Page 52 of Nights Without Night
I hadn’t really realized fully until I said it out loud, but the fact heishere now is a promise to the future.
The hanging lights around the patio turn on as the sun sets across the water. It’s all red and orange until its black. The lamps flutter with bugs, shadow-puppets moving against the glowing yellow. When the restaurant closes, dessert scraped from our plates and coffee dredges at the bottom of our cups, we continue the night, taking a walk around the pier. We sit by the water in the warm air, surrounded by the clean, salty smell of the sea, the sound of its rhythm.
I watch them all interact, and my soul aches for Isadoro. In empathy, because his return home meant a sudden absence of his support system. His family. But I feel relief too, knowing these were the people who took care of him while he was away. It’s like I’ve finally peeked inside that world in a way no amount of watching the news could give me.
Day to day, this is what really mattered. The iron skeleton of his deployment. The people he fought and rested and feared and laughed with.
I lean my head against his shoulder and he wraps his arm around me. I close my eyes and just listen to them talk for a while, the sound like the lull of the sea.
The sun is already rising when we part. The goodbyes are short and efficient out of emotional necessity. I get tight hugs, and my embrace is just as thankful in return.
“We’ll see each other soon,” Callie says.
“Inshallah,” Isadoro replies with a smile.
In the light of the new dawn, we walk back. The town around us is already waking up, fishermen and bakers ready for the day.
“I’m glad you have them,” I tell him softly as we walk down the docks. “Because you still have them. You know that, right?” I say. He slings an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. He stays quiet, but it’s not an isolating silence, its walls soft and permeable.
I’m exhausted when I finally crawl into bed, but it’s a satisfied feeling, well-earned. Isadoro climbs in after me. I shift towards him instantly. Despite my tiredness, I want to feel him close.
I sprawl over him, straddling one of his thighs as we kiss lazily. It’s all tongue and lips as I run my fingers against his scalp with the back of my fingernails. Isadoro’s hands press against my back, travelling down until they’re cupping my ass, one cheek in each palm. He squeezes, shifting me up slightly, and I moan against his mouth as my crotch rubs against his hip. I press my thigh against his hard cock and start rocking slowly, rubbing off on him like we’re kids again and too impatient for prep.
“Isa,” I murmur. He squeezes my ass again and I stutter against his cheek.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he mutters. Our movements are the slow erosion of waves. We move with the boat, a sway of bodies, feeling the pleasure rise in increments. Hard and fast can be good, but so can this, the feeling of wanting more and not having enough, the delicious act of denying yourself speed or more friction, the desperation it breeds.
We breathe against each other, its own kind of kiss.
Orgasm hits Isadoro first. I watch him through the haze of my pleasure as he arches against me, head thrown back, the tendons of his neck straining. Feel him grip my ass hard, push against my own dick. Feel him come against me the moment before I tip over into the same high, that same deep.
We lay, sticky and sated in the aftermath. We’ve slid the door mostly down, and the slat of sunlight peeking through makes Isadoro glow. A fan whirs in the space, pushing air around. Everything is thick with heat and the calling of sleep.
“Isa,” I say as I fall into the dark, just to drag him with me into rest.
**********
Sometimes, in that swaying dark, Isadoro will open up and talk, unprompted. The words fall like overripe fruit from a tree, cracking on the ground and exposing the pulp of fear and doubt within.
He shares his guilt over things left undone. The fight for Helmand in Afghanistan. The misery in Syria. The crumbling foundations of our own home. He talks about how there were successes, but at times it felt like they were just there to fix a machine they broke.
There is nowhere his guilt won’t stretch to. It is a blind, enraged minotaur in a maze of his own making.
He tells me about the jarring difference between how his team saw him, and how the locals did. How it felt to go from an environment of complete comradery to one of intense hostility. In a way, civilian life is similar, only reversed. Isadoro tells me about how every time he rolls out of the wire, no matter what land he is in, he feels like a transplant from another world. It is only at home that he’s safe from that feeling.
“I get that,” I tell him, stroking his face. “But you’re a soldier. Isn’t rolling out of the wire what you do? Rain or shine or fear or doubt?”
He doesn’t respond, but his hands are tight against my back.
CHAPTER NINE
It’s our last stop before turning back. The return trip will be straight-sailing, with pit stops for rest and fuel.
On our first of two days there, we decide to just go to the beach. We buy some fresh towels and a large, lime-green parasol and head to the sand, walking along the shore until the crush of people diminishes and we find an open spot. We lay our stuff on the scorching sand while I dig a small hole, spearing the parasol in as Isadoro finds some rocks to keep it steady. By the time it’s in place, we’re both sweating and head straight into the water.
It’s like old times. We swim into the deep until our feet have to tread water, the floor far below. We dive through the warm surface and into the cooler tides at the bottom, playing at who can surface the largest handfuls of sand until we’re spluttering as we throw them at each other.
We swim a little inland, stopping just before where the waves break. We bob with their swell and dips. There’s a strong breeze and the water rises impressively. We make a competition out of catching the waves without bodies, letting the momentum of the rise take us into the foamy crash and further.
