Page 96 of Into the Dark
“So you’ve seen me. Why you still fucking here?”
“Jake, maybe I should go,” I suggest then. “Leave you both to talk? That might be the best—” I go to move, but he grips me tightly.
“You’re not going anywhere, baby,” he says firmly. The words are an insinuation, and Susan seems to understand exactly what he means because she nods in understanding.
“I knew you would probably be a bit angry. You’ve every right to be. I understand,” she says gently.
Beside me, Jake only tenses more, his grip on my arm just on the cusp of painful. “You understand fuck all,” he tells her. “Strangers turning up unannounced at my house and imposing themselves on my girlfriend is inconvenient, that’s all. Now, if you would kindly get the fuck out of here, and do us a favor: don’t come fucking back, yeah?”
Finally, something caves in Susan’s body, a sort of weary hopelessness settling over her. She nibbles on the inside of her lip in exactly the same way Jake does before a look of acceptance clouds her eyes. Letting out a tired breath, she turns and walks back to the couch and lifts up her large bag, hooking it over her shoulder.
Her face is so sad and pitiful now that it makes me want to cry. I actually feel on the verge of tears watching her as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a pen and a small black address book. Jake watches her with a mask of cool indifference, jaw clenched under his thick chestnut beard, as she leans on the kitchen counter and scribbles something between the pages. The sound of her tearing the page out is so loud in the quiet, tense space. She folds it over once and leaves it there on the counter before straightening up. Susan looks a little more composed now than she did a moment ago.
“If you change your mind and want to talk to me, that’s my number. And address.” She points at the piece of paper with her pen. “I’m here for a few days before we go back to Bristol. I’d like the chance to talk to you. I know it’s a lot to ask, son. I know that. And I know you don’t think I deserve it, and maybe I don’t. But once you’ve a chance to think it over…” She flicks her eyes to me briefly before looking back at her son. She’s waiting for something from him, but I know with almost certainty she’s not going to get it.
“You remember where the door is, yeah?” he says in a voice so cold it causes a shiver to roll over me.
She smiles a sad smile and nods. When she looks at me I give her another of my useless reassuring smiles, though what I’m trying to reassure her about I’ve no idea. “It was nice meeting you, Alex,” she says, moving past us both to go toward the door. She looks back only once before disappearing through it and closing it softly behind her.
It’s almost thirty seconds after the door closes behind her that Jake lets go of my arm. He wanders away from me into the kitchen and begins to put away the contents of the bag he brought in with him. Crusty loaf, milk, eggs, and a tub of bright, succulent-looking strawberries. I watch him silently, feeling overwhelmed and confused and full of knotted nerves. For him, for me.
Moving across the kitchen to him, I stop behind him and slide my arms around his waist, leaning my head into the warm expanse of his back. He smells divine. Comforting and warm and familiar. His heat feels vital, and this moment feels pivotal, and above all, no matter what he’s feeling, I need him to know that I’m here.
He stops moving and takes a deep breath before he turns and wraps me in his arms. His heart beats fast and loud in his chest, and when I look up into his eyes they’re still dark. He lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me, his tongue and lips rough and hungry. He moves his hands down and across my body in the same way, stroking and caressing the bare skin of my shoulders and back as pulls me against him. When he begins to pant against my mouth, licking into it forcefully, I feel the tension in his body start to melt away.
Reluctantly, I pull my head back from his, separating our mouths and settling my hands flat on his chest to peer up at him. “What are you going to do?”
He frowns a little, but then his face relaxes and a slow smile spreads over his mouth so he’s smirking at me. “Well, first, I’m going to take your clothes off slowly—or quickly. Yeah, definitely quickly…mmm…then I’m thinking I’ll lift you up onto this counter and fuck you right here.” He leans forward to kiss me again. But when he starts to slide up my dress I pull back from him, my eyes asking the question this time. “I know what you’re thinking.” He licks his lips. “I wanna fuck you in the kitchen far too often, and you’re probably shitting it that I have some sort of kitchen fetish or something, but I don’t—honest. We can fuck upstairs if you’d prefer. I don’t really care, to be honest…” When he leans forward to kiss me again, I take a full step backward. He blatantly ignores the expectant look on my face. “So you do want to go upstairs then. Fine by me… Let’s go.” He grabs my hand and starts to pull me with him toward the spiral staircase.
“Jake. Stop.” I plant my feet into the ground and pull my hand out of his. “Talk to me, Jake, please.”
He sighs, turning back to me slowly. “There’s nothing to talk about, Alex.”
“You can’t just pretend she never came,” I say.
“Watch me.”
“Seriously? You’re just going to go on as if nothing happened? You haven’t seen her in, what, twenty years? She’s your mother, for god’s sake.” My voice is high and too emotional. I hate when it sounds like that. It gets nothing done when it sounds like that. When I speak again, I calm it.
The dark cloud from earlier rolls back across his face. “My mother?” He laughs. “Alex, I know you find it hard to understand, but trust me when I say that woman was never any sort of mother to me. And she’s not about to start now. Now, are you coming upstairs or not? I’m hard, and I really need to fuck you right now.” He pulls his T-shirt up over his head and drapes it casually over the nearby barstool.
Of its own volition, my body thrums with want. “If we go upstairs and have sex right now, can we talk about this after?”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ, this is bloody ridiculous!”
“No, Alex, the only thing that’s ridiculous is the fact I’m hard, you’re probably wet, and we aren’t upstairs already. Now move, or I’ll put you over my shoulder and fucking carry you up there.” There’s a warning in his eyes as he unbuckles his belt.
Something wet and warm explodes between my legs, and the image of him taking me roughly and angrily plasters itself on my brain. What on earth is wrong with me?
Okay, well, it’s not as if this is surprising reactionary behavior from him. I know him. I know how skillfully he distracts me from talking about serious things with sex—it’s what he’s always done.
Except I also know exactly what he’s like afterward. His defenses crumble and he’s far more malleable.
We’ll see about not talking about it after.
“Fine,” I say as I charge past him. “Let’s go have bloody sex then.”