Telling Tales (10 page)

“I almost came in here a million times, you know? Every morning, every night. But after the lake I wasn’t sure you wanted me to…” he says, then just leaves it trailing. As though he’s waiting for me to reassure him on that score.

He should know that’s not going to happen. I’m too stuffed full with the insanity of this, the suddenness of it, how badly I want him even so.

“But then I passed by today and I could just hear you. I could hear you. Sounded sooo good.”

I want to demand to know why it didn’t sound good five years ago, but of course I don’t. Truth is—he’s right. I didn’t make anything to be heard five years ago. I didn’t let him have even the smallest sexual sense of myself—not even in stories.

“Stick around. Pretty sure I’m going to make some more soon,” I say, and he grins wolfishly at me.

There’s something so easy about all of this, and I don’t even know why.

“You wanna come, baby?” he asks, and this time I don’t stop myself. I stroke firmly over my clit the way I’ve always wanted him to stroke me, and rock against the solid length inside me the way I’ve always wanted to rock against him.

And when I moan and turn my face away he says: “Fuck that’s hot. What are you doing down there—playing with your clit?”

I moan again, louder this time, but I still hear the sound of a zipper going down over it. It
burrs
in my ear like a thousand angry bees, and all I can think is
God, all these years and this is how it’s going to happen? Like this—this seedy thing?

Only it doesn’t feel seedy, exactly. It feels like I’m cramming as much food as I can into my mouth before it all evaporates, instead.

“I’m fucking myself,” I tell him, and he sighs in response. Of course he does. He’s always been a horny fucker.

“Oh yeah, tell me Allie,” he says, so I do.

“I’m fucking myself on this big hard cock.”

He groans—partly in shock, I think—and even though I’m still turned away from him, eyes closed, I can tell what he’s doing. I can hear the slick sound of a hand shuttling up and down a cock.

“Show me,” he says and I honestly think about doing it. I’ve waited long enough to see him doing something like this, and I can have it if I give him myself in return. I mean, that’s the deal, isn’t it?

I turn my face and look at him and it’s just like a few nights ago—I can see the start of that rippling, rock hard belly, and he’s shoved his trousers down around mid-thigh in the way I so wanted to do to Cameron. He’s bare and exposed and he’s shamelessly tugging on his frankly gorgeous cock, unfazed by my gaze all over him. By the breathlessness I immediately descend into, on seeing him work himself like this.

It’s glorious, and yet—just like a few nights before—there’s something remote about it. As though I’m watching him jerk off through a pane of glass, and said pane of glass takes me back five years to things I can’t taste or touch or know.

“Go on,” he gasps, but I just watch his hand flex along the length of his curved shaft—thinner, I think, than Cameron’s, but almost impossibly long—and draw out little beads of precome every time he gets to the head.

It jerks a chain of arousal inside me, to see him this turned on. Because he obviously is—his cock is slick and red at the tip and I can see him pulling back with every stroke, as though going too fast or too hard will push him into orgasm—and the thought almost does the same for me.

“God yeah,” he says. “Work yourself on it.”

And I do, I do. I pump hard for just a second, just to chase that tingling, surging feeling that takes away the other, less pleasant ones, and then I can’t help it. I call out his name and moan too loudly, body bucking into the first rolling wave of climax.

All I have to do is brush my fingertips over the slick tip of my clit and that’s it, I’m coming and coming with Wade wavering in and out of my sight line, the thought of his cock and his body and him saying these things to me filling me up.

And then even sweeter, even dirtier, he groans loud and long: “Ohhhh baby, I’m coming, oh God that’s so good.”

Just before he does just that, all over my mouth and face. My orgasm gets tighter, stronger to feel him spurt hard against my cheek and over my lips. There’s just something so naughty about it—not like the sweet encounters I’d always imagined finally happening between us—and when I taste him, I can’t stop the finger I’ve got rubbing over my clit. I don’t want to stop—it feels too good. I just want to come and come and come and keep on tasting him forever, and not have to think about any of this.

