River: A Bad Boy Romance (15 page)

“What type do I look like then?” River says, intrigued.

“I don't know”, Maddy says, “maybe a movie star. You're cocky enough for it.”

“Are you making jokes again?”

“I'm trying”, Maddy says.

“You've obviously never seen a cocky horse wrangler before”, River says.

“Not yet I haven't”, Maddy says.

At the bar, a fight breaks out, and the noise takes Maddy's attention away for moment. She watches someone throw a punch, collect one back in his gut, and then both of them get bundled outside by a bouncer as wide as a door.

“Why horses?” Maddy says, looking back at River again when the bar has calmed down.

“Because I ain't never had a better friend than a horse”, River says.

“That's sad”, Maddy says genuinely.

“No it isn't. The sad part was when he died.”

River takes a slug of his beer, and smoothes the ash off the cherry of his cigarette.

“How did that happen?” Maddy asks.

“You really want to know?”

“If you don't mind telling me.”

“I've never told anybody else this story in my whole life”, River says.

“What's better than starting with a stranger?” Maddy says diplomatically.

“We've got to trade. I'll tell you my secret, if you tell me one of yours.”

“I haven't got any”, Maddy says.

“You and I both know that's definitely not true”, River says.

“Alright”, Maddy says. “I'll tell you a secret that no-one else knows.”

River takes another slug of his beer, looks around to make sure nobody's looking, clears his throat and leans in towards Maddy. It is the most uncomfortable, unsure of himself, she remembers ever seeing him.

“I didn't have any friends when I was a kid”, he says. “My brothers were older than me by eight and eleven years, and when I was growing up they didn't want to be anywhere near me. I wasn't cool. I had buck teeth, big ears and a bad haircut, and believe it or not, I was never as stylish then as I am now. My parents didn't have much money, and what they did have, my dad spent on alcohol. Needless to say there wasn't much left over to pay for a haircut or a decent outfit for a mistake like me to knock about in. My dad made sure I knew about that too, about how they'd be alright if I hadn't have come along out of the blue to ruin it. Anyway, one day I was out walking the trail that runs round the back of our shitty parcel of land, crying for some reason or another about some shit that he'd said or done to me, and I found this horse just standing there in the middle of the grass minding his own business like some sort of ghost. I'd never seen him before, and I couldn't for the life of me work out where he'd come from. There was a farmhouse about two miles away, but he definitely wasn't from there, and he didn't seem to belong to anybody else as far as I could tell. It seemed like he'd come on his own and didn't have anybody else to answer to. I liked that. I must have been about nine years old, and I just stopped in the middle of the trail and stared at this big old beast with my mouth open in amazement, while he stared right back at me, black as the night, with a white streak across his belly and eyes like rocks of coal. Lightning I called him because of that streak, and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. Probably that I ever would see. Every day that summer I'd follow the trail, and every day without fail, Lightning would be there waiting for me. I rode him too, even though I had no idea what the hell I was doing, not that that bothered either of us. It took me a while to get up on him, standing first on the side of a fence, but when I was up, it was like we'd been riding together for years. I didn't fall off once. I spent the whole summer hanging out with him, telling him about my shitty life and sharing all of my stupid problems with him, and that horse just lapped it all up like it meant nothing. Like he was put on this earth just to listen to me and be my friend. He never once told me I was a piece of shit or beat me to the ground for just being there, he just looked at me with his big beautiful mud black eyes and told me without saying it that he understood the pain I was going through, and what's more he'd get me through it. I spent more time with that horse that summer than anyone else I ever have in my whole life since, and just for a while he made my life alright. He came to me right when I needed a friend, and then went right out again, just like that.”

River takes a pull of his cigarette and a slug of beer.

“He left?” Maddy says.

“He didn't leave. My dad shot him.”

Maddy doesn't know what to say. River continues.

