Love and War Read online

  I nod. He hops down off the bars, grabbing my chair and pulling it towards the table. I take a chance and decide to try and move myself. Before I can even save myself, I’ve fallen straight down to the floor, bashed my nose and am lying in front of him like a caught fish. I can’t roll over, I can’t breathe, I can’t move. I’m completely helpless.

  “Charlie!” he shouts, and rushes to my side. He places his hand on my arm to help me sit, but I pull away.

  “I am not a total invalid! I am not a child who needs help from a fall! I can do this myself, goddamn it!” My outburst shocks myself as well as Blaine, and I immediately regret my words. “Blaine, I…”

  “No, Charlie.” He can’t look at me, only at the puddle of blood my nose has created on his pristine walnut flooring. “It’s okay. I…I’ll go and get a bucket. Get redressed. We’re done today.”

  He turns his back on me, leaving me to get back into the chair, and dressed, on my own. I push myself up from the ground, sneezing spatters of blood everywhere. Carefully, I set the break on the chair, both sides, and pull myself in. It takes all my effort, and my shoulder is increasingly sore with each movement. On Blaine’s desk is a box of tissues. I should stop the blood before I try and get dressed. Yes, that’s a good idea, I should stop the blood before I try and get dressed. Releasing the break, I slowly try and make it to the desk, but I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror at the bars.

  A lowly man.

  A broken man.

  A bloody man.

  A weak man.

  Is this really who I have become? I can barely function by myself. I can barely move anywhere, do anything, by myself. I’m a burden on society, and now this? The lowliest of lowly creatures, I fear that I am developing feelings for him. But I have never, never even considered this before.

  I have never, ever felt this way before, never longed to be touched by him before, never dreamed of a man like this before.

  I reach out and grab a tissue from the desk, pressing it hard against a tender nostril, now oozing a thick, dark, slug of coagulated blood. The pain is almost unbearable, and yet, it reminds me that I am alive. The river of red has stemmed and I throw the tissue away. I push myself back towards the gurney, purposefully avoiding looking in that godforsaken mirror. My pants are still in a puddle on the floor where I kicked them off and I struggle to pick them up for fear of falling out of my chair once again. I collect them and slip them over my stumps, expertly shimmying them under my bottom and up my back, into a position where I can be comfortable and secure.

  I’m redressed, now what is the protocol? Do I leave? Do I wait for him to come back? What am I supposed to do? I’ll pray for guidance and maybe He will show me the way. Under my breath, a new mantra begins.

  “Lord, have mercy! Please, Lord, take away these things I feel, this anger at myself, this attraction I cannot shake. It is like he is a demon Lord, temping me from Your holy love. Yet, why Lord? Why send me an angel to cure me and a demon to tempt me within the same vessel? Are you making me choose Lord, between You and a working body? You know that that is an impossible decision, one for which you have never asked of Mankind. Lord, you are presented to us all as a God of kindness! Of humility! Of love! Lord, a God who asks the impossible decision is none of these, in fact they are a God of mistrust, a God of repentance, a God of anger, of…”

  The door slowly opens and I hush.

  “Charlie? Are you decent?”

  “Yes.”

  Blaine enters the room with a steaming bucket of water, a bottle of Dixie White and a scrubber brush. He doesn’t look at me. He actually looks embarrassed.

  “Mister Avery, you can’t use Dixie White on that floor. You’ll ruin it, Mister Avery!” A voice from the corridor shrills. Betty bursts into the room, a flurry of movement and noise.

  “Oh, Charlie! I didn’t know you were still here! Mister Avery, if you use that bleach on that hardwood floor, you know it’s gonna leave a blasted white mark and you know that Mister Conway won’t be replacing no floors for you, uhhuh!”

  Blaine takes one look at Betty, one at me, and finally settles on the deep blood stain oozing its way into the cracks and folds of the wooden beams.

  “Watch your eyes,” he whispers, almost so low I cannot hear him. I know from the look on his face immediately what he is going to do.