Though I do, when he leans down to kiss me. Right in the middle of the shuddering I seem to have sunk into, and with the still-hot stripes of his come all over my face. That’s how we kiss—that’s the first time I kiss Wade. With all of this between us and the suspicion he’s tasting himself at the very top of my thoughts.

Strange, that I feel almost nothing at all.

I think Kitty can tell something’s not quite right. But I’m no help on that score, because I’ve got no idea what the
not
quite
right
is. I mean, Wade fucked Kitty and then I found out Cameron is in love with me and also kind of weird sexually and then Wade came on my face.

But apart from that, everything’s cool. Even when we’re all sitting in the living room, talking in awkward fits and starts, everything’s cool. Until Cameron goes to the bathroom and Wade seems to take that as his cue to desert us too, and then I’m just exposed to Kitty’s deadly, deadly questions.

Which she asks, of course.

“What the fuck is going on?”

I consider, briefly, that she might hate me and think of me as a betrayer if I tell her what happened with Wade—she did get there first, after all. But then I realize that I’m being an insane person. Kitty once tried to make me fuck her boyfriend while she was fucking him, for God’s sake.

“Something…went on between me and Wade,” I say, but as soon as it’s out I understand what I really wanted to tell her.

Something
went
on
between
me
and
Cameron.

“Yeah, uh, durrrr,” she whispers, and I have to laugh. How is she just this awesome? “A blind person could see that much.”

I have to say, I’m not so certain about that. I’m not even sure if a sighted person could see what’s going on, because I’ve got two eyes and I don’t know. And then she makes another little comment, all oblivious with one hand in her curls and her gaze on nothing at all, and I know even less.

“What I don’t get is why he’s pissed
now
. I thought he was desperate to fuck you—all he talked about mid-flagrante was how he couldn’t wait to get you into bed. Seemed like he was angling for a threesome but I think it’s more like leftover sexual tension between—”

“He’s not desperate to get me into bed!” I say. And I shove the words out too—much louder than I’d intended.

But Kitty just looks at me, startled, as though she really isn’t in the slightest bit bothered whether Wade wants to fuck me or fuck her or have a threesome or God only knows what. So then I’m just left stranded, with this stupid guilt-ridden sentence I blurted out for no reason at all.

She’s not bothered. I don’t know why I thought she would be.

“I mean…he never was desperate to get me into bed. I don’t know why…I don’t know why things have changed…” I say after a moment, while she eyes me curiously.

“It’s all right if he does, you know,” she says, and then I feel like a complete idiot. She’s just not like that, Kitty. I wish to God
I
was just not like that. “You’ve waited bloody long enough.”

I flush red then and try to look away from her. But it’s hard, when her blue eyes are so guileless. So open and honest and full of a love I somehow let myself forget.

“Did you always know?” I ask, and that steady gaze doesn’t let me down. She keeps to it even in the middle of words that could so easily be a lie.

“No,” she says, and I know it’s true. Not because of how she looks or sounds, but because she’s Kitty. She would never fuck a guy she knew I loved, and I can see she knows now that I love him.

Or at least, that I
did
love him.

“But I do wish you’d told me.” This time she looks down when she speaks, and I watch her focus on the wineglass in her hand, suddenly. I watch her turn the stem between her two little hands—both of them decorated with pink and yellow polka-dotted nail polish—and it occurs to me then, with a jolt. She doesn’t care about Wade. She doesn’t care about Cameron. She cares about
me
. About what
I
think. “I thought you told me everything.”

“I do—I did—we’re still—” I stammer out, but I don’t get any further. Mainly because it’s a lie. I
didn’t
tell her everything. I don’t tell her everything. We’re not still best friends.

“It’s OK,” she says, and shrugs. But it’s not OK. It makes a great big rush of feeling go through me, and I have the strongest urge to put a hand on her arm. To whisper to her the way I used to back in our dorm room, all those years ago.

I think back on it and it’s as though I’m still right there, wrapped in a duvet as the cold knocks on our flimsy window, the hopefulness of love and desire still blooming in me. Still making me lean forward and murmur through the darkness about all the boys I long to have.

