Page 3 of The Twins

Now

There’sa question on my tongue, but I don’t dare say the words.

I wear a swimsuit I bought on the internet that one time a social media post lured me into a purchase. It’s a sexy piece of little fabric, and my company enjoys it. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d enjoy this cheap fabric caressing my skin, but I do.

It’s everything my mother told me to repel.

It’s everything my father sought for in the whores he fucked behind my mother’s back.

“Why are you scrunching up your face like that?” Remo asks. His skin is sunburnt, and there’s a taste of caramel and peanut butter in the air. We ate cookies on the road, and we shouldn’t be swimming with full bellies, but we do it anyway.

Remo insisted.

I run my hands through his hair while my legs kick to keep me close to him and above water. His hair’s started growing out, showing off a hazel color that almost dives into gold. The well-trimmed buzzcut is now unruly, an anomaly.

Remo doesn’t believe he’s a part of Charles’ new task force. Still, he’s the one most busy. He barely has time to breathe, much less cut his hair.

Occasionally, he leaves the house for fifteen hours, never calling or sending a signal of life. He works every day, but he doesn’t get paid for it. Although the people at the police station know him from all the time he spends there, he passes through like he’s a guest.

He’s everything but.

“I was thinking about whores and my father,” I tell him because, with Remo, the words flow. I don’t lie to him. Not that I lie to my other men, but with Remo, I pay special attention. “I’m starting to regret this swimsuit.”

“If you don’t feel comfortable, by all means, take it off. I mean it.” There’s no smirk in his statement. If it were Vegas, he’d have playfully peeled off my swimsuit with his teeth. Remo doesn’t think with his beautiful dick. That’s more Vegas’s thing. Remo is a considerate and sweet boyfriend who’s often in pain.

Pain I can’t help relieve him of.

I didn’t notice the first time around, but ever since I came back, the pain has been written all over his features. This lake he brings me to… It’s nostalgic for him. When we’re here every other week, I witness Remo lick his open wounds.

I don’t know where the cut is. Where he bleeds from. I’d do anything to step in and be the shield. I want to save him, but what’s a broken person like me doing saving a grown man?

A man that’s seen worse things than I ever have?

It’s been five years for me, and I’m evolving, but it takes time to reach my goals. Half a person can’t help another half.

It’s too early in the day to break down over our strange relationship.

“Is it nasty that I’m wet wearing it?” I bite my lip, hoping to distract Remo from my sinister thoughts. “I like how dirty I feel. Once upon a time, I’d have burned this swimsuit before touching it with my skin. Now, I can wear it and feel like—”

“Our nasty little girl,” he comments, taking a dive into the water. It’s an abrupt move. We’re here to swim. People swim. That’s normal. They jump. Play games. I shouldn’t demand his attention 24/7 in the water, but I want to. Why not?

Why can’t I be on his mind all the time?

Why does Remo have to feel pain over something that happened in the past? I’m gradually replacing the bad memories with memories of my men. When it gets bad, I rarely think of my deceased husband.

It gets bad because I’m scared of losing my men. I shiver and shake at the thought of life without them.

Because I lived that life for five years, and it was a hollow existence. I was free to do as I pleased, be whoever I wished to be. But all I wanted was to be theirs after years of nobody claiming me as their own.

I move my arms, attempting to stay afloat.

There’s that question, but I don’t ask.

Out of my three, I can’t push Remo. I don’t have it in me. I don’t like seeing him in pain.

Right now, there’s a lot of that in him.

When Remo doesn’t come back up to the surface, I worry. He spends a little too much time down there, and my heart pumps like it’s about to lose one of its three parts. My breaths are erratic, struggling to come to fruition. I glimpse at the boardwalk nearby, feeling helpless.

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