Crush (23 page)

Mom is released from the hospital the night of December twenty-eighth, and after I take her back to the house and settle her in the living room with her favorite John Wayne film and a bowl of potato soup with the bits of ham fished out, I head over to Jamie’s.

I have a belated Christmas gift for him.
I sit on one of the dining chairs and pull him into my lap. When he opens the small square package, his eyes are shining, his lips are quivering.
It’s an angel made of pewter, and a silver chain.
“I didn’t know if you’d want the angel as a necklace or a keychain,” I say, and then I add quietly. “Thank you for taking care of mymother, Jamie.”
He’s in hot water now, and he knows it. “Now, now, I h-had no ch-choice…I-I g-gotta pay that m-malpractice insurance ppremium-m every year, y-you kn-kn-know?” His eyes glimmer wetly. He’s as gorgeously agitated and vulnerable as he was the afternoon of the Christmas party.
I’m not having it. “You’re my angel.” I mouth the words silently, and watch Jamie’s eyes as his defenses crumble. “Tammy,” he whispers. We kiss each other tenderly as he wraps his arms around my shoulders, grasping the little angel and the chain in one hand. Our mouths meet and separate softly, and my ears tingle at his endless cries of pleasure.
“Just kissing you,” I moan between kisses. “Just kissing you, holding you and kissing you, and not even going any further…it’s magic.”
“Yes,” he gasps against mylips. “Yes.”
It’s magic. We make out for what seems like hours, right there in that dining chair with him in mylap, mygift still clutched in his fist, until I can no longer neglect the forceful pulsing behind my fly. “I want you,” I breathe, rubbing mystubble against his lips. “Tell me you want me.”
He answers with a frantic sob, “I want you…I want you…”
Our lips never part as we feverishly remove each other’s clothes. We don’t even make it to his bedroom. In the hallway, I press his back into the wall, hearing him cry out as the cold plaster shocks his hot skin. I hoist his legs up and around me, my fingers digging into his buttocks, his fingers digging into mine, trying to push me deeper into him.
We fuck wildly, our noisy exclamations startling the cats and sending them darting under Jamie’s bed. “Poor things,” we chortle through our moans and kisses.
When we climax, it lasts even longer than that incredible time Christmas morning.
“Are you still coming?” I laugh when myspasms finallyease off enough for me to speak.
Jamie nods with a rapturous whimper, “When is it going to

“Myass is numb!”
I laugh. He laughs. We both laugh softly.
Then we’re both crying.
Then Jamie is smiling, reallysmiling. I’ve never seen such a

beautiful smile.
It’s inside of us both. “Do you feel it?”
He gasps, “Yes…”
“We’re one,” I cry, mylips crushing his. “We’re not two people

anymore. We’re one now.”
“I feel it,” Jamie nods, his eyes closed, his smile glorious. “This is what people want, Baby,” I whisper as our eyes touch

again. “This is what everyone wants, everyone on earth…this feeling we’re having right now…you and I...”
“Yes, I feel it.”
“God, how I love you.” I’ve never felt it or meant it more than I do at this moment.
I do…I love him…He surrounds me and warms me inside whether we’re fucking or not.
We had a long, good talk the other day. I told him mydarkest deeds, the shames that haunt me constantly.
And he didn’t jump out of the bed and run from me.
He stayed…and talked to me.
He told me God loves me.
And I cried, because all my life I’ve been lonely…I’ve been looking for someone to talk to…someone to reallytalk to me.
He doesn’t judge me. He’s not afraid of me.
That’s the bonus.
“I love you too, Tammy…I love you so much…” He reaches up and drops his little angel and the chain around his neck, and beams at it.
He loves me…

Tonight I’m in heat. My mouth waters as I look him up and down, my eyes moving slowly, deliberately over his body. He towers over me, strong, perfectly proportioned, with an imperious poise that belies the deep, hidden sweetness I know. He wears nothing except for a plain silver chain similar to the one he’s just given to me for Christmas, unadorned and masculine…absolutely perfect. I move close to him, take his hands in myown. “You’re so sexy,” I whisper, putting his hands on myass. Then I slip myarms up around his neck, pull him in for a hot kiss. Myeyes fasten to his erection and stay there until he’s driven to exclaim his embarrassment. “Hey! I’m up here!”