It’s the word she used to use:
have
. As though boys were things that could be taken, the way girls could be. As though all of this—all of life—was just one big, grand game, and wouldn’t you like to join in, Allie?

Yes. Yes, I would, Kitty.

“Something else happened,” I say, and
then
I put my hand on her arm. I lean forward, as though I’m wrapped in a duvet and the cold’s knocking on the window.

She leans right back at me, like nothing’s changed at all.

“What?” she asks, and of course I think of words like
betrayal
and
trust
and
Cameron
wouldn’t want anyone to know.

But then again, he hasn’t wanted anyone to know for about a thousand years. I think his time for secrets—much like my own—is up.

“Cameron had a picture of me,” I tell her, though it’s clear that isn’t enough once I’ve got it out. And I can hear them coming back, so I have to go for it. I have to—it’s my one beautiful shining little gift, in all these years of utter nothingness. It’s rich and glorious and Kitty deserves to have it shared with her, for all the things she shared with me. “And on the back he’d written
Tenar
. As though…as though he was Ged and I was…you know. And then I found something else of his too—a book filled with writing. He was lying—he does write all the time. Only it’s dirty, filthy dirty, and he caught me reading it so I had to—”

But then I have to stop mid-sentence, because they’re back. Wade tosses himself into the armchair next to Kitty and Cameron lets himself slide rigidly into place and there they are. Our two bookends.

I glance at Kitty, and her eyes are as big as moons. Her mouth is a moon too. She looks like she wants to laugh or cry or maybe die of incredulity, which should really mean something to me. At last, I had something worth telling! At last, I had a story that means something.

But instead, all I can think is this:
What
was
it, exactly, that I
had
to
do?
And when I look at Cameron now, why is it that I want to do it so very, very badly? I don’t even know what
it
is, but I want it. He just looks so still, sitting there, so contained—it’s almost impossible to imagine all of this is going on inside him.

And judging by Kitty’s expression when I glance back at her, it’s doubly so for everyone who isn’t me. Her eyes are even bigger now than when I last looked, and she’s using them to goggle right at him. Any second, and he’s going to notice.

“So, Kit!” I start, with such bright falseness she immediately jerks a look at me. Her upper lip is still curled in what can only be described as explosive incredulity. “You were going to provide tonight’s entertainment, right?”

I hope to God she doesn’t think I mean stripping. Actually, I just hope to God she gets what I’m trying to do here—steer things away from the topic of Cameron, and how he’s a secret sexual maniac.

“Huh?” Kitty says. So that’s a no, then.

“You were going to read a story,” I nudge her, but she just stares at me blankly. Was the news about Cameron really that much of a shock to the gut? She looks like I electrocuted her, five minutes ago. Wade even comments on it.

“OK. What did you do to Kitty while we were gone?” He grins that all-tooth grin, and I try not to have flashbacks to the other morning. To the feel of him, all hot and slick all over my face. “If you went down on her, we’re gonna have to hear about it.”

God he’s disgusting. Was he this disgusting before? And did I like it
this
much?

“Hey, just ’cause you got to have both of us doesn’t mean we’re, like, your little sex nymphets,” Kitty says, and for the barest of moments I almost laugh with her. I really do. I guess I just don’t process what she’s said properly and besides, it’s almost a tension breaker. It’s good, in a way, to get everything out in the open. Wade slaps his thigh and roars about it, and Kitty hurls a cushion at him, and everything’s cool.

Until my blood freezes and my insides turn to ash and I glance at Cameron in slow motion. Seriously—it’s like the world winds down. And then all I can see are Cameron’s eyes widening—just a barely-there flicker of expression, nothing more—before settling back to normal again, and maybe his shoulders go back a little too. Like he needs to pull himself up in his chair.

No big deal.

Only it is a big deal. Of course it is. I know it is because I’ve felt exactly what this is like—to love someone and then watch them go fuck a bunch of other people instead of you. How many times did I watch Wade do that exact thing to me? A thousand? A million? And now here I am doing exactly the same thing, only I
didn’t
, I
haven’t
, I’m not the same. I swear to God, I’m not.

