Promise Me (14 page)

I pretended to pout.  “I was only going for the first part of that equation.” 

He ran a hand over my right breast, his voice husky.  “You’re gonna be a big goddamn surprise every day, aren’t you?”

“I’ll try,”
I whispered, reaching up and kissing his neck. 

We stayed in Quartzsite, eating at a small restaurant off the I-10.  It felt really sweet, sitting across from him, eating grilled cheese sandwiches. 

“You know,” I said, pouring catsup on my fries.  “This is kind of my first date.”

He seemed charmed.  “You’re to
o damn cute.”  He watched me for a while, alternately picking at his sandwich and trifling with the tiny bottle of tabasco sauce, which was a condiment staple in the southwest.  He seemed bothered by something. 

“Gray?”
  His dark eyes found mine and I frowned.  “What are you thinking?”

He sighed and reached across the table, taking my small hands in his large ones.  “It hasn’t been very long, Promise,” he said gently. 

I took my hands away and stared out the window.  “Twenty four days,” I said grimly.   

He
quickly got up and came around the side of the booth, settling beside me and tilting my face toward him. “Hey, don’t pull away from me.  I meant every goddamn word I said to you.  I just want you to know that nothing would fucking shock me.  You can tell me anything.”

I
felt him surround me and was coaxed back, leaning into the safety of his arms.  “He hurt me, Gray.”

“I know
, sweetheart.”

“No.”
I shook my head. Grayson had seen the awful bruises.  He had seen me cry.  But the worst of it was what he couldn’t see. I wanted him to understand and yet I didn’t.  “I mean he
hurt
me.  I felt filthy.  I hated myself.”

Tears fell from my cheeks.  The waitress, a tired middle aged woman, waddled over to fill our water glasses.  “Everything okay?”
she asked, noticing my distressed face and peering at Grayson with suspicion. 

“We’re fine,” I told her curtly.  She shrugged and shuffled away.

Grayson gently massaged my shoulder, speaking softly in my ear.  “I know what rage comes from being wronged.  It does shit to you.  If you let it.  I spent six years trying to not be swallowed by the dark hole.”  He hugged me. “Nothing is gonna get you, Promise.” 

I smiled tearfully.  “You won’t let it.” 

“No, you won’t let it, baby.”  He kissed my forehead, then moved to my lips.  “But I’ll be next to you the whole time.”  His hand moved up and down my back and a fierce rush of feeling overcame me.   A need to be closer.

I jumped
into his lap with a cry.  “Grayson! I want you so bad.” 

“
Dammit, I want you too,” he whispered and kissed me with full, hard passion.  When we pulled apart briefly I noticed every one of the other scattered patrons were staring at us.  Some looked interested, others embarrassed.  Our waitress crossed her arms behind the counter and glared at us with open disgust.  Gray withdrew a handful of bills from his wallet and threw it on the table, pulling me out of the booth. 

“Come on,” he said, his words laden with meaning.  “Let’s go home.”

When we pulled up, Rachel was kneeling in front of her trailer.  It looked like she was potting another succulent cactus.  She watched us as we walked past but seemed to realize we needed each other and some quiet.  She blew me a soft kiss and I put my hand over my heart. 

Grayson had lifted his shirt off before we reached the
door of his trailer.  He held the door open for me but I hung back, responding to the question in his eyes by lifting my own shirt slowly over my head.  I stood in front of him in my bra, feeling bold and empowered there under the brutal desert sun.  He stared at me silently but the lust in his eyes said everything.  Only then did I take the invitation and step into the old trailer. 

 
After he closed the door I backed away from him, reaching behind my back and unhooking my bra myself.  He unzipped his pants and withdrew his swollen organ, stroking himself as he watched me. 

“Let me see you,” he demanded in a thick voice. 

I let my bra fall to the floor and then unzipped my shorts, pushing them down my hips with my underwear.  Gray stroked himself more rapidly as I ran my hands along my belly. 

“Do it,” h
e begged.  “Touch yourself, honey.”

When I reached between my legs he groaned loudly and had to brace one hand on the wall
for support.  Seeing him reach the height of desire made me want him more.  I dipped a finger into that moist slit and heard my own moan as that warm center opened and pleaded to be dealt with and quickly. 

