Page 53 of Pieces of Ash
That’s me.
That’s me on the fucking screen doing things normal people wouldn’t make their fucking dogs do.
And I’m not evengettinga fix when the horror is over. There are no drugs. There is no wine. I’m doing the show sober. I’m standing in the fucking shower until the water runs from red to pink, aching in places I didn’t know existed while I pray I’m dead before tomorrow.
Except I can’t make that prayer.
I can’t fucking die.
If I die, what’ll happen to the kid?
The fucking kid.
The fucking stone around my neck.
The fucking bane of my fucking existence.
I fucking hate her. I hate her.
I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER. I HATE HER.
I FUCKINGHATEHER.
Chapter 11
Julian
Noelle texts me at five o’clock on Friday evening to say she’s on her way down, and I tell her to drive safe. It’s only a forty-five-minute drive at most, so she’ll be here soon.
I’ve finished the vase I was working on this week, plus a set of four stemmed glasses and a matching pitcher. I’m wrapping up these items in tissue paper, and when I’m done, I’ll place them carefully into a wooden crate for transport. Tomorrow Noelle and I can take a ride into town and drop them off at Jock and Gus’s gallery. I promised these pieces by Monday, and besides, I want to ask Gus a couple of questions about Ashley. Not that it’s any of my business, but I think I have a right to know if there’s trouble following her or looking for her. If there is, it might be grounds for me asking her to leave.
And Ineedher to leave, I think, putting plastic wrap around each tissue-covered glass.
I haven’t seen her since Wednesday afternoon when I yelled at her and told her that she was bugging the shit out of me, but I can’t stop thinking about her, and it’s driving me nuts. I hear her moving around upstairs. I smell her shampoo after she takes a shower. I see her dishes in the drying rack. I think of her bigblue eyes and pillowed lips, and I get hard as a rock. I’ve jacked off to the thought of her a dozen times since she arrived, and it’s getting out of hand. Literally.
It doesn’t help that I haven’t had sex in weeks.
I miss it like crazy. I want it so fucking much, I can’t stand it sometimes.
But aside from a drunken encounter with a couple of tourists over in Sugarbush, where I occasionally go for a night of beer and live music, it’s been a quiet spring. The fact is, there aren’t many opportunities for female companionship out in the sticks, which is exactly why I chose to live here.
My self-imposed punishment is that I can’t have sex—and certainly not in anymeaningfulway—until I figure some things out for myself. I need to get my head on straight. I need to figure out a plan for the rest of my long fucking life. And I can’t think straight or make plans for myself if I’m distracted by a woman.
And again I think,Ashley needs to leave.
She’s not doing anything overtly provocative, per se, but she’s messing with my head just by being here. I’m thinking about her all the time. I’m dreaming about her at night. I’m living in a state of constant fucking arousal, and it sucks.
I place the glasses and pitcher in the crate beside the vase and cover it all with packing shreds, then set the crate in the passenger seat of my truck. I look at my phone. I should have just enough time to take a shower before Noelle gets here.
I whistle for Bruno and head into the house. Bruno pads across the living room to the stairs without my permission, and I listen to his feet click-clack up to her space. Traitor.Though I can’t make out her words, there’s the soft hum of her voice as she greets him, and although it’s pure fantasy, I imagine her lying naked on her bed, smiling at him as he walks into her room. Her skin will be light and flawless, her nipples pert and pink. She has a flat stomach and slim waist, but a rounded ass teases meas she crooks a finger and invites me into her bedroom. I gulp, imagining myself stepping forward, my cock thickening and hardening until it’s jutting out at her, and she grins at it, then at me.
“Fuck, Julian!” I mutter, stalking through the dining room and back to the hallway that leads to my bathroom. “Knock it off.”
I throw my shirt on the floor. My chest muscles are bunched and firm. I slide my jeans over my hips, and they pool on the floor. I yank on my boxer briefs, but they snag on my erection, which points straight up at my chin. Lifting the cotton over the taut skin, I let the underwear skim down my legs. I stare down at my cock, half hating the way it has decided that it wants this foundling girl, no matter how strong the objections of my mind.
Opening the glass door to the shower, I turn on the water, waiting a moment for it to warm up before stepping inside. I stand in the hot spray, leaning my forehead against the tile wall, feeling the water pound on my back as I soap up my hands. I reach for my cock, stroking it while I think about Ashley, who is directly upstairs.
I imagine grasping her hips as I push into her from behind.
