A Lonely Grave

(Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The places are real but the characters and events described herein are entirely imagined and do not describe real people or events. Any similarities to real people or events is entirely coincidental. This story contains some sexual, violent and traumatic content - though it remains within the community guidelines - reader discretion is advised.)

Remember that kiss, in the cave by the beach? I do. I have tried to find that kiss in a million kisses, but no mouths tell me the tale I felt in that cave. No passion has matched it, no energy compares.

I have searched for your face in so many people. As I knelt in my shower tonight, weeping over the drain in the floor, wishing my blood was running out with the water, I realized that in all my lovers, I have been looking for you. Everyone that has ever shown me affection, the closer they came to being like you, the more need for them I felt.

There is a problem with all of these people. There is a reason none of them can stand the test of time. There is a reason that no amount of love can hold them to me. It’s all very simple: none of them is you.

It all began so innocently, you and I. I was slightly older, but not by much, and your sister and I were friends. Your mother and my mother had bonded in the usual way that mothers do, probably watching us run and play in the schoolyard or over the refreshment table at an event. Such a friendship blossomed between them and the three of us, your sister, yourself and I, were happily included in the bonding.

Your sister used to get so upset when we were little when people would tell her that she couldn’t marry you. You can’t marry your siblings, they’d say. And she would say how she couldn’t love a person unless they were you. Although she’s definitely not in love with you now, it doesn’t surprise me that she’s married to a woman.

You weren’t there when I was raped, and the first hands to lay claim to my body were not yours. My childhood and my innocence and the gift of my virginity were ripped away in a heartbeat. Broken and bedraggled, I continued on. It wasn’t long after that that we moved away. Three thousand miles was a hell of a distance.

I tried to keep in touch, but life caught up to me in so many ways and Death became the only lover I looked forward to. His promises in the dark became stronger and more powerful and I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and be one with the grave.

It seemed that God was smiling on me when he sent Shaun to rescue me, and I was given another chance. I didn’t know I was looking for you then. But, as fate would have it, when my first real relationship fell apart, you were there.

Like a phoenix rises from the ashes of my despair, you stood, so comfortable in the flames of my hurt and my rage. You felt me and understood me like no one else could, and I walked out of the fire and into your arms.

Spirit Lake, Iowa

November 2014

The wintery wind bit through my clothes as I stood out on the back porch, gazing out at the already frozen lake. The snow birds had all moved on to their southern perches for the season and the very few of us left in town would nod in the aisles of the supermarket like exhausted warriors, bonded in the turmoil of surviving the elements. The cigarette in my hand was the only bit of heat as I held it in between my chapped lips, the flavor reminding me of so many hours spent in a tiny red truck on the coast of California.

My phone rang and I smirked as I saw the caller ID.

“Hello, Puppy,” I answered.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Pete answered, deep voice gravelly with lust. “Steph is out for a while so I figured I’d call.”

“I’m glad you did.”

I flicked my cigarette out onto the frozen grass and went inside, shutting the slider behind me and taking one last glance at the lake before slumping onto the couch and inspecting my nails.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day,” Pete said, and the breathy rasp of his voice made me imagine that he had his hand around his already stiff cock, imagining all kinds of naked things.

I felt my body warm and I took off everything but my tshirt and panties and sat back down, “What have you been imagining, Puppy?”

“I want to tie you up. I want to fuck you until you lose your voice from screaming. I want to bite you until you bleed… I want you to do the same back to me.”

I shivered with lust, “Tell me more.”

“Are you sure? It’s pretty dark.”

“I don’t care.”

I didn’t care. The truth was, I was dark. The places inside where a person once existed were dark and dormant, empty. I was less than nothing. I listened as Peter detailed the wicked things he wanted to do to my body and mind, culminating in an orgasm that we shared over the phone, after which our panting led to tired quiet in which we shared some small talk about the people back home and how things were going with our respective jobs, until we felt we had paid our dues for the real and sordid reason we spoke. We were friends, we both needed more than we were getting out of our lives, but we were never going to be together.