  He pops the lid and throws the whole bottle over the red stain, which immediately starts to bubble away the protective gloss, gaining a soft yellow hue to the usually clear liquid.

  “Sorry, Betty. Guess it’s time I asked for a new floor.”

  Chapter Three

  I haven’t been back to the hospital. For the first time in three years, I’ve missed appointments, both with Blaine and the doctor. I just can’t face going back into that room, I can’t face seeing that stain that I caused on his floor, on his face, on his heart, even? I can’t believe he stained that floor, with pure peroxide bleach. I’m angry, so angry it scares me. If I hadn’t been so stubborn, if I hadn’t been so obstinate, then maybe, just maybe, that floor, his feelings, and my pride could have been saved.

  Every time I think of it, my cheeks flush. I’ve been such a fool, and I’ve let my own worries, my own anger, my own thoughts, get the better of me. I haven’t moved from the bed in three days, only to use the toilet. I’ve eaten two pieces of cold toast and I can’t even keep them down. I know wallowing in self-pity really isn’t the best thing to do, but I can’t knock myself out of this rut. I need to come to terms with…these things I’m feeling before I can go any further. I need to get rid of them, once and for all. It’s only been a few days since I met Blaine, but I can’t get the thoughts of his hands, his neck, his back, his body, out of my head, and it’s turning me mad! I can’t do this!

  I’ve always had a strong faith in God and I know that God will not abandon me in my time of need. When I first came back from the war, when I was lying in that hospital bed, when I couldn’t even bear to look past my waist, when I wanted to die, every day…God took me through and guided me and brought me strength. And now, He must give me the strength to do what He needs me to do, to overcome this obstacle that He has created for me, an obstacle just to test my endurance and faith.

  There is a knock at the door and it startles me from my thoughts. Who would be calling for me? Maybe if I just ignore it, ignore them, they’ll go away. They must have the wrong house, the wrong door, the wrong person. The door knocks again, this time accompanied by the doorbell. Maybe it’s a delivery and the driver must make sure that there is no one inside. I wait, and from the other side of the door, I hear a sigh. A familiar sigh, of frustration and annoyance.

  “Charlie, are you in?” Through the letter box, the voice that has haunted my dreams for weeks’ seeps through. Like smog, it chokes me, steals my breath and hurts my heart. “Charlie, come on.” I hear a shoulder slump against the wood. “I know you’re in there, because you’re not at the hospital. I already checked. Please answer the door.”

  I struggle out of bed and into my chair, meandering through the hallway towards the front door. “Please Charlie, don’t shut me out.”

  I sigh, exacerbated by his lack of patience. “I’m coming, give me a second.”

  I undo the deadlock, turn the key and open the door. He stands before me, looking much more bedraggled than I’ve ever seen him before. He doesn’t look well slept, he isn’t clean shaven and he seems about to cry.

  “Charlie…”

  His voice waivers and my heart pangs. I hate seeing him. No, I hate seeing him like this. What have I done?

  “You…you should come in, Blaine.”

  He’s sitting here, on my sofa, in my living room, in my house! I shouldn’t have let him in, I shouldn’t have let him see me in my pajamas, I shouldn’t have…

  “Charlie, I feel that I should tell you something important. And I want you to not think of me any differently, but I also want you to make me a promise.”

  “Anything.”

  “
I want you to promise to not report me to the police. For I have committed a crime.”

  Something in my heart knew what he was about to say. My chest swelled, and my mouth went dry.

  “I promise.”

  “Charlie, since the moment I first saw you, I knew. I had had suspicions for years, but I knew. I was never as happy as in those few fleeting moments we shared together in my room. I know it is wrong of me, and I know that if I am caught, that I could spend the rest of my days in prison, but I know that how I am feeling, I cannot deny, nor control it, any longer.”

  The room is spinning, the world is tilting on its axis. How many days, weeks, have I spent lamenting, frustrated that I am nothing more than a criminal, and to not even have the feelings be returned?

  “Please, Charlie. Do you understand what I am trying to say, how I feel, about you?”

  “I do.”

  “And?”