“Mmmmm, you’re down
here
too,” I moan softly, my hand wrapping around him.
He throws me onto the bed and we devour each other, rolling over and over like mud wrestlers, our hands everywhere, our tongues down each other’s throats. “I want your sweet ass,” he says, squeezing me. He spreads my legs wide, eats me, his tongue lashing deep and hot into my hole. I melt like lava, crying for mercy. “Please…oh God, please…Tammy…Tammy…”
He lets me up and I try to crawl away, but he leaps behind me, grabs me around the waist, rubs his hard length against me. “You want it doggystyle?” he gasps.
“No,” I whimper, unexpectedly ravenous for something forbidden, resting myelbows and chest against the bed and lifting myass. “Kittystyle! Do it!”
“Kittystyle! What’s
that
?”
“Bite me…Hold me down, bite the back of myneck…”
He lowers his face, nibbles me politely.
“Harder…bite harder….like you’re a big, mean tomcat and I’m your hot little pussy…” I purr and trill, rubbing myhead against his. “Please…fuck me…fuck me, Daddy…fuck my hole…fuck me like a beast…”
He groans, “I don’t want to hurt you…”
“Hurt me! Bite me!” I squeal desperately.
He indulges me, thrusting furiously, biting me and growling at me dangerously, sending shockwaves of delight shooting through me.
“God…this is hot…this is so hot,” he pants.
“Spank me!” I scream.
“Jamie…”
“Spank me,
please
! Spank me
hard
!”
He taps me gentlyon the fanny. “Harder!” I insist. “
Harder
!”
Slap!
his hand says against mypale skin…
Slap!
While the fingers of his left hand tangle into the sheets, his right hand lands hard and solid on me. The stinging impact of his hand, the hard, wet clamp of his teeth into the nape of myneck, the force of his thrusts, the friction of his cock as it scrapes against my G-spot…Oh, God…I spray all over the bed, screaming out my pleasure with embarrassing loudness and sending our poor, traumatized kids scurrying out from under my bed into another

throbbing bliss begins to ebb, it should be replaced by relaxation and a feeling of contentment. But it’s not. This time, my smiling face slowly metamorphoses into a grimace of the most profound shame, and I begin to cry, immediatelyrousing Tammy’s concern.

“What is it? Jamie? What’s wrong?!” He leaps off of me and kneels beside me. “Baby? What’s wrong?!”
I’m in a ball, my hands covering my eyes. “I can’t
believe
myself! I’m so dirty! I’m so disgusting!”
“Jamie!”
“I’m a disgusting, dirtyfreak!” I sob.
“You are not!” Tammy’s crying now.
I can’t help it. I can’t stop. I’m hysterical, hopeless, saturated with self-hate. I sob and sob and Tammydoes too.
“Jamie,
please
! Talk to me! What did I do? Did I do it wrong?”
“No!” I bawl. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m sorry! I’m fucked up! I’m perverted! I’m sick!”
“Whyare you saying this, Baby?
Why
?”
“Making you do that! Making you fuck me like we’re a couple of animals! Making you bite me, spank me…I’m disgusting!”
“Hey…come here.”
I unfurl myself and throw myarms around him. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
“Jamie.” He sounds like his heart is about to break. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Please listen to me.”
My sobs hitch and hiccup in my throat, I’m crying that hard. I hide my face against his neck. My tears roll down his chest, through the wiryhairs, salt rivers in a black forest.
“Listen, Jamie.”
I nod because I can’t speak.
“What we did just now…it was fun. I liked it.”
I shake my head. “It was dirty…I’m sick…” I would throw up all over him but there’s nothing to throw up.
“No, you’re
not
.”
My gag reflex spasms hard. My sobs haven’t subsided yet. Tammy’s fingers caress my scalp. He’s sitting Indian style with me in his lap. “Someone’s really hurt you, Jamie. Someone’s fucked you up…badly.”
“That’s what I mean!” I cry out against his throat. “I’m ruined! I’m a freak! I’m a pervert!”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying!” Tammy sighs loudly. “I’m saying someone has really made you ashamed of yourself. Someone’s hurt you so bad, Jamie. Please talk to me. Please tell me what theydid to you.”
“I can’t.”
“Please…”
“Tammy…don’t….”
I see her…looming over me with her lit cigarette. “You’re a dirty, nasty boy, Jamie. You’re so bad. What are we going to do with such a nasty, naughty boy?” A piece of hot ash lands on my thigh. It burns for a nanosecond, not nearly as hotly or as horribly as the end of her cigarette.
I’m screaming, “Please, no! Please don’t! Don’t do it, please! I’ll be good! I’ll be good!”
“Jamie!”
I feel the hot glow. “Please, Mommy! Please don’t do it! Please don’t do it!”
“Jamie!” Tammyshouts. “Jamie!”
I dissolve into a sobbing, soggy mess as Tammy frantically tries to extricate me from the memories I’m trapped in. They’re like quicksand.

