Page 15 of Bed of Roses

I took her wrists in one hand, opened her up with the other, and thrust like I meant it, right against her g-spot. Shattered was not a large enough container to describe how Marley flew apart. It was a song and a swear. Strong contractions and a blissful rolling. I’m not sure if I followed her over or if I led the way, but it didn’t fucking matter. The world went white, there was no sound, no sight, no smell. Just bliss. A bliss we luxuriated in. Our gelatinous bodies tangled together, slick with sweat, hot to the touch, but lax with a satiety that for me, hadn’t been achieved in a long time.

* * *

“Do you have to buy special condoms for that?”

She pointed at my cock, which I’d say was happily resting against my thigh.

“You’d be surprised at how much give there is in a rubber.”

She blushed. Fuck me, I was too tired to go at it again, but the stirring in my groin didn’t care.

“I’ve never done it with a guy who has a piercing.”

“You mean you’ve never fucked a guy with a ball through his cock?”

She shoved at me, beet red and flustered.

“And, what do you think? Would you ride that pony again?” Her wide eyes pulled a laugh out of me.

“Bear…”

“Ted,” I corrected her.

“Ted,” she parroted, kissing away my consternation before returning her head to my chest. Her fingers traced the dagger on my ribs, over and again. Despite not being able to see her face, I could sense her question.

“I was a foster kid, Marley. I bounced from house to group home, to another house, to another group home. That’s not a life for a kid, it can be lonely and scary. You have to find family where you can, and sometimes that family hurts you.”

I don’t want to talk about that dagger. I didn’t want to knock those skeletons loose and bring that darkness into this bubble of content. I turned over my arm exposing the rising Phoenix.

“This one I got when the state of Ohio gave me my papers and told me I was no longer their ward. Freedom. Rebirth. I got to go to a trade school on the dime of good old Uncle Sam, I went into broadcasting, set my path due north and kept up the hustle and grind till I made it to the top.”

I pointed to the Monarch Butterfly on my pec.

“Raven and I both have one. Hers is on the inside of her wrist. We got them when we signed our first big contract. Raven said Monarchs were a reminder to live in the present with gratitude.”

There was too much darkness with the rest of my ink, and I didn’t want to go there. So, instead I chose to pivot the focus.

“Why do you live so far up the mountain?” I asked.

Marley lifted her head and looked me square in the eyes. There was a question in them, but I couldn’t gauge what it was.

“This is, well, was… my mom’s house. Before she got sick, we had a modest little bed and breakfast—mostly for the skiers who didn’t want to stay in town and wanted to be able to cross country ski and soft-shoe.”

“Did your mom and dad run the inn?”

I felt her head shift from side to side, her silky hair tickling against my ribs.

“I don’t know who my dad is. My mom was dating a professor at Dartmouth. He went on Sabbatical; she went home for the summer with more than just a semester’s worth of dirty laundry. Her parents were less than pleased, and essentially kicked her out. She moved here, and worked odd jobs until she could afford this house which was apparently super run down. Learned how to fix things herself, and turned it into a pretty quaint little B & B. It was fairly successful too. I mean she was able to pay to send me to Dartmouth too. But she had M.S. and her complications just kept piling up, so I left school to help her out around here. She just kept deteriorating until she passed away in March.”

I wondered peripherally if she had gone to Dartmouth in hopes of figuring out who her dad was, but some questions don’t need to be asked.

“Do you still run the B & B?”

She sighed like she hadn’t taken a breath in hours.

“No. The house had a lot of repairs that need to be done. The sicker my mom got, the more money went to doctors, medicines, just keeping her alive.”

“Would you run it, if the house were fixed?”

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