  This is my moment. I can tell him all the things I’ve wanted to tell him for weeks. How I have watched when he’s doing paperwork, how I lie in bed at night desperately trying to cling on to the smell of his aftershave, that I imagine how it would feel to have him touch me, hold me, love me in such a way that it would be only for us, late at night, stolen between shifts, between glances between kisses.

  “I have felt the same. From the instant I first laid eyes on you, I knew that what I was feeling was more than just apprehension about seeing a new specialist, and I knew that the way I’ve reacted to you has been less about nerves and more about…lust. You have no idea the amount of time I have spent fantasying about you, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean in a dirty way. But fantasizing about waking up next to you, about making you tea and breakfast in bed, about cleaning your laundry, having dinner with you, curling up on the sofa and reading a book, spending time with each other until this blasted war is won, and then…”

  He kisses me. Holding onto my hands, fingers interlaced, nothing to separate us but hot breath, beating chests, and the overcoming thought that what we are doing is wrong, is criminal.

  I no longer care.

  I wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him in closer than humanly possible. I tangle my fingers in his hair, pulling at the neck of his jumper, willing it off and onto my living room floor.

  “I want you,” he whispers, pulling away. He stands and I fret. He’s going to leave, he’s going to walk away and abandon me like I mean nothing to him, this was his plan all along – he’s going to immediately report me to the police.

  Instead, he lifts me off the sofa, his strong arms supporting my whole-body weight. I feel the pressure of his forearms under my bottom, around my back. He reaches the bedroom instinctively, as if we have done this one thousand times before.

  “Before we go any further, I want you to know that I’ve never done this with anyone else before.”

  My comment takes him by surprise. Does he think I have?

  “Hey, that’s okay. I don’t mind teaching you, Charlie. I am, as you might say, quite experienced.”

  He winks at me and I melt. Opening the door and almost throwing me down onto the bed, I’m left floundering on my back when he crawls on top of me, kissing my mouth, licking my lips until I finally open them far enough to let his tongue slip inside. His taste is intoxicating, and the smell of him on top of me, assaulting my senses is enthralling. I can feel the pressure from his body as he lies on top of me, supporting his weight at the shoulders, but purposefully leaning into me with his hips, where I can feel him hardening, growing, longing…

  His mouth moves away from mine and I groan at this newfound lack of touch. He quickly finds me again. This time along my jawline, down my neck, to the hollow in my collarbones where he starts to suck, hard and fast, with a lick of his tongue that makes my head spin.

  His hands wander down my stomach and over my hips to rest on my bulging member. After days of trying to ignore my body, I finally let impulse and nature take over. He opens the button on my pants with his teeth, and I’m not quite sure how. He pulls them off along with my underwear in one foul swoop, throwing them onto the floor and leaving me completely bare to his view. It feels odd to be dressed in a tank top and pajama shirt on top, and yet completely naked beneath the waist. I pull him in closer again for kiss after kiss, longing to finally have some kind of decent and lustful physical connection with him.

  His tongue snakes back inside my mouth and I’m overcome. The coil of heat in my stomach is becoming unbearable, and I press my hips up against his. I let instinct take over, and move my hands to unbuckle his belt, pulling at his shirt until he understand what I’m trying to do, letting go of me for just a moment while he pulls off his jumper, quickly falling back to kiss bruises against my neck.

  Suddenly I’m at a loss. What do I do? How does this happen? I mean, I know the basic mechanics, but how does it actually work?

  “Stop…”

  Blaine falls back onto his heels, kneeling in front of me.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I just…I don’t know what to do…”

  “Let me show you then.”

  With a coy smile, he moves back up my body, giving me a tender kiss on the mouth. Moving down, he kisses my jaw, my shoulder – where there is now a gigantic bruise the color of broken amethyst. I think he is just going to keep going, making the bruise darker and wider, but instead he starts moving down my stomach, placing tender pecks across the bottom of my ribcage, down to my navel, and starts running his nose through the mess of my pubic hair. He takes me in his mouth, and immediately sparks shoot though my entire body. His warm, wet tongue circles my head, playing with the foreskin before he tries to take all of me. I hit the back of his throat and he gags, sending shockwaves through my stomach. The heat intensifies and the familiar feeling of losing control starts to build.