“One day I went up to the trail, and he was just lying there in the grass bleeding from this big shotgun wound in his gut. I ran to him, and he was still alive when I got there, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't save him. I just held his head and stroked his nose and watched the life go right on out of his eyes. For all the shit that happened to me, that was the saddest thing I ever saw. A beautiful animal dying right there in front of me whose only crime was making a nine year old boy happy for the first time in his pitiful, sorry excuse of a life.”

“Oh my God, that's awful. I'm so sorry”, Maddy says.

“Yeah, so was I. Nobody has ever loved me like Lightning did, and I don't think I've ever been close to loving anyone like I did him. That experience kind of fucked up my perspective on things.”

“Why did your dad shoot him?”

River pauses a moment before he answers. Customers pass the table and the music goes on.

“Because the horse made me happy, and he couldn't”, River says eventually. “How fucked up is that?”

River finishes the last pull of his cigarette and turns it into dust in the ashtray, pressing it much harder than necessary to put it out. They sit in silence for a while as the story sinks in. The first time for Maddy and another time remembering the horror of it for River. After a while River gets up.

“I'm getting a beer”, he says. “You want one?”

Maddy still has beer in her bottle, but she nods anyway, because she thinks she should.

When River comes back from the bar, he puts the new bottles on the table.

“You know”, he says. “I feel like dancing. You want to dance with me?”

“I don't know how”, Maddy says.

“Then we can learn together”, River says and takes her arm.

“What about the beers?” Maddy asks. “And my secret?”

“They'll wait”, River says, and leads Maddy to the dance floor.

If anything, the music has become even more intense. There are several people on what would normally just be the space in between the bar and the tables, throwing their bodies around without any perceivable order or rhythm. It looks more like fitting than dancing, and Maddy begins to have doubts. She pulls River's arm back and it jerks him out of his stride.

“What's wrong, Princess?” he asks her.

“I can't dance like that”, she says.

“That isn't dancing”, River says, “and we're not going to do it like that anyway.”

“How are we going to do it?” Maddy says, a little scared of the chaos going on all around her. She's tightened up, and River can tell.

“Like this”, he says, and pulls her towards his chest. He puts one arm around her waist, and holds her hand with his, so they look like they're about to tango.

“Loosen up”, River says.

“I don't know what I'm doing”, Maddy says.

“You think anyone in the world knows what they're doing when they dance?”

“Yes”, Maddy says. “Most people.”

“Well forget all about those people, because they're the ones that ain't having any fun”, River says.

River begins to move her slowly, letting his own rhythm run through his body. They are the only two people on the dance floor, perhaps in the history of dance itself, attempting to slow dance to thrash metal, and it's getting people's attention.

“People are looking at us”, Maddy says.

“Let them look”, River says. “Don't worry about them. Close your eyes if you have to.”

Slowly, Maddy begins to let the movement of River's hips guide her. They step out into the middle of the dance floor, bodies pressed together as one. She feels her shoulders loosening up in his arms, and something inside her begins to awaken. She can't stand the music, nor can she understand why it's considered music at all, but it's definitely doing something to her. It's making her feel something inside. That and being this close to someone. She hates to admit it to herself, but she's enjoying this. She closes her eyes and rests her head on River's chest, and River guides her gently, moving his hips in a rhythm that either he's somehow able to find in the wall of noise surrounding him, or one that his body naturally beats to. Either way, being held like this, and moved like this, is making her feel safe and anonymous, in a situation that she would normally perceive as neither one of those things. All of a sudden, one of the more energetic dancers bumps violently into the back of River and nearly knocks them both over. He's a big, menacing looking guy, with tattoos across his face and chest.

“Get the fuck out of the way. This isn't a fucking ballroom”, he barks at them, ready to insist in a much more violent manner if they refuse.

“Are you alright, Princess?”, River asks.

Maddy nods, back very much in the real world again, her tiny short-lived bubble now punctured. She can feel the mounting tension in the room as River and the violent dancer eyeball each other.