I care about Cameron. I more than care. He’s wonderful, and he should know it every day. He should know how kind he is, how good. How fantastic his story was, and how I can’t wait to read more. And how I can’t stop looking at him right now, because his face is so perfectly lovely that my eyes just have to make up for lost time.

Kitty and Wade are still having the dumbest argument somewhere behind me, but I can’t hear them. All I can hear is my heart pounding in my ears, and I keep staring and staring at Cameron as though I could just will him to look at me with my mind. I can make him, if I just keep staring.

And then after a while, sure enough—he can feel me. I know it. He’s gazing straight ahead as though at nothing, but I can almost slide myself right into his shoes and feel my eyes on him. I can feel that little prickling sensation running down my right side, and how it is to never want someone to know how much you care. How much you’re hurting.

Look
at
me
, I think at him.
It’s OK to. It’s OK.

But it takes him a long, long time. Far past the point at which I’m comfortable. I’ve never stuck with something this long and when he finally and slowly turns his head I feel wrung out. The effort of hanging myself out on a limb is almost too much, but by God I’m glad I did it.

Because when he turns and fixes those glacial eyes on me they’re not glacial at all. It’s like he’s on fire inside instead, and understands that if he just keeps on staring he’ll set me alight too. I know it. I know because I recognize the look immediately, as though I’ve seen someone stare at me in just that same manner.

And I suppose I have, in a way. I’ve seen Wade stare at me like that, in my head. I’ve cast him a thousand times as the One who stands in line for the Queen, waiting for her to choose but not wanting her to, burning but hating himself for doing so.

But I was wrong, I was wrong. It could never be Wade. It’s always been Cameron.

“Hey, dinkus, you still with us?” Wade yells, though even the bellowing sound of his voice is barely enough to break me out of this realization stupor I’ve fallen into. He has to lob a cushion at me just to get me to turn around, but all I can think then is what a stupid fucking thing it is to throw. I mean, when did they become the missile of choice? They’re so dainty. They have tapestried birds on them. There are tassels involved.

We should be hurling bricks, in all honesty.

“I’m still here,” I say, but I lob the cushion-that’s-really-a-brick-in-my-head back at him, as I do. Sue me—he’s just interrupted the most profound moment of my life. I think I had minor embolism, I epiphanied so hard.

It’s Cameron
, I think.
It’s Cameron. It’s probably always been Cameron.

And then I have to hold onto the arm of the couch for support.

“So do you or not?” he says, but I’m on a ship in the middle of the sea. I’m sinking. I don’t know what he’s talking about.

“Have a
story
to share?” he asks, real carefully, as though

I’m slow.

Of course I go to shake my head, but Kitty whacks my arm.

“Yeah, you do,” she says. “You know—the ones you were just telling me about.”

At first I don’t know what she means—she doesn’t think I’m going to tell all about this whole Cameron thing in the guise of a story, does she? But then it comes to me—a great wave of
Oh
my
God, no.

She wants me to find and read one of
Cameron’s
stories. It’s obvious. Even without her winking and nudging her head in his direction, it’s obvious. Despite the fact that it’s also insane and stupid and there’s just no way I’m going to do that.

“Oh yeah, those ones,” I say, and then I give her all the
Stop
right
there
expression I can muster. “No, no—those ones are no good. But I’ve got these other ones. I could read those.” It seems like a perfect plan as I’m saying it, but once it’s out I realize what I’ve just offered. Now, somehow, I’ve got to go upstairs, find a story of my own that doesn’t suck, and read it aloud for the entertainment of my peers.

Did I say I loved Kitty, earlier on? I actually hate her. I hate her even more as I root through my still-unpacked bags, looking for something I could feasibly read aloud. I won’t lie: there are a lot of stories about fucking Wade. And even more stories about fucking someone who looks like Wade.

But then…then I get to “Hamin-Ra
.
”

Half of it’s still crumpled from the force of Cameron’s fist. By the looks of things he got up to page forty-four—after my hero has just been tormented for the first time by the Queen. And, oh God, she tormented him
good
. No wonder it drove him nuts—I can barely look at the words on the page, and know now why I didn’t reread to see what so excited him.