winter

by Julia

"You are so strong, Davie! Nothing hurts you."
"Nothing at all. I could stand everything," I bragged.
"You could not, if I bit your finger."
"Go ahead!" I said, with bravado, holding out my hand.
She dug her teeth into one of my fingers. It hurt so that I involuntarily ground my own teeth, but I smiled.
"Does it not hurt you, Davie?" she asked, with a look of admiration.
"Not a bit. Go on, bite as hard as you can."
She did, the cruel thing, and like many an older heroine, she would not desist until she saw her lover's blood.
"It still does not hurt, does it?" she asked, wiping away a red drop from her lips.
I shook my head contemptuously.
"When you are a man you will be strong as Samson the Strong."
- from "The Rise of David Levinsky" by Abraham Cahan

Thanks to Shireen, my beta queen!

viii. something special.

The strains and pains of resolutions for the new year had passed, and what was left, what was always left for her, was him. His birthday was coming and it wasn't the trite marker of adulthood set by society. He would be 19, somehow above and beyond the place in which his body had temporarily settled. He was away from her, and the distance made her ache. This day when they'd be together, it deserved something special.

She dabbed at the drying ink with her fingers, frowned when a navy slash appeared across one. Glanced up at Mrs. Bridgett, a lovely woman who happened to be the type of teacher who wore seasonally themed sweaters and looked less than kindly upon passing notes. Glanced back down. Navy was good, made her scrawl look like just another assignment. Serious, professional.

Despite the seriousness of the matter, the note remained cryptic. Even she didn't know what she wanted this night.

***

Justin stepped through the door, its slam harsh against the quiet cold. He shrugged his shoulders against the press of late January, pulling his leather jacket tighter against his chest. Where was she, anyway? All that accompanied the darker-than-dark strip of trees that bordered the property were a dumpster and the expanse of cracked asphalt. He toed the bright stripe of a blade of winter grass with his boots.

"What- Britney?" The blindfold was soft against his skin and warm from being in her pocket. He could feel her rapid breaths fluttering past his ear.

"Shhh. This is gonna be fun. And oh yeah, happy birthday, Justin." Her whispers, level with his ear, reassured and confused him. He felt warm hands reaching from behind him into the pockets of his jeans. A jingle and the disturbance at his hips hinted at the trip to come.

***

The blindfold slid down over his face and suddenly he had all of his senses again. "Just follow me," she murmured, and turned towards the large door and the line of people.

She gave a quiet grin to the wall of flesh that was the bouncer. It seemed she came here often. He really didn't know what the hell he was doing in this place or why she thought to bring him here, but regardless Britney slid a casual hand under his denim jacket, curving fingers along his waist until she rested her palm below his hip possessively.

A low chuckle. "It's his birthday." She dressed the part - leather and lace on her body and smoke and mirrors in her eyes. What the fuck were all these games and riddles they were playing, anyway? For the fact that it was his birthday certainly shouldn't have been enough to get past the line of spandex and cheap glitter.

But this first riddle was solved easily enough as Britney's hips began to shift restlessly in response to the music's throb, drawing nods from the regulars and from the bartender. If he was with her, it didn't matter that this birthday was two years shy of the one that would matter in a place like this.

She was already back by his side, a small glass in each hand reflecting the pulsating reds, golds, and shadows of the club.

"Here J," she said into his ear. His shiver could have been from the cold still drafting from the door. "This should warm you up." Or not. He swallowed the shot of bitter liquid with a small grimace. Tasted shitty but went down a lot smoother than whatever it was he'd drank at that party last summer with Lance. Hot though, as was the dance floor, onto which Britney was pulling him, a hand firmly around his wrist.

Watching her as they moved out of shadows and into the light he thought he had a hint as to her popularity here. The way the crowd parted slightly as she passed, staying just close enough to brush lightly against her skin, the steady swing of her hips to the beat, the golden sheen of reflected light glinting off her hair and shoulders, her perfectly-glossed slightly-parted lips as she turned back towards him. Britney was in her element, and he was pretty sure she was good for business.

It was difficult to concentrate on that for long, however. She twisted with wild rhythm, still facing him, and he couldn't help but respond, sliding hips against her front, fingers skittering over her curves in question.

"Yeah, yeah," he saw the words from her mouth more than he heard them, and they meant a great deal less than her inching closer, her fingers twining in the hair at the nape of his neck. And then she was up against him for hours or years, grinding until they flushed and glowed.

They paused yet again for drinks that didn't quench his thirst and she leaned against the narrow ledge that lined the walls, a perch for drinks and melting ice, and the curlicues of smoke from recently used ashtrays. She faced the wall, fingers gripping the black varnish as a West Indian beat slithered into her skin and made her bend in new ways. Justin was there behind her in seconds, shots of something dark red in his hands. The cinnamon hit him hard and he pushed his fingertips around her bare waist as she knocked hers back, and put his lips to the curve of her neck. He could feel her quickening of breath and darted his tongue out to catch it.

Okay, so. This was something else all together. The dance hall beat was muffled and unclear in this corner of the club, and by this point, muffled described most of the world outside of Britney's skin, her lips after she craned around and began to nip and nurse at his.

He didn't think closer was possible with her lips and her ass against him, but denim against leather reminded him almost against his will of places they had never been willing to go. With her tongue in his mouth he wasn't quite motivated to prevent her hands from covering his, pulling them forward onto her belly. One hand splayed across her softness, the other slid to the hem of her pants which dipped impossibly low on her torso.