“Gray,” I implored, “I need you inside me.” 

“You need me to fuck you, huh?” 

“Yes. 
I need you.  I need your dick.”  I didn’t feel strange saying it anymore.   

He smiled.  “Oh, you’
ll fucking have it all right.  In a minute.  Reach deeper, Promise.  Really feel yourself.”  

I’d become familiar with the
approach.  I was getting close. 

“Gray!” I cried. 

“I know, Promise.  I’m almost there too.” 

He moved decisively, reaching me in a heartbeat, lifting me against the nearest wall and driving
himself inside.  I reached the peak immediately, as if all those beseeching internal nerves were awaiting this intrusion. 

“Harder!” I yelled and he gave me what I wanted.

“Shit, I love you!” he yelled back, climaxing with intensity.  

I whimpered against his shoulder, my legs gone to jelly, as
his hot seed released and partly spilled down my legs.  I had to drape myself over him in order to avoid falling to the floor. 

Grayson picked me up and carried me to the bed.  I smiled at him as he settled me on the pillows.  I gently touched his face which was still slightly swollen from the punch he’d taken the night before. 

“Does it always get better every time?” I asked sleepily.

“With you,” he kissed me, “yes.”

I closed my eyes as he covered me gently.  “I love you, Grayson.”

***

It had been early, still light, when I fell asleep.  And Gray wasn’t beside me when I woke up.  Instinct and a peek at the black sky told me the hour was somewhere deep in the night, nowhere near morning. 

I rolled over on the crisp sheets, loving the way they felt against my naked body.  After a moment I sat up and listened to the mix of voices and filtering out of the bar.  The blend of coarse laughter and music made me strangely excited and I reveled in it for a moment.  This was my world now.  Grayson was my world now. 

The trailer rang with the peculiar stillness of empty space.  I wrapped myself in the sheet and got a drink of water, wonderi
ng if he’d gone over to the bar. 

There was a half moon in the sky, enough
light for me to discern his shape just outside the trailer. He was sitting on one of the spools, alone, seemingly lost in thought. 

He raised his head when I gently pushed the door open.  “Hey, angel.”

I slid into his lap.  “What are you doing out here?”

Gray rubbed my back.  “Just thinking.  Sometimes at night the quiet gets me.  You know how fucking loud it is in a prison?  
Something is always crashing. Someone is always screaming.  Not hearing it anymore is almost unreal.  It seemed that’s what night was supposed to sound like.  Six years, Promise.  Almost a quarter of my life.”  He coughed.  “Jesus, it was ugly.” 

I kissed his cheek and he smiled vaguely
, looking a bit lost.  I wasn’t the only one fighting battles in my head.  Memories.  Regrets.  The pain of powerlessness. 

“Are you happy here?”  I asked.  It was an honest question and I didn’t mean for it to have anything to do with me. 

Gray nodded thoughtfully.  “Yes.  There’s nothing for me out there, Promise. I figured that out long before my time was up.”  He gestured affectionately, encompassing the Riverbottom, the circle of trailers, the Defiant clubhouse where Orion lived with Kira.  “This is my chance at a family.  Because I lost mine.” 

“I want to be your family.”

“You already are, sweetheart.”  His hand traveled underneath the sheet, touching me gently.  “Listen to that,” he said, jerking his head toward the brush beyond the wash. 

“Coyotes?” I guessed.   There was a music to their yips, a purposeful exchange which we weren’t meant to understand. 

“Coyotes,” he confirmed.  “Did you know that in spite of urban growth coyote populations are at an all time high throughout North America?  You know why?  Most adaptable fucking species ever lived.”  He pointed into the darkness.  “There.  Circled about thirty yards out.  Watching, thinking. They’re talking about us.” 

I let my head fall on his shoulder.  I breathed in his warm, musky scent.  “I’ve got to get her out of there.” 

“Jenny?”

“Jenny.”  Even saying her name hurt. 
“They’re heavily armed, Gray, both in Jericho Valley and across the state line in Utah where she’s probably being kept.”  I’d already relayed the puzzling information I’d discovered about the Faithful Cooperative. 

