noises.

I could hear the sound of her sex click with every thrust. Her face was beautiful, frozen in a half smile, half moan the entire time.  She rocked against me.

Her breaths came in shorter pants now – sharp, punctuated breaths followed by small mewls.  She tightened around me and even in my inexperience, I knew she was close.  She made a noise like a mix between a swallow and a pant and sat straight up in bed.  “Oh my God,” she managed to gurgle out as her sex squeezed around my fingers.

She pushed me back on the bed, forceful but not rough. “Your turn,” she panted.

The mattress creaked noisily as we shifted positions and my clothes joined hers on the floor.
She raked her nails down my stomach, and I couldn’t help the embarrassing moan that leapt from my throat.  My body arched off the mattress and she looked pleased with herself.

“I’ve been thinking about your abs since we took that first shower at Hot Springs,” she told me with heavily lidded eyes.  “Who knew you were hiding this tight body beneath all those layers?”

I had always kept myself pretty fit in high school playing team sports, but my body had only hardened to this extent because of the desperate situation in which we were.  Malnourishment and daily treks through snowy forests had transformed my body so it was nearly unrecognizable to myself.  When we’d showered, I’d been uncomfortable, feeling emaciated and unfeminine while she looked soft and sweet in all the right places.  Knowing that she actually
liked
the flat plane of my stomach and the tightened curve of my lean biceps, however, emboldened me.

As Nora’s lips expertly moved against mine, I couldn’t help comparing kissing her with kissing Andrea.  For one, Nora’s mouth felt more assured than Andrea’s, as if she knew what she wanted and knew she possessed a talent for it.  There was a natural confidence and ease that radiated off of Nora, even if she couldn’t start a fire, and it seemed to spill over into the realm of kissing as well. I had certainly enjoyed kissing my best friend, but thinking now about our awkward coupling was enough to make me blush.

Nora left my mouth and traveled further south down my naked body. Her fingers dug into my hipbones.  She rubbed her hand flat against me, separating my lips so she could concentrate on my clit. She held tight onto my hips and licked hard against the spot where my tattoo was. Ever since I'd gotten it, that spot had been extremely sensitive.  My hips bucked, but she only held me tighter.  She sucked on my clit and I saw stars.  I practically sobbed when her finger swirled around my entrance and pressed inside to the second knuckle.

God. I had no idea it could be like this.  Andrea hadn’t done that with her fingers, and she certainly hadn’t done that with her tongue.

I heard Nora clear her throat. “Who’s Andrea, and why do I suddenly feel jealous?”

Oh God, no.
 Did I actually say that out loud?

I slowly opened just one eye. Nora was positioned between my thighs looking slightly amused.

“Is she the girl in the photo?”

I nodded after a moment of hesitation. I didn’t want to talk about Andrea, especially not with Nora.

“Was she your girlfriend?”

I shook my head no.

“But you wanted her to be.”

I sighed and nodded again.

Nora pulled herself up and wrapped a sheet around her torso. I wanted to tell her not to stop.  I wanted to tell her how close I had been, but I knew that I’d ruined the moment by saying another girl’s name.  I was pretty sure I’d broken the cardinal rule of lesbian sex.

“Spill it, Sammy.”

I bit my bottom lip. “I’m sorry I did that.”

“Don't worry about it. You’re not the first person I’ve been with who’s said someone else’s name,” she said flippantly, “and I’m sure you won’t be the last.” She paused, sobering. “Actually, you might be the last. Who knows how many other bi-curious girls are still alive.”

“I'm not...” I shook my head, trying to collect my thoughts. “I don’t think of you as a replacement. You’re nothing like her.”

“Remember that I don’t know anything about this girl, so I don’t know if I should be offended or charmed,” she deadpanned.

“Neither. It’s just a fact. You’re different.”

Nora and Andrea weren’t exact opposites, but I struggled to find anything – besides that they were both beautiful – that they had in common.  Even in their beauty they were different. They had similar builds, but Andrea was a little taller and leaner and Nora was proportioned in ways that no one would mistake her for a boy. Andrea was tan skinned with dark eyes and even darker hair.  Nora's pale complexion rivaled even mine with glossy strawberry-blonde hair that I longed to run my fingers through again.

Nora flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling.  She released a loud sigh. “So now what?”

My brow creased.
 “I don't know.  Are we, um, done?”

She rolled over and regarded me.  The sheet had slipped from the movement and I forced myself to stare at her face and not the rosy caps of her nipples. “You screamed another girl’s name, Sammy.” As if I could have forgotten.

I felt my cheeks redden. “I didn’t scream,” I lamely protested.

She wet her lips. Her gaze never broke away from mine. “You’re right.  Challenge accepted.”

She pounced on me.

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CHAPTER THirteen

I was having a dream. It was the kind of dream where you know you’re dreaming, but the dream-world is so much nicer than reality that you don’t want to wake up.  The sound of the ocean crashing onto the sandy shore reverberated in my ears and when I opened my eyes, I was forced to squint and hold my hand over my eyes to block out the glaringly bright sun.  I sat up on my elbows and languidly took in my tropical surroundings.

I was sitting on a sandy shoreline, feeling muddy sand squish between my bare toes.  I wiggled my toes freely and felt the dirty grit of the beach.  Rolling waves, not quite whitecaps, dotted the horizon. They traveled closer to shore where they tapered off and licked at the tips of my toes.  Even the water was warm, not the surprising chill of most of the bodies of water I was used to.

I watched a small hermit crab scuttle across the sand.  Its detached eyeballs seemed to dart around nervously, cautiously taking in its surroundings and staying alert for potential enemies. The small creature’s claws worked busily and efficiently as it rummaged through the bits of rock and sand, scrounging for food.

When my eyes finally fluttered open, it took me a moment to remember where I was.  I turned my head on my pillow to find Nora staring back at me.  I gave a start, not expecting her aqua eyes to be the first thing I saw in the morning.  Although I have to admit, I wasn’t mad about it.