Summary: Raymond Garraty is eight years old when he meets the girl he wants to marry. But then he joins The Long Walk.
Tags: 5+1 Things format, childhood friends to lovers, domestic violence (not between Ray & OC), canon ending for The Long Walk movie, minor angst, explicit smut (18+ ONLY, mdni). Ray’s POV. 6.7k words.
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Raymond Garraty is eight years old when he meets the girl he wants to marry. Before Connie Nesbitt—before her mousy brown hair and sparkling gray eyes—there was basketball and monster trucks and hot dog eating contests and other things that excited him. But the second he sees her across the playground, he abandons the idea that kissing is gross.
The odd thing about falling for someone at a tender age is that you suddenly notice everything about yourself. And you worry that the pretty girl in overall shorts and Mary Jane’s thinks you’re a loser. And to all his school bullies, he is. For the first time in his short life he’s self conscious of his orange hair and gapped teeth and freckles.
But when his future wife walks his way, she gives no indication that he’s the abomination his bullies tell him he is. She smiles. And when he stares too long, she waves.
“I like your shirt.”
It takes him a second to realize she’s speaking to him. For a moment he thinks he hears an angel. His breath picks up. He nearly forgets his entire existence, just staring at her perfect face.
“Hello? Did you hear me?” She laughs. “I said I like your shirt.”
He looks down at his chest. “You like X-Men?”
“Sure do.”
When he looks back up, she’s pulling down the top of her overalls to reveal a Jean Grey shirt. He swoons—whatever that means. He’d heard someone say it on TV before. But he feels it, something in his chest tightening and expanding with his heartbeats. She’s beautiful.
“Who’s your favorite superhero?” she asks.
“Wolverine.”
“He’s a mutant.”
Beautiful and smart, he thinks. “Fine. Spider-Man, I guess.”
Her pink lips stretch over perfect white teeth. “Me too.”
Something builds within him, a great swelling of heat he’s never felt before. He thinks of it like riding a roller coaster and the rush you get when you go over a huge crest. He wants to feel it again and again and again.
They continue their conversation about Marvel cartoons and then switch to talking about school and hobbies and what they want to be when they grow up. But he keeps the part where he wants to marry her to himself. He doesn’t want to scare her away with something like that. What if she doesn’t even like gingers?
He can tell she likes talking to him. Or at least, likes to talk. And he listens because he likes to hear her talk too. He could fall asleep to the sound of her voice.
“Do you wanna come over after school and see my beanie baby collection?” she asks, leaning closer. “Well, it’s really my big sister’s but I’m gonna steal it when she goes to college.”
He perks up and leans in, smelling her strawberry shampoo. “Uh-huh. Totally.”
“Well, I’ll see you then. I gotta go.” Her warmth withdraws and he sighs leaning further into her empty space. “Bye, Ray.”
“Bye.”
I love you, he thinks. But what the hell does he know about any of it? He’s just the older schoolkids’ punching bag with a crush that may knock him off his feet before they do.
The back of her sister Denise’s Buick stinks like feet and listerine but there is nowhere else he’d rather be. The Wicker Man was a total drag. He spent half his time getting up the nerve to put an arm around Connie’s shoulder and the other half listening to people snore over the movie. If he had to choose this minty gymsock smelling bench seat over that, he would every time. At least then, when his knee brushes against hers, he can pass it off as an accident.
She’s wearing a blue dress that falls just above her knee, even higher than that when she’s sitting, and for the umpteenth time tonight he thinks of her thighs. He can see them clearly every time they pass under a street lamp. His hand inches closer across the seat vinyl. Nope, he knows better than that.
Teenagehood has been rough. All the new things he has to get used to because soon enough he’ll be out of school and on his own. But most of all, this nagging tingle in the base of his spine every time the wind blows wrong. Of course, now that he’s thought about it, he’s hard again. He shifts, the vinyl squeaking under him.
Connie looks at him. Through him, really. “Are you alright?” she asks, scooting closer to whisper.
If his ears weren’t specifically attuned to the sound of her perfect voice, he might not hear her over the sound of Denise and her muttonchopped boyfriend fighting in the front seat.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m right as rain.”
“You look uncomfortable.”
He is. Boy, he is. The front of his corduroy pants stretches obscenely as he leans forward to hide any evidence of his stupid little friend. “No, I’m good. It’s just hot in here.”