Gray nodded
thoughtfully.  “And there’s a shitload of money behind them, no matter what kind of evil they’re into.  Which is how they’ve been able to get away with their fucking garbage this long.  Those sons of bitches sitting on it are just as guilty.  But make no mistake, they’ll kill to keep the green train going.” 

“Orion said something similar.”

“Yeah, Orion may seem like a gorilla but he knows his shit.” 

I needed him to hold me tighter.  “Gray?  Promise me we’ll try?”

He kissed me and leaned into my neck, whispering fiercely.  “I promise.”

It was Sunday and Kira had the id
ea that we should cook a big dinner. 

“We’ll force all the men to sit around the table and put fucking napkins in their laps.  They’ll have to use forks.  It’ll be some real Norman Rockwell shit,” she said, clapping her hands. 

Rachel rolled her eyes.  “Since when is that your thing?” she asked. 

Kira touched her stomach.  “Since I’m becoming domesticated.”  She grinned at me. “I puked this morning,” she said proudly.

“That’s…great,” I told her, sprawled on the floor of her bedroom and thumbing through an ancient copy of
The Household Searchlight Recipe Book. 
I’d picked it up on a visit to the place Kira affectionately called ‘The Naked Bookstore’.  It had been startling to see the wizened soul who puttered around the dusty shop with nothing but a pouch around his manhood, but he was intelligent, kind, and eager to help. 

The interior of the book’s front cover was signed ‘Opal Meyer, October 1941’. I to
uched the thin pages with careful fascination, wondering about the woman the book had belonged to.  She was almost certainly long dead.  There were many quaintly named recipes inside, like ‘Corn-Meal Ice-Box Rolls’ and ‘Sweet Milk Waffles’. 

After some back and forth we decided to make roasted rosemary chicken, glazed carrots, and baking powder biscuits.  A couple of handwritten pages
had fallen out of the cookbook; dessert recipes written in a woman’s spidery hand and near to separating at the page creases. Kira said it was a sign. And so dessert was planned as ‘Cherry Nut Cake’ and ‘Dead Man’s Bones’, which seemed to be a type of cookie.  

Rachel noted my dreaminess as we took to the kitchen. 

“Missing him?” she teased, smacking me lightly on the rear end. 

“Always,” I sighed.  Grayson had been gone before I woke up this morning, over in Blythe with Brandon
until evening; they were laying some tile in a remodeled Taco Bell. As I’d opened my eyes, I noticed on the pillow next to me sat a tiny, baying coyote created from an artfully folded piece of paper. I remembered what Gray had said about coyotes being unusually adaptive.  I wondered if that was why he’d left it for me. 

I
had stared at the origami animal for a long time, touching the folds with my fingertip.  Then I set it down gently and watched the ceiling for a while, recalling how he’d awakened me hours earlier.  The feel of his tongue between my legs had caused me to gasp clear out of a dream.  It was quick when he entered me, so seamless I might have imagined it.   But as I watched the morning light grow on brighter on the opposite wall I still felt the unmistakable stickiness of his climax between my thighs. 

As I stood in Kira’s kitchen chopping sprigs of fresh rosemary I knew I was blushing. Rachel nodded sagely. 

“That’s how it is,” she said with a knowing smile. “That’s how you know.” 

Kira was interested.  She relished any opportunity to talk about sex.  “
Show of hands if you love it best on top.”  She raised hers and sighed. “Ah, to be the rider, the fucker instead of the fuckee.”

Rachel poked me with a wooden spoon.  “This one came here a tight-lipped little virgin.  Wouldn’t know it, would you?”

“Hey,” Kira threw a lemon at my cousin.  “Just takes the right man to wake you up.” 

“That it does,” I said softly. 

Loud laughter echoed from just outside the room.

“Orion!” Kira yelled.  “
Shit, are you listening?”

Orion Jackson walked into the kitchen, managing to take up a considerable portion of the room.  He lit a cigarette and casually inhaled. 

Kira tried to pluck it out of his hands.  “You shouldn’t smoke those anymore.” 

He held it out of her reach.  “My house, darlin’.  My fucking way. Always.”   