  “Please…” I beg. “Don’t make me…in your mouth.”

  He gives one final lick, slowly and expertly building up a vacuum, and comes off giving a satisfying ‘pop’. He unbuckles his pants, letting them fall and kicks them to the floor. Hands either side of my hips, he tells me “Roll over.” I do as instructed, and he pulls my pelvis off the bed and up to his height. I have nothing to support my weight other than my arms – it’s finally helpful that I have such strong limbs.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, please Blaine, just…”

  I hear a bottle pop, it must be lube – where did he get that? – and I hear the familiar sound of cloth hitting the floor.

  “You need to relax…I promise you’ll like it.”

  I relax as much as I can, and I feel him poke me, which inevitably makes me tense. He presses in, close, and enters me very slowly, inch by inch. The pressure in my stomach mounts, and I can’t help but let out a small, uncontrollable moan. Blaine is slowly going further and further, and it feels wrong and a little painful but in a good way. As Blaine finally slips his whole length inside me, he whines and I feel his pubic hair gently graze against my ass, telling me he’s been able to enter me fully. He wriggles further in, even though it should be impossible. He hits something and electricity courses though my entire body.

  “Is that okay?”

  I can’t even answer, simply nod. He starts to pull out, almost all the way, and then moves back in, not as slowly as before. He does this again and again, faster and faster, hitting that one spot over and over and over again.

  “I’m gonna…I’m gonna…”

  “Do it baby, come on, I know you’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

  “Are you…close?”

  He answers with a deep, primal grunt, continuing to pound into me faster than I ever thought possible. He must be getting tired, but the adrenaline coursing through his system is keeping him going.

  “I want us to climax, together. Are you close?”

  I nod, I can’t even verbalize how I’m feeling anymore. All I know is I want him to keep going. I never want him to stop. I want him to never leave me, never leave my
side, never leave my bed. He continues pumping, thrusting and then reaches round and grasps me. His hands are freezing, and it makes me flinch and clench, which makes Blaine grip harder, as he starts driving his hand and thumping hard into me. The quicker he thrusts, the quicker he pumps, and I can barely contain myself. I let out one final cry of total surrender before finally letting go and letting the thick sludges of liquid cum squirting out all over my bedsheets. Blaine follows suit, burying himself in me as I feel his hot fluid fill me. He gives one final quiver, gripping hard on my hips, and leaving fingertip bruises.

  He slowly moves out of me and I feel myself shudder and clench at the sudden emptiness. He lets my hips down to the mattress, and he flops onto his back beside me, and making the bedframe squeak and the mattress groan. We laugh at the noise, before he asks me “Do you mind if I have a smoke?” I don’t, and he fetches his tin and lighter, sparking a small flame. My head is spilling, and if I had any, my legs would be shaking. Surely, I wouldn’t be able to stand even if I could. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that I’m bound to that chair – he isn’t able to see what affect our activities are having on me. My God, I’ve really fallen for this man. I wonder does he think that we ended up in bed together tonight only because of a lustful kiss or does he understand my deeper feelings?

  Chapter Four

  I wake the next morning in a state of bliss. Blaine stayed all night, cooked me dinner and we drank wine and talked until almost three in the morning. My God, why was I so afraid of this? What harm are we doing to anyone? We are both grown men and we know exactly what we want. Who are we hurting, who are we offending by what we did last night? No-one knows, and no-one will ever know, so what is the harm? Why are so many men arrested and imprisoned every year for loving who they love?

  Blaine stirs in the bed beside me, rolling over and pulling me close. Is this what it feels like to be loved? That even when they are asleep, unconscious and dreaming dreams you can’t even imagine, their body still recognizes your presence. Their body still says ‘I want you close to me.’ And you know that they do, because they have no control over it. My God, why can’t we just stay here all day, every day?