He exhaled rapidly when the lace covering the lower curve of her breast scratched insistently at the goose bumps on his forearm. There was something he should have remembered, a reason he shouldn't-but it was lost in the muffled staccato still emanating from the dance floor. A second more of hesitation but Britney pressed back against him, her loss of control evident in the tiny wheezy breaths hitching as he finally slid a hand past an inch of leather, then lace, then softness, inescapably moist.

"You want-?" and he withdrew his fingers slowly, her gasps somehow audible above the din. He looked at his shining index finger with blurry eyed perplexity. Into his ear, she growled,

"Where the fuck have you been?" and glued him with a stare he couldn't have denied if he had wanted to. Stepping swiftly through the crowded entrance, he couldn't help but follow her. The jealous glares of a few of the patrons failed to break through the haze.

***

She knew, perhaps, where she was going. Had noticed the place, buzz of neon sign and seedy lobby, in some part of her subconscious as a contingency plan of a twisted sort. Like the packet pressed into her back pocket among a couple of crumpled bills.

They stepped together into the warmth of the place, the cheapened whirr of a radiator and fluorescent lighting. She shoved the bills at the man at the counter who smirked at her knowingly.

"Is that enough for the whole night?" she managed in a husky croak, then blushed fiercely, realizing how it sounded. Justin was behind her, just inside the door, dazed, and quiet. She ducked her head as he handed her a key and pulled at Justin. Soon the man's leering gaze was a vague memory that wouldn't last the night.

Beyond the motel door, its click and lock barely noticeable for the breathing, Justin was alive again, glittering eyes in the dim. They backed together into the room, that she knew for certain. The contact between them was not broken. What was less clear was why Justin did not push her towards the bed but to the floor.

She glanced in its direction as she lowered to her knees, and then to her back, Justin's firm arm holding her at the waist an anticipated fact. The smooth spread of comforter caught her eye, and she knew why Justin had avoided it, albeit subconsciously. Too clean.

His hands felt huge and everywhere at once, and for a moment she lost herself and shut her eyes, tilted her head back. The alerted nerves told her that her hair was brushing gently along the motel floor.

Behind closed lids she could still see Justin's face, but it was different and distorted and covered with layers of dirt. His eyelashes were encrusted with the clay of creek beds and it skittered down perfect cheeks when his eyes fluttered at a new sensation. A trail of dust seeping from the corner of his lips grew longer every time he opened his mouth in a gasp or a whisper. Her horror was enough to make her open her eyes, see if her vision reflected reality. And for a moment, panic, as her eyes flickered back and forth underneath her lids and she felt the grime twisting among the fingertips she had gripping the back of his neck.

Her breath hitched as she took in cold air and then, then she could lift her heavy lids and see him, too perfect, above her. Only the transparent trail of sweat curving down from his curls marred his features, his skin and his red lips glowing with fever.

His left hand was twisting at the black lace at her hip, impatient with her final concession to modesty. I give you too much, she thought, lifting her hips in inevitable obedience. His incoherent hiss at the contact didn't prevent him from hooking a thumb under the fabric and tossing it away.

There was a buzz in the back of her brain that had nothing to do with alcohol. A part of her that was sure that this was not how it was supposed to be. She had wanted something, something special, but she seemed to have forgotten what that thing was.

Not this, though she felt she somehow deserved this ingenious mix of pain and pleasure. She couldn't help the sound that came out of her mouth when he pushed inside. She knew he had meant to be careful, knew from the fear she could see in his eyes, behind the glaze. But it wasn't careful, or gentle, or tender.

They were past that, it seemed. There was a time when she had painted herself Justin's princess in that hazy way the mind's eye might do in idle hours on lengthy nights. But with her hands clamped at the wrists by his right hand somewhere above her head, out of her field of vision, his left hand gripping her waist, the vision became more clear. The princess in shredded rags, so far from the heights of her glory. She was no one's princess this night.

But she wasn't entirely ready to broach the subject of what she then was, with Justin and his damn distracting mouth. Twisting and nipping down her neck and collarbone and she felt the large pad of his thumb brush once, twice, there.

Fuck. It was too much and she could barely feel her head hit the threadbare carpet of the motel.

And then Justin, his weight sticky and salty sweet (or was that his freckled shoulder against her lips?), rolled off of her. Something infiltrated his distorted consciousness and told him to let her breathe, to reach over to the unused bed and pull the thin white sheets over them both.

Beneath the sheet, the light filtering from window was milky blue and consistent. He was more than tempted to collapse his face into her shoulder and fall asleep, but the way her eyes were squinted despite the dark and her nails scraped against the rug made him pause. Propped up on his left elbow, he lifted his free hand to touch her.

With the luxury of patience his body hadn't granted earlier, he traced the circular outline of her belly formed by her lowest ribs and her hips with his index finger, barely touching. She gasped, "Justin," and he didn't answer, at first wondering at how he had not yet noticed the remarkable softness of this part of her.

His brow furrowed after a moment, and he slid a hand from her hip to the black trickling stain on her left thigh.

"I hurt you," he said, in the voice of the damned-too-soon. Britney did not deny him his guilt. Instead she shushed him and pulled him to her chest, and after a moment of moist and labored breath, she felt his muscles relax against her. They slept.