I needed something tangible again.

In the age of the internet it is all too easy to snare your prey. So many eager lovers await. Send a few pictures of your naked body in compromising positions and you’ve hooked your catch. They swim eagerly into the net and hardly question their decision to succumb to their lust.

Ryan was the third to touch me since you. Before I officially left my home if so many years, I had tried to purge your memory with a one night stand. And then, two months later, I found myself in another man’s bed. A friend. Someone I thought I could trust. When he let me down, as everyone does, I decided I wouldn’t have anyone else until I had my own place.

So Ryan was the first man to come to me. He lived on the other side of the lake and he owned a limo business. He wasn’t smart like you, but he was attractive and funny and his body reminded me of yours. He would do. Within a few hours of talking to him, he’d agreed to come over. We were both adults with itches to scratch, and with clean bills of health, we were ready and willing.

He barely made it through the door before I was on top of him. I had candles lit and I wasn’t interested in small talk. He didn’t seem to mind. His body yielded to my touch and he chuckled at my eagerness, sounding like he thought my urgency was about him and that he was irresistible. I didn’t correct him, but internally I pitied him. I was a drug addict and he was my fix. Just one more, I told myself. Just one more. One last touch, one last fix, one last kiss and I’ll be able to stop thinking about you. Someday I won’t hear you. Someday I’ll forget how you taste. Just one more.

But Ryan’s body was close enough.

Too close.

San Francisco, CA

April 2012

I got off the plane and hurried to the bathroom to freshen up. I didn’t want to keep you waiting. I freshened between my legs and then put on fresh deodorant, fluffed my plane-musty clothes and flipped my hair upside down and tousled it to give it some volume. A quick makeup check and I was ready.

Steeling myself, I walked toward the baggage claim, my heart beating out of my chest.

“Oh fuck,” I whispered as I saw you.

You looked up and our eyes met and I grinned a thousand watt smile. You smiled back and I thought I might stop breathing right then and there. I burst through the glass doors that separated the terminal from the baggage claim and threw myself into your arms.

“Whoa, easy there babydoll,” you said, laughing. “It’s ok. You’re here now.” You leaned back and looked into my face and kissed me.

I wasted no time in kissing you back, fireworks exploding inside my head. I’d never felt anything like that kiss. It was like my lips were made for you. Everything around us disappeared. Finally, you stopped me.

“Alright,” you panted, laughing. “Let’s get your bags first.”

You hooked your arm through mine and I leaned on your shoulder as I waited for my bags to come around the carousel. I squeezed your ass and you laughed and told me you couldn’t wait to get me alone. I couldn’t agree more. Finally my bag appeared and you carried it for me, leading me toward your truck.

It wasn’t hot yet, not really, but it was plenty warm for April in Northern California. I breathed in the scents of San Francisco with aching homesickness. You looked at me, eyes nearly glowing in their delight and passion and we got into the truck, lips meeting in the middle, hands fumbling to explore each other. After so many months of talking and yearning and reconnecting, being able to touch you felt like coming home.

Spirit Lake, Iowa

November 2014

Ryan and I laid there in the dark, exhausted. He asked me if I wanted him to leave and I told him to stay, that I didn’t want to sleep alone. He agreed and we fell asleep together, not touching, but close. Having a warm body in my bed was tonic to my aching open wounds. I hadn’t slept so well in months.

The next morning, he got up and went to work and kissed me goodbye, asking if he could contact me again. Maybe we could actually get to know each other, he said. I shrugged and agreed and went back to sleep. The second part of my sleep wasn’t nearly as good.

Shortly thereafter, I started working an overnight shift at one of the few places left open during the winter by the lake. Fairly soon, I was friendly with most of the people on my shift, but particularly Laura and Steve. Laura was a certified lesbian and she was living with her girlfriend Hannah not too far from me. Steve lived pretty far away but he was in town a lot for his kids and he had taken a job to be closer to them.