This anguished, screeching, coiled wreck has replaced the wild, inventive tempter I was fucking onlya few minutes ago. I can’t understand it. It kills me.

He’s clearly having a panic attack or something. His screams sound as if they’re tearing his vocal cords apart.
I hold him. “Jamie, it’s Tam. I’m here…I’m here…Your Mom isn’t here. She’s not here. Come back…come back to me…It’s okay…It’s okay…”
Slowly, he comes back. But he huddles against me and cries, calling himself a freak, a pervert, a disgusting, sickening, dirtypig.
“Jamie,” I saysoftly. “Please, talk to me. Tell me what theydid to you. They hurt you so bad. I know it. Someone hurt you so bad. Was it your Mother? Did she hurt you?”
He won’t answer. After a long, long time, he lifts his head. “I’m sorry,” he sniffles, his eyes and nose bright red and running.
“You have nothing to be sorryabout. I just wish you would tell me what’s going on.”
He shakes his head. “It’s too horrible to talk about…”
“Don’t you think I’d understand, Jamie?”
He sobs, “It’s just too horrible…”
“Jamie,” I say gingerly. “What we did…I liked it. I thought it was hot. It was fun.”
His shame is killing him visually.
“Sometimes…trying new things makes it even more fun,” I whisper. “It was like a game. We were playing a game, that’s all. Lots of people play different ways when they have sex. It makes it

“Why?”
“Because...it felt so...good...”
“It was good.”
“I feel so dirty...”
“What’s wrong with feeling good, Jamie?”
“I don’t know... I reallyhave issues.”
I nod. “Yes, sir, you reallydo have issues.”
“I’m stupid, I know...”
“That’s not what I said! No, you’re not stupid!”
“It was fun,” he admits finally. “But it made me feel dirty.” “It made me feel dirtytoo,” I moan, “but in a good way.” He shudders. “It was gross.”
“No…it wasn’t gross. It was a really fun way to play. Sex is

I don’t believe he was a virgin now. I think he’s had a lover, and that his experience with that person has left him a mess. They used him and after they got their rocks off, whoever they are, they called him names. Maybe theyabused him in other ways too…

They made him so ashamed of himself that now he can’t even have fun.
I don’t want to make him even more a mess by voicing my opinion. If he wants me to believe he was a virgin that first night with me, I won’t derail that. And I’m not sure what his
Mother
has to do with all this, but she must have done something awful to him for him to have screamed bloody murder the way he did. I want him to talk to me, tell me about it.
But I can’t push him. I can onlywait.
“Discover yourself, Jamie,” I whisper against his hair as he clings to me. “Playwith me, and discover yourself. You’re not dirty. You’re not disgusting. You’re beautiful. You’re mine. I don’t ever want you to feel ashamed of yourself. I love you. God created sex. How can sexbe dirtyif God created it?”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God,” Jamie says, raising his head and smearing tears over his face.
“If I did, I certainlywouldn’t believe He made anything
dirty
.”
“Pastor used to say that God made sex only for people to procreate...that it’s a sin to do it...for fun...”
“Pastor Asshole?!” I roar, the very mention of His Holiness raising my hackles. “He is so full of
bullshit
! He’s a fucking hypocrite!”
“And that it’s a sin for two men to love each other.” “He’s myDad, you know…”
His eyes widen. “Your Dad is Pastor Sellers?”
“Yeah…He had an affair with myMom. She got pregnant. He didn’t leave his wife, but Mom never asked him to. All she ever asked him for was help raising me. But he didn’t give her a nickel, never wanted to see me, to get to know me, nothing. He pretends it never happened…He ignores me.”
There. Mypain is out.And now, maybe he’ll soften, open, like

“I can’t stand him,” I mumble.
“But it still hurts, doesn’t it?” He’s reading mymind again. “Yeah…it hurts. He is why I’m not a big fan of going to

church.” I sigh heavily. “You and I...we spent sixteen years alone, apart, unhappy, lonely. We punished ourselves when all we wanted was to be together. I used to swallow that crap, Jamie. I used to believe it was
wrong
to love you.
That’s
why I left!
That’s
whyI went awayand left you here alone. Because I was
ashamed
. I tried to like women. I
tried
. But all I wanted was
you.
I didn’t even want other
men
! Only you. And if that’s so wrong in God’s eyes...if you and I are supposed to go through life without love, if we’re supposed to be condemned to a miserable, lonely life...well, maybe I
don’t
believe in Him.”