She scowled.  “What were you doing lurking out there anyway?”

Orion shrugged.  “I always want to hear how the ladies want it.”  He moved in on Kira.  “You know how I love that kind of talk.”  He played with the strap of her shirt.  I looked away.  Orion was a little too gruff.  He made me nervous.  Kira, however, giggled and preened under his touch. 

He turned his attention to me.
“So little girl, what do you hear from the old folks at home?”

“Nothing,
nothing at all,” I stammered.

Orio
n nodded.  “Good.  Let’s keep the fucking crazy away.”  He peered in the sink at the dead chicken, a distasteful look on his face.  “What the hell are you gonna do with that?”

Kira shoved him.  “It’s dinner, asshole.  And you’
ll eat it and be grateful.”  She managed to pluck the cigarette out of his hand and extinguished it on the counter, giving him a triumphant grin. 

He pointed a finger at her.  “Yeah, you won that one.  Now keep your hot little ass in the kitchen until I’ve got some food on my table.”  His booted feet started to walk heavily away. 

“Love you!” Kira called. 

“
Love you too, pussycat.”  He walked out the front door.

Rachel laughed at all of us and rinsed off the chicken. 

Kira was unhappy with the cookies when they came out of the oven.  “They’re ugly,” she complained. 

“I guess there’s a reason they’re called ‘Dead Man’s Bones’,” I shrugged. 

The cake, however, looked lovely.  I mixed the cherry sauce and set it aside to warm on a back burner while Kira searched for a place to hide the cake from Brandon or whoever else might wander in.

Rachel pulled me back to her trailer and plied me with one
of her old pageant dresses.  “You’ve got the figure,” she said, laying the dress across me approvingly.  “I think you’re ready to flaunt it.” 

It was deep cerul
ean blue, low cut with a rhinestone studded bodice.  A slit was cut provocatively up the side to the upper thigh. 

“Holy shit,” she winked when I slipped it on.  “Gray’s gonna bang you on the spot, hon.” 

Rachel curled my hair so that it fell in soft ringlets and then squeezed into a tight, strapless red gown as she fluffed her black hair around her face.   She looked like a movie star. 

I told her so and she kissed me on the cheek.  “Would you be a love and go find my man?  He’s probably in the bar, still going over accounts in the office.  Tell him I’m waiting.”   Rachel settled on the bed, crossing her long legs. 

I didn’t see Casper at first when I walked into Riverbottom.  The bar was closed on Sundays but that didn’t stop Teague from drinking himself into a stupor at a dirty table. 

He didn’
t look up when I walked in.  He was clenching and unclenching his left hand in an odd, intense way.  Teague was in the habit of avoiding me, rarely even nodding an acknowledgement.   I thought he seemed a little sad, morose, but Kira laughed when I told her that. She said he was just a ‘shit bastard’ who hated happiness.

I cleared my throat.  “Hi.”

He poured another shot of Jack Daniels from the bottle and downed it.  “Yeah, I fucking saw you.” 

I clasped my hands behind my back.  “You know, we’re having dinner at the house in a little while.  I hope you’ll come.”

He shot me a look which was either incredulous or disgusted.  “Well, shit. You kids will just have to play house without me.”

Kira might have been ri
ght about him.  “Fine.  Have you seen Casper?”

“CAS!”  Teague bellowed. 

Casper rolled out of the dark hallway, cursing and kicking a batch of loose papers.  He picked up a wad and shook it at me.  “It’s like they fucking cover it with maple syrup and wipe their dicks with it.” 

I had no idea what to make of that statement. “Rachel wants you.”

His mood abruptly altered.  He dropped the papers on the floor and took his shirt off, revealing an impressively muscular torso with a giant skull tattoo on his back.  “I’m gonna go see my lady,” he slapped Teague on the shoulder and left the building. 

“Fucking dog to the pussy,” Teague shook his head.  He glanced up at me.  “
Why the hell are you still here?” 

“Is it hard to be this goddamn miserable?” I asked him, crossing my arms.

He stared at me icily until I shuffled with discomfort and then he burst into ribald laughter.  Teague finally shook his head and kicked a foot up on the table.  “I hear your man coming,” he grumbled, pouring himself another shot. 