Laura and I bonded in particular, and soon we were hanging out at each other’s houses. Hannah would often accompany her and she was a stoner, so we would sit in my living room and get high. Hannah was a bit asexual, but I could understand what Laura saw in her and I thought if they ever broke up, I would take either one, not that I told them as much.

Laura, I found out, knew Ryan, and she vouched for him, saying he was a really great guy that was like a brother to her. That was reassuring, but it wouldn’t have mattered. He could have been an ax murderer for all I cared.

In fact, that might have been better.

April 2012

San Francisco Bay Area

That month we spent together was the best time I’d ever had. I had never felt so much love, so much passion, so much desire. All of my senses felt heightened. The sex was mind blowing. Everything tasted better, smelled sharper. I was, without a doubt, deeply in love with you. The kind of love you can’t escape. The kind of love that only happens once in a lifetime. The kind of love that follows you, no matter what happens.

I was laying on your chest, playing with one of your nipples when you let out a deep sigh and rubbed your face. You reached for a cigarette and I sat up to grab the ashtray for you. It was then that I saw your expression.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

You dragged on your cigarette, staring at me, and exhaled slowly, your eyes never leaving mine. Slowly, you said, “I just feel like we’re going to be separated.”

My heart squeezed painfully and I had to remind myself how to breathe. “What do you mean?”

You took another drag and your eyes flicked away from my face, “I just feel like… as much as I love you, as much as I want this to work out, I just don’t think it will.”

I pressed my hands to my chest as I suddenly labored to breathe. You sat up, concern and regret on your face and said, “Forget I said that. Just forget about it, ok? It’s nothing. Just a feeling.”

I didn’t know it then, but almost two years later you told me that you couldn’t sleep that night and you went out on the hotel walkway to cry. I wish I’d known, but I was so exhausted from my own sobbing that I slept to rival the dead.

January 2015

Spirit Lake, IA

It wasn’t so much a sound that woke me as the sudden sensation that I wasn’t alone. Chills shot up my spine and I lay rigidly on my belly, fully awake but trying to appear completely relaxed, eyes closed, listening.

There.

A creak, so close to me but definitely outside. On the small wooden porch outside my bedroom. I was sure of it.

Slowly I opened my eyes.

Silhouetted by the twilight, dark not completely fallen yet, a large shape loomed on the other side of the sliding glass door. Quickly and quietly, I reached over to turn my alarm off; it was almost time to wake up for work. I winced as the nightstand drawer made a slight noise as I pulled it open to reach for the gun inside.

Noiselessly, I sat up in bed, fairly confident that the person, almost certainly a man, couldn’t see around my curtains. They were translucent, but not sheer, and I had the advantage of being in a dark room. I trained my gun on the shape and waited.

I need a big dog, I thought.

I felt my heart thud ominously as the intruder tested the slider to see if it was locked. When it failed to open, I heard a muffled curse and the shape moved away from the door.

My phone warbled and my eyes flicked over to it. Still holding the gun outstretched, I reached for the phone to silence it and then got out of bed. In just a long tee shirt and nothing else, I went to the front door and checked the lock and nearly screamed as the knob jiggled.

“Jax! Let me in. I know you’re home, your truck is in the driveway!”

Relief flooded me as I flung open the door and practically dragged my best friend Frank through the door, hugging him tight.

“Don’t you know how to knock?” I scolded. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“I did but you must not have heard it and you don’t have a doorbell. I didn’t want to wake you.” He pulled out of the hug to look at me and saw the gun in my hand. “Jesus, Jax, I’m glad you didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.”

I snorted and put the gun back in my nightstand. Frank followed me into the bedroom and flicked on the light behind him. I squinted in the sudden brightness and blinked like the nocturnal creature I had become. I sat on the edge of the bed, not bothering to cover my legs and lit a cigarette. I inhaled deeply and rubbed my face.

“So, not that I’m not happy to see you,” I told Frank, “but what the hell are you doing here?”