“You want to dance like fairies, fuck off somewhere else to do it”, the tattooed man says.

River's hand goes quickly to the back of his jeans, but Maddy is even quicker. She catches his forearm and River freezes when he feels her there, surprised by her response time.

“Let's go”, Maddy whispers to him, “it isn't worth it. I'm ok, really.”

“I was enjoying that dance”, River says, his eyes still fixed on the giant of a man in front of him.

“Well fucking enjoy it somewhere else”, he says.

“River”, Maddy says, and eventually he relents, letting her lead him away, while the tattooed man goes back to his violent body jerks, bumping into everyone and anyone he can find. Maddy leads them to the back of the room, past the table with their beers on it, and into an empty space, so far away from the bar and the music, that no-one is using it, and it's highly unlikely anyone will. There, Maddy pulls River towards her and makes him embrace her again. River wastes no time in returning to the rhythm they were working towards before they were violently bumped off the dance floor, while Maddy rests her head back on his chest and closes her eyes, looking for that bubble once more.

“No-one will bother us here”, she says.

“I hope not”, River says, rocking her gently, hugging her much more than dancing with her. It's a distinction that Maddy isn't bothered by. She's not been hugged like this for as long as she can remember, and she'd forgotten how good it feels.

“I want to tell you my secret”, Maddy says.

“I think you already have”, River says, stroking her hair in such a natural way, that neither of them have consciously noticed him doing it.

Maddy pulls away from him a little, so she can look up into his eyes. She can feel tingles racing around the inside of her belly as he smiles back at her. “Is it that obvious, or are you just much more perceptive than everyone else?”

River holds her wrist, making circles there with his thumb.

“Maybe I just know what I'm looking for”, River says.

He moves his other hand down to the back of her head so he can cup her neck, and leans in towards her. Whatever it is she is about to say, gets lost forever on River's lips, as he presses them softly against hers, and kisses her deeply and passionately, biting her lip gently before he finally pulls away. Maddy has her eyes closed and her head tilted back slightly. She moves her tongue slowly across her lower lip, as though picking up sugar left by a sticky doughnut, and then bites it again herself. She opens her eyes.

“You probably shouldn't have done that”, she says, her heart beating wildly now, and the tingles moving from her belly out across her whole body. River's hands on her skin, both at the back of her neck and on her wrist, feel electric.

“You're probably right”, River says, “but then there's a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't do, and still do because it feels right.”

Maddy is excited and she can't hide it. Her breath has shortened, her hands are trembling slightly, and her heart is beating so fiercely that if it wasn't for the music, the whole bar would be able to hear it.

“Kiss me again, and then take me home before I change my mind”, Maddy says, pulling River back towards her.

This time when he kisses her, she makes sure she kisses him back, opening her mouth a little and allowing their tongues to touch. When they do, and she nibbles the end of his gently, she feels a sensation build inside her, that she'd forgotten existed at all.

Nothing has ever felt as urgent. They are barely back in the motel room, before Maddy has ripped off his shirt, and allowed him to guide her to the bed. Insisted he take her there. She has lived her whole life in regimented order, taking calculated risks only when she has had to, and never being spontaneous and living in the moment, and there is no way she's going to allow herself to do that now. No fucking way. If there is one thing the last twelve hours has taught her, it's that life is short and unpredictable, and that you better enjoy it while you can, because if you don't, and you spend that time worrying about things instead, what the hell is the point?

Clothes give way to skin, perfect, delicate, soft and supple skin, as River warms her whole body with carefully placed kisses, and pulls her into him. She has never felt so free, so able to let herself go, nor so desperate to do so. She runs her hands through his hair, gripping it tightly to remind herself he's real, and bites his neck softly, much more softly this time than she did in the stolen car this morning. She needs him and feels needed by him in return, and can't wait any longer. She reaches down, excited by what she finds there, and slowly but urgently, guides him inside her. The pleasure is so immediate and the relief so immense, she can't help but cry with joy.