Denise smacks her gum loudly. “Not my fault I inherited a car without AC, bud.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t listen to her,” Connie says with a roll of her eyes. She slumps back into the seat and her dress rides higher. “She’s a cranky bitch.”
He licks his lips and stays quiet. He knows well enough not to get between them. His eyes shoot to Connie’s thighs, bare and white. Between them. The phrase repeats over and over in his mind and his mouth goes dry.
The car jolts to a stop and he nearly hits the head rest with his face.
“Why don’t you two get out and go suck each other's face off somewhere else?” Denise says, still gum-smacking, still a cranky bitch.
Connie huffs and kicks her door open. “Ugh. You are so rude!” She gets out and all he can see is legs. “Come on, Ray. She just wants to apologize to her boyfriend with her vagina.”
Ray side-eyes Denise warily and scoots out the open door as fast as he can, scared he’ll be the one getting the beating she wants to give her sister.
“Have fun walking home, brat!” The Buick roars as Denise peels out and Ray watches her boyfriend throw his head back with obnoxious laughter as they disappear in a plume of dust.
Now he feels like a jerk. If it weren’t for the disgusting thing in his pants they’d be riding comfortably back to Happy Land. He curses himself. He didn’t put his arm around her in that theater because he’s a coward and now he’s an asshole pervert who is making her walk home in the dark in her cute little cream heels.
She sways and paces. And his dick throbs.
Get it together, Garraty, he tells himself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Save it. She’s a c-u-n-t.”
He snorts. She’s so cute she can’t even say the word out loud.
Things have been going wrong in the Nesbitt household since Denise dropped out of college. The two girls are rarely not at each other's throats so tonight was supposedly a lucky occurrence. Although it had been forced on them by their parents. And he is the sonofabitch blessed enough to be asked out like he’s wanted for almost a decade now. Even when he knows it doesn’t mean anything.
He and Connie have been good friends. Only friends. But he’s still working on his plan to take her from good friend to wife. He’s gotta get his shit together first. Right now all he has to offer is gangly teenage limbs and a dumb sense of humor.
“Ray?”
He looks up and realizes she’s walked away. “I’m here,” he says, jogging to catch up. “I’m still sorry we have to walk.”
Her gray eyes twinkle when she beams at him. “I don’t mind walking with you.” Her cool fingertips crawl across his sweaty palm and weave between his own fingers.
Three words circle his mind—the same ones he thought about saying at eight years old on that very first day—but he doesn’t say them. Can’t. Not yet.
His heart throbs. His hard-on throbs. He doesn’t know it now but he’ll think of this moment in a few years, on a night much different than this, surrounded by boys that smell like Denise’s Buick, on a walk that only ends one way.
The first time he thinks about someone dying, it’s by his own hands. It’s ridiculous. Rash. But he fantasizes about choking the life out of Edmund Crowley for doing the exact thing he’s never gotten the nerve to do.
He watches from the corner of the restaurant bar and seethes. Connie puts her hand on Ed’s chest as he dips her, laughing, and they go on dancing and playing pool.
Rage burns in his gut so hot he tastes bile every time he belches the beer he isn’t old enough for. Talk of the town says they’re getting married. A wave of nausea roils his stomach. Who the fuck gets married at 18?
His buddies jest and talk around the table but all he sees is her. Long flowing strands of tawny hair flip back and forth as she moves and he can almost smell the strawberry shampoo from here. What a sick joke.
“Hey, I gotta go to the bathroom,” he says, scooting his friend out of the booth.
“Yeah, sure, Ray. Nothing to do with the happy couple by the pool table,” Kyle says with a laugh that makes Ray want to punch him.
“Should’ve bagged that when you had the chance.” Lee chuckles.
“Fuck you guys,” is all he manages before he takes off.
The cool night air stings his skin as he paces outside the restaurant. He can’t drive home, he’s too drunk. He can’t stay either. His fingers ache as he clenches them into fists. He wants to hurt something. Someone. And in his booze haze he thinks he might just up and do that.
The bell rings as he swings the door open and storms back inside. He stalks over to the pool table but doesn’t find anyone to punch. What reason would he have anyway? Just a real stupid excuse to go to jail tonight. And for her he would.