He shrugged, “You sounded bad on the phone. And dad hasn’t shut down the cabin for the winter so I thought I’d stick around for a bit and make sure you’re ok.”

I half smiled and raised an eyebrow, “Just like that? What about work?”

“Jude said I could work at the shop while I’m here and he’s willing to give me nights so you and I have the same schedule.”

I exhaled a cloud of smoke and looked at my bare knees, “How long have you been planning this?”

Frank cleared his throat, “PJ told me he saw the guy from the limo service out here a couple times. And then he told me you sit out on the deck sometimes when you’re not at work with your gun in your hand and he worries he’s gonna find your body out here someday.”

“PJ?” I asked, the name not ringing a bell. Then, something stirred, “Wait wait, Sheriff Coney’s kid? The dude who worked at the bait shop all those summers? He’s watching me?”

“He’s a beat cop now and there’s not a whole lot going on in Spirit Lake this time of year. Someone spending that much time out in the cold draws notice when there’s nothing else to look at.”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, “I’m fine. I’m just… alone out here and I don’t want to get caught unprepared.”

Frank looked at me seriously, “Who is it that you’re expecting to come after you all the way out here, Jax?”

I felt a cold chill, “No one. Nobody. I just want to be ready.”

May 2012

San Francisco International Airport

You kissed me as though my lips were oxygen and you would die without them. You pulled me so close it was like you were trying to merge our bodies.

At the time, I felt relieved that you were so passionate. It allayed my fears about being separated and I was confident we’d find a way to close the geographical distance between us sooner rather than later.

I should have realized what you were really saying with that kiss. I should have realized you were saying goodbye. Forever.

You walked with me all the way to security. We both had tears in our eyes and lumps in our throats. We kept whispering “I love you,” and stealing small kisses and touches as we made our way.

When we got to security, you hugged me so tightly and said you would watch until you couldn’t see me anymore. I kept glancing behind me as I went through, already feeling panicked that we were apart. You were steady for me, your eyes nearly glowing with emotion.

Finally I was through security and I looked back. You held up a hand in the ASL hand sign for “I love you.” My heart squeezed and I did it back.

How was I supposed to walk away?

But my plane was going to board soon and I had to get to my gate.

I started to cry as I turned the corner and knew that I could no longer see you if I looked back. And you would leave because you couldn’t see me.

If I could do it again, I would run back. I would say “fuck it, we’ll figure it out,” and just stay with you. Maybe if I would have just never left, it wouldn’t be like this. There are so few things I regret so intensely. And leaving that day is chief among them.

I cried for the entire flight and during the cab ride back to my place. I called you as soon as I got home, but you didn’t answer, so I cried myself to sleep.

Days passed and still… no call.

I stopped texting you, feeling like a nuisance. I’m not needy, nor am I codependent, and reaching out repeatedly with no reply was humiliating. I started to question my sanity. Had I imagined it all? Had I invented love where there was none? Was I insane?

It was as though you were watching me, the day you finally called me back. I stepped out of work, exhausted and bedraggled and covered in hay after cleaning the entire barn. My phone rang as I walked to my truck and I answered without looking.

“Hello?” I asked, sounding tired.

“Hey Jax,” you said, that voice sending waves of intensity through my bones.

I gripped the phone and fumbled my way into my truck, sitting down hard. “Cole,” I croaked, a tear snaking down my cheek. “Thank God.”

“Heh,” you chuckled half heartedly, “yeah. I don’t know if you should thank him just yet. I’ve… ive been doing a lot of thinking.”

Don’t. Please don’t say it. I thought, feeling dread flood me. Please don’t.

When I didn’t answer, you continued on slowly. “I love you, Jax. But … I’m gonna die young. I just know I am. And I’m angry and miserable and depressed and you’re … you deserve so much better than what I have to offer. You should marry someone better. Have some kids. Be happy.”

“Happy,” I deadpanned, feeling utterly numb.

“Well, yeah…” you said, sounding less certain.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, voice dead.