I heard it too.  The low buzz of approaching bikes.  I turned around and walked outside.

“Hey Promise,” Teague called.  When I turned around he looked me in the eye for the first time.  “You look like a real woman now.” 

Gray and Brandon were coasting down the road toward the Riverbottom.  I saw G
ray’s grin as he spotted me.  I leaned against the building, letting the slit in my dress fall open enough to show my full leg.  I knew the effect would be seductive. 

Grayson stared at me hotly for a minute after he’d parked his bike and turned off the engine.  I waited, running my hands along the bodice of the dress, remembering how it had felt to stand naked in front of him and push my hand inside my own body. 

“Hey, baby,” he said softly, climbing off his bike. 

I reached for him, clasping my arms around his neck. 

“Wait,” he laughed.  “I’m all sweaty and shit.” 

“I like you all sweaty and shit.” 

He ran his fingers through the fancy curls in my red hair.  Then he raised his eyebrows and irritably spoke to someone at my back. 

“Can I help you?”

Brandon stood right behind me, a grin splitting the middle of his hairy face as he looked me up and down. 

“I want one,” he complained. 

“She’s not a fucking puppy, Brandon!”

Brandon
withdrew, sulking. 

“
Hey,” I called to him.  “Dinner’s almost ready.  We made dessert too.” 

Brandon
was pleased.  “I’m all over that shit,” he said, heading toward the house. 

Gray took my hands lightly in his. “I’m gonna go shower first.”  He winked.  “I don’t want to fuck up your fine outfit.” 

“Oh please,” I responded mildly, “fuck me up.” 

“I will, babe
,” he assured me, backing up with a grin, “I’ve got plans for you tonight.” 

“The right man,” I muttered under my breath, remembering my conversation in the kitchen with Kira. 

Dinner was a loud and raucous affair with a lot of good natured profanity and cheerfully bad manners.  Kira’s plans for napkins and fine dining was thrown out with a hand wave from Orion.  She didn’t seem to mind.  She curled into his lap and nibbled on a carrot stick. 

Orion ran his hands over her legs.  “I remember this dress,” he said in a husky voice.  It was a short black number which clung to her everywhere it counted. 

She tossed back her blonde hair and grinned at him meaningfully.  “You damn well better.” 

Brandon was explaining Maddox’s absence to me.  “He took a ride out to Phoenix.  Chasing some hot college snatch he met at a gas station where she stopped on her way to ASU.  These little Cali girls go big for bike dick.”  He winked at Kira.  She flipped him off.   

I took a drink of Gray’s beer.  “Well, I hope he gets it.” 

Brandon looked at me blankly. 

“
The snatch,” I clarified.

Brandon laughed.  “
He always does.” 

Gray’s hand rested lightly on my thigh much of the time, a gesture of sweet possession. 
He kept shooting fervent sidelong looks my way.  I was glad I had let Rachel talk me into wearing the dress.  It was dizzying, knowing how much he wanted me. 

Sometimes I observed
Casper and Rachel with fascination.  They weren’t as provocative as Kira and Orion, who often seemed like they were one zipper tug away from going at it in front of a crowd.  I had never heard Rachel say the word ‘love’ when she was talking to or about Casper, but the depth of feeling between them was palpable.  He rubbed her back and gazed at her with almost shining worship and she leaned over and nuzzled him, kissing his jaw as if she knew his thoughts and appreciated them.

It was all so different from the cold manners of my own parents.  My father would pass his obligatory nights in my mother’s house
in quiet politeness.  Once Jenny and I were tucked in they would retreat to their neighboring bedroom.  I would try not to hear the sounds of what went on in there.  Sex had always been an obscure mystery to me, just something to be endured. 

I watched
Grayson as he and Casper joked across the table about prison food.  Apparently the fare left a lot to be desired.  His hand idly rubbed my thigh and I placed my own hand over his, pressing firmly as I slid his hand casually upward.  He noticed, shifting in his seat and raising his eyebrows at me.  I bit my lip and smiled, letting him know that I couldn’t wait to be alone with him.  Gray leaned over and kissed me full on the lips and I flung my arms around him, loving that he did impulsive things like that.