Page 93 of Open Water

He closed his eyes, his face scrunched up with the strain and emotion of it all.

I kissed him. Kissed every little inch until his face was blissed out and relaxed again. Wet with my spit and his tears and our mouths fused in a kiss that seemed never-ending.

Until I let go. Until I pulled out and slammed right back home. Until I fucked him so hard that I think I lost consciousness when I finally came. My mind all lost in blackness and static and my voice echoing through the darkness of the room. I have no idea what I was shouting. I have no idea why I was crying. Only that there was so much shit in my chest that I needed to get out and he was right there. That he was hurting, and I was hurting because he was hurting, and I didn’t know what to do to make it better more than fucking him.

So, I fucked him. Again, and again until I couldn’t come anymore. Until our bed was a mess of sex and sweat and bodies. Until he was asleep in my arms. The sun was just rising over the city outside the open window in our basement room. The breeze from outside kissing our skin with cool air.

He was a wealthy man. Well, wealthy was probably the wrong word, but he had shit. He had all these papers lying on the kitchen table upstairs, spelling it out in black and white. That the Uncle who abandoned him in a hospital bed had died a few years back and had weirdly left him everything. Another human being who had passed away alone, with no one in his life to remember him. No one to grieve for him.

It had been such a waste and fuck human beings. Fuck them all. Matteo had nothing and this dude, fuck him, had nothing either. I mean, what was the point of living like he must have with no one to share it with? Just dying, leaving it all to someone you had never even met?

Dad had said the word. Guilt. Matteo had raged. Lukas had hugged him. I had bitten the inside of my mouth until it bled.

Matteo wanted to donate it all to charity. Lukas had grunted. Dad had smiled. I had banged my head against the kitchen table.

I don’t know why this is all coming back to me now, when I am lying here with him naked against my chest, only that I know what he felt like that day. I know that what I did was right. That I gave him what he needed just like Matteo is giving me what I need right now.

I need to feel like I am his. Like there is nothing else in this world that will ever matter as long as we are together like this. Him against me. My legs lifting up, so I can wrap them around him. His mouth on mine.

I need things to be fine, even when they are clearly not. I am heading into the eclipse of this episode, fluttering in and out of being too filled with angst and worry to function. To thinking I am fine. To hoping that it is over. To realising that it is not. I am not fine. I am a mess. They are calling it Exhaustion Syndrome this time and I am all over the place. My head is screaming. Everything is too loud. Everything is shattering around me, glass splintering into pieces, drowning my thoughts out with the shards hitting the floor all around me.

Then, he presses into me, and he gives me exactly what I need. The pressure. The pain. The feeling of him filling me up inside, until my body stops screaming with everything being too much.

It’s not too much. It’s just right. Dulling the voices and the noises and the emotions and filling my head with the sharpness and the sting I need to see things clearly.

So, I look up. Open my eyes and look into his eyes on top of me. His body covering mine, his cock rocking carefully inside of me. His eyes pinned on mine with his hair framing his face like a messy halo.

“Let me make you forget,” he whispers. “Let me take you away with me for a little while. Let me fuck you until you forget everything. Let’s just be. You and me. This. This right here. Stay with me, Pumpkin.”

“I’m right here,” I whisper back.

“I know you are,” he says, letting his hips escalate the movements. Pulling out. Pushing in. Sliding in and out of me, switching on all those little nerve endings inside me, one by one.

“Take me with you,” I whisper. I don’t know what I mean, but I know he does. He gets me. He always does.

“I’m taking you with me,” he replies, with that little smile of his. “I’m gonna fuck you until I am almost there, then I’ll jerk you off and make you come all over this beautiful chest of yours, and when you do, I’m gonna come so damn hard. I’m gonna fill you up with my come and make sure that you know that you are mine. Mine. My Pumpkin.” His voice is slurring a little. Late night and the beers from the party and the music no doubt still ringing in his ears.

There are a million things I could say back. I could bitch a little about him going out with his friends when I am at home in bed, too fucked in the head to even get dressed. I could whine about being jealous. I could tell him I want him never ever to leave our bed ever again. I could easily flip him over and ride him whilst I jerk off all over him. I would as well, just to enjoy the rare view of his gorgeous chest on display beneath me as I paint his scars with my come.

I do neither. Because there is nothing I can do right now apart from hold on as he fucks me into oblivion. Until he has me blabbering and crying and slobbering over my hand, biting down on my fingers as my hips arch and my legs are shaking and his grip on my cock is like a damn vice, making sloppy sounds with all the lube he uses, as I lose consciousness for a few blissed-out seconds. The world goes dark around me, and everything just stops.

And he is right there. Kissing me right through it as his own body tenses, riding himself through his orgasm as he fills me up. I can feel it. The pulse of him inside me even though I am barely there.

“I’m right here,” he whispers into my mouth.

“So am I,” I say back.

We are right here. Right where we need to be.

Several years later

“Was machen Sie den alle hier auf einem Deutchen Friedhof?”

The lady must be in her eighties, at least, hunched over with her hair tidily tucked under a headscarf, curiously surveying the scene in front of her. Yeah. There are eight of them. And yes, they are all family, and yes, they are brilliant, and the babies are so cute. No, they are not twins. Ellie is almost two even though she is small for her age and Christian is three months old. Yes, it’s crazy, and yes, taking a three-month-old to Berlin on a long weekend staying in a dodgy AirBnB. (It’s actually not dodgy at all and Tom would quite happily stay for a week.)

“Wie alt?” she asks, reaching out and stroking the soft curls on Robin’s head. Robin, who is still clinging to Tom like he does. His knuckles turning white with the effort of holding on as Tom gently holds him close.

“Acht,” Tom replies in his best school German. He’s fucked. At least, he has managed to get the hang of ordering “Milchkaffee” in the cafés, which is a vast improvement on having to live off lattes. And when he thinks about it, he is quite proud. He understood that.

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