“Baby, no. No. It’s just. I can’t do this. I can’t love you like you deserve to be loved. I can’t be who you need me to be.”

“Oh.” How could I put into words what this was doing to me. Would it have mattered to you?

I don’t remember the end of that conversation.

I don’t remember driving back to my place.

The next few months are all but lost to me. A fog which I didn’t really emerge from, but learned to live with enough to function. But I couldn’t stay where I was. Eventually I found the cabin on the lake and packed what I could fit in my truck and left.

January 2015

Spirit Lake, IA

Frank stared at me as he ate, looking pointedly at the cigarette I was smoking instead of eating my portion.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he finally asked.

“Maybe,” I said, taking another drag.

“You should eat,” he said, nodding towards my plate.

“What are you, my mother?” I tried to joke. I got up from the table and put my jacket on, feeling the gun in the inside pocket thump against my ribs.

“Where are you going?” Frank asked, half standing as he frowned.

“Outside!” I said, throwing up my hands. I lit another cigarette on my way out the door and let the screen door slam shut behind me.

The cold was intense, biting, even painful. I hated to be cold but I was also grateful for it. It was one of the few things that made me feel alive. For those moments where I thought I was going to die from the cold, it reminded me of a very important truth; I wanted to live. As bad as I felt, as much as I felt I couldn’t go on, when I thought about freezing to death or putting a bullet in my skull, I realized I didn’t want it to end this way.

I jumped as Frank asked from behind me, “What’s going on with you?”

I turned around and looked up into his face, “I don’t want to die,” I told him, “but I don’t want to live, either.” I bit my lip and turned away before tears could well in my eyes.

Frank waited while I finished my cigarette and then followed me inside. He watched as I cleaned off the dishes and was waiting in the living room as I took a shower brushed my teeth. I knew he was in the room as I took off my bathrobe and towel dried my hair.

When I pulled back the blankets, body still bare, Frank cleared his throat and said, “I’m gonna sleep in the bedroom downstairs.”

He was almost to the stairs, bag in hand when I said softly, “I wish you wouldn’t.”

I was sitting up in bed, chest exposed. He looked at me and I felt a tingle of anticipation.

“I want to… stay. With you. But what you want… I want it for different reasons. And I don’t want it with you until you want the same thing.”

I frowned, “How do you know what I want and why I want it?”

His eyes met mine and bored into me, “Because I know you better than anyone else.”

I dropped my gaze and slid all the way into bed, pulling the covers up, “Turn the light off on your way out.”

He did.

I lay there in the dark, knowing he was right and hating that he was right. I didn’t want to have sex with him because I felt something. I wanted to have sex with him to feel something.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up to the sound of glass breaking in my driveway, followed by raucous laughter. I got up and pulled on my bathrobe and grabbed my gun, moving to the window in the kitchen so I could get a peek at whoever it was. I cursed under my breath as I recognized Ryan. I didn’t recognize his friend, though.

A rustle by the stairs drew my eye to Frank, standing in the dark, looking outside as well. He looked over at me and whispered, “Do you know them?”

“One of them,” I mouthed.

I noted a white limousine half pulled off the road and into my driveway. At least he hadn’t hit my truck or Frank’s. Hopefully no one hit the end of the limo.

I motioned for Frank to move away from the door as Ryan pounded on it. I opened it slowly.

“Hey baby,” Ryan slurred. “Were you sleepin?” He sounded surprised.

“Yeah. I was,” I told him, not moving aside. “I don’t know who your friend is, but I think you’d better go. The limo is gonna get towed if you leave it there.”

He glanced over his shoulder and chuckled and then seemed to notice the other vehicle in my driveway.

“Got company, girlie? ‘Sat why you won’ let us in?”

“I have company but I’m not letting you in because it’s the middle of the night and you have a stranger with you. I was asleep.”

Ryan clapped his friend on the back, “This ‘s Cam. Told him how welcoming you were when we firs’ met and he wanted to meet you.” Ryan laughed and looked at me, “‘N I figured what the hell, I wouldn’t mind watching.”