Only before he can expel his dinner and three quarters case of beer, he spots them at the end of the hall, in the fuzzy dark. Their voices are low secretive murmurs and he can’t make out what either of them are saying so he steps closer. They don’t notice him.
Connie tries to walk away but Ed grabs her upper arm. She shakes him off with a yelp. Then a sudden snap, like dry lightning, ricochets in the empty hallway. Ray can’t believe his eyes. He just fucking slapped her.
He’s feet away but he only takes two steps and has Ed in his grip. He might just get his wish tonight. “If I ever see you put your hands on her again, I will kill you, mother fucker,” he says and tastes metal. Adrenaline. Venom.
Connie’s fingers dig into the arm that holds Ed, struggling, against the wall. He gurgles and chokes.
“Ray! Please!” She tugs frantically. “He didn’t mean it!”
“The hell he didn’t!”
“Ray, stop!”
Her voice loosens his grasp like his body is possessed by it . . . her words . . . her mouth. God, that stupid fucking mouth. How wrong it is. He lets go and Ed slumps forward. And there is stillness, quiet, for only a split second before his own face hits the floor.
Ed flips him over by the skin of his neck and lays him flat out on his back. Meaty fists bash into his face like cannon fire. He hears Connie’s angelic voice screaming for Ed to stop but to him it sounds like singing, the tinkling of silver bells. His vision blurs and he spits blood.
I love you, he thinks. This is what I’m willing to do for you—die. Don’t you see that? His breath leaves his lungs as Ed’s fist wallops his stomach and finally his dinner and rancid alcohol spews out of his mouth like a ruptured spigot. I love you!
He hasn’t spoken to Connie in a year and half, which is why he’s surprised when she shows up at the bowling alley where he works one day out of the blue. Her hair is cut short, a few inches above her shoulders, and she looks matured, adult. There’s the shadow of an old bruise under her eye and it makes the muscle in his jaw tick. Because it’s not from Edmund Crowley this time but some other asshole she’s seeing that she doesn’t want to be saved from.
She storms into the lobby in her bell bottoms and reaches across the pay counters to hit him. His face burns as her hand collides with his cheek and he stands there dumbfounded, letting it happen.
“What is wrong with you!”
He doesn’t know what she’s referring to. “What’s not?”
“Don’t be funny. You know what I mean.”
He really doesn’t.
She places a big caramel-colored boot up on the counter and climbs over. Then shoves his chest and stumbles him backward into the break room. She doesn’t stop until he’s flopped against the wooden bench. Her figure hovers over him like a veiled wraith, sad eyes boring into him.
She bursts into tears and he feels sick shame chill him through. “What? What did I do?”
“I don’t want you to go,” she cries.
Oh. He’s done a damn good job of ignoring it for the past few weeks. He hadn’t planned on thinking of The Long Walk until he was physically foot in shoe on the road. But the list of applicants was put up all over town last night. And Maine's Own Ray Garraty is at the very top.
He pulls her down onto the bench beside him and rubs her arms hesitantly. It seems to console her somewhat.
“Why would you do that?” she asks.
“I have my reasons.”
She looks defeated beyond words. “I don’t get to know them? For some peace of mind or maybe I’ll understand why you’d be so goddamn stupid.”
He smiles. She finally learned to curse. “I’m gonna win, Con. And I’m gonna change things.”
Her brows furrow but she doesn’t question him. She must think he’s gone crazy but she relaxes into his touch and moves forward until her head is on his shoulder.
Strawberry shampoo. He takes a long breath, inhaling her scent, committing it to memory. Some things never change.
“Can I help you pack?” she asks.
“Not much to pack.”
“Can I make you something?”
“My mom’s already baking cookies.”
With a huff, she looks up at him, face so close to his that he can feel her breath. “Can I come and send you off then?”
“You’re not gonna talk me out of it?”
“Would it work?”
A smile tugs at his lips. “No.”
Another huff and her arms wrap around his midsection. He feels inadequate and unattractive like moldy bread but she doesn’t run away repulsed so he lets her hug him. It’s the closest he’s been to her in a long time. Maybe ever.
That feeling from 3rd grade comes back like a pipe bomb, tightening and exploding and shrapneling in his chest. All those feelings for her are still fresh. He can’t help it. Even when she chose meaty-fisted Ed Crowley over him and got his melon beat in. Even when all she did was call and say she was sorry before going radio silent for a year. Even when she comes into his job today and slaps him in the face. He has feelings for her, no matter how unrequited.
A lump forms in his throat. The Long Walk is a reality he will be facing very soon and it makes him want to puke knowing he might get his ticket never having told her. I love you. He screams it in his mind. I love you, damn you. But he doesn’t open his mouth.
Connie comes to help him pack his bag anyway. It’s the night before his mother drives him up to the starting line and he’s anxious. Unfortunately, the anxiety is only heightened by having her here. She’s anxious too and he can smell the heady fear-sweat from where he’s standing across the room.
“You really didn’t have to come,” he says, gesturing vaguely and rubbing the back of his neck.
“Well,” she starts, out of breath from nerves. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t forget anything.”
“I won’t.”
He pulls his pack out of the back of his closet and dusts off cobwebs. The thing hasn’t seen the light of day since he went camping as a kid. A sudden vision of the bottom ripping open while he’s walking strikes him and his heart turns over.
Connie notices and takes the bag. “What’s first? A jacket in case of rain?”
He nods.
She stuffs his green fatigue jacket inside and smiles stiffly. “Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
Her faux positive attitude slips for a moment as she struggles to swallow what he assumes to be fear. But she packs it down and goes over to his dresser. “What about this?” She holds up his baseball.
“I don’t think I’ll have much time to be hitting balls out there,” he says, irritably.
“Just for throwing. Maybe you’ll meet another Knicks fan.”
“That’s basketball.”
She sighs heavily.
“Look, I really don’t need your help. It’s not a hard job.” He says and his teeth grind. Why the hell is he so angry all of a sudden? “I’ll just see you tomorrow before I leave.”
“What?”
“You can go.” His cheeks catch heat like a wild fire, burning hot in an instant.
“I thought we could spend some time together.” The waver in tone gives away her hurt. “And I’d feel better knowing you had what you needed. I mean did you even think about sun screen or, I dunno, a fucking hat?”
His nails dig into his palm, knuckles popping. “Did you ever think maybe I don’t give a shit?”
She pulls a face that makes him want to hang himself. “Why are you being like this?” she asks, a deeper tremble in that beautiful voice now.
He can’t stop himself. It all explodes out of him at once. “Because I have no idea what I’m doing! You know what The Long Walk is, Con. You know what they do. That’s why you came crying to me when you found out. You think I’m immune to that knowledge?”
“No, of course not.”
“I know what I’m gonna see and I can’t fathom it. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I know what could happen to me. Which is all just fine and dandy,” he says, voice high, a hysterical laugh on its heels. “I’m gonna die a fucking virgin and for what? A pipe dream? A death wish? I don’t know!”
He looks at her, rant reaching peak, and he watches grimly as her face goes dull and her body shrinks away from him. “God. Shit . . . Fuck!” He panics. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
He reaches for her but doesn't touch her. Her eyes scan his body, chin wobbling as she takes him all in. Everything he hates about himself. “Are you trying to kill yourself, Ray?” she asks and it shocks her too. Her hand flies over her mouth with a cry.
“No!” He bolts forward and grabs her then, pulling her in. He’s not much taller than her but somehow she’s shrunken, small and weak in his arms. And she cries, heavy and loud, against his chest.
He pets her head and sucks in deep breaths through his nose. Strawberry shampoo. He wants to go back—to 3rd grade, that night in her sister's car, when he had his hand around Ed Crowley’s throat—any time but this. Because he’s at this precipice now, one step from falling.
“You’re gonna win, Ray.” Her voice is distant. Wind chimes. Heavenly. “You have to.”
He has to.
For a brief moment she’s unmoving, so still that he almost doesn’t notice her trying to pull away when she does. He’s lost in the feeling of her in his arms. How could it be that this is the first time he’s held her like this?
He meets her eyes and his chest does the funny thing again. Her lips open, she looks at his lips, licks her own. And his dick does the other funny thing. Those gray eyes don’t look so scared anymore when they’re half lidded with lust. Not that he knows what it looks like on a woman but he’s known many expressions on Connie Nesbitt and this isn’t one he’s familiar with.
Her hand is cool when it touches his cheek and he just about doubles over