I got colder than the wind through the door could make me, “Watching?”

Ryan looked over his shoulder at the other truck in my driveway, “Got company already huh? Well le’s jus’ make it a fucking party.” He shoved Cam through the door.

I stumbled backwards as Cam’s body slammed into mine. He laughed drunkenly and wasted no time in fumbling with my bathrobe as he propelled me backwards towards the kitchen. I was caught off guard and although I had a gun in my hand, which didn’t seem to phase him, he had me exposed and my legs spread, propped up on the counter before I could react. I could hear Frank and Ryan fighting in the stairwell and a loud thump as they rolled down the stairs.

Cam was trying to get his jeans unzipped as I finally got my bearings and I was so repulsed and so fearful of what he was about to do that my body reacted almost outside of my control. I squeezed off two shots directly into his chest. The look of surprise on his face would have been comical if I wasn’t so horrified. His blood instantly started flooding my kitchen floor.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit,” I slid off the counter and ran to my closet to grab a blanket, running back to the kitchen to try to staunch the flow as the crimson stain bloomed all around Cam’s body.

Frank came thundering up the stairs, “What the fuck is-“ his words died on his lips as I stood there frozen, my hands and bare legs covered in blood from trying to soak up the mess. Frank looked at Cam and then back at me, his eyes traveling over my body. “Did he actually have time to hurt you?”

I shook my head.

“Give me the gun,” Frank said.

Reluctantly, I handed it over.

Two days later…

Frank and I stared at the ice. Already it had frozen over where we had cut our hole. You would never know, unless you knew what to look for, that there had been a manhole sized opening in the ice.

When I finally fell asleep the night before, I had nightmares of the two men crawling out of the ice. Looking at it in the daylight, I felt like I was making a spectacle of myself, but I had to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind. The cabin was cleaner than it had ever been. Nothing had been left un-scrubbed. The limo had been returned and completely wiped down. The gun, which was unregistered, went into another part of the lake.

“What now?” I asked Frank. “If we run, they’ll know it was us.”

“No they won’t. It’s not even December yet. This won’t thaw until March, maybe even April. And who’s to say the bodies even get found at that point? We did enough to weigh them down. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re not found at all.”

I thought about what we had done to ensure they sunk to the bottom and shuddered. I’d had a dark imagination but the reality was chilling.

I looked at Frank and realized this had changed us. In some ways we were closer than ever, but on an essential level it had severed our bond. No heat lingered. No desire. And the softness was entirely gone. There would never be a better ally, but a dark cloud loomed between us. It made me love him fiercely, but in the same way men in foxholes become enmeshed. It was no longer tender or endearing. I stretched out my arms to embrace him and he held me tightly.

“Goodbye, Jax,” he said.

“I’ll miss you, Frank,” I told him.

Present Day

I look up from my book and smile as our daughter runs across the sand. You chase her and she giggles madly as you pretend to be slower than her. Just slow enough that the chase goes on and on. I look longingly at the water but I can’t bear to go in. Before my thoughts can go any further, I take a deep breath and find ten things to look at and examine to redirect my thoughts. It’s been over six years now, and everything is looking up.

You came back to me.

We have everything we ever wanted.

My phone rings.

I wince, and dread swamps me, because I know I’ve spoken too soon.

I answer the phone and listen as someone drones on about how Frank has been put on death row for a double murder. I feel the blood drain from my extremities as my heart skips several beats.

…

I sit up in bed, gasping.

I blindly reach for my phone and look at the time. 3:47am. My eyes idly glaze over the date and then dart back up to it and stop. It’s now 3:48am on June the 17th, 2014.

I turn the light on and look over at you and look around our bedroom. Memories come rushing back of us moving in together after our month long vacation and the relief is so intense I can barely breathe.

“You ok?” you ask, rolling over and squinting up at me.

“Oh, I’m fine,” I grin. “Just had a bizarre dream is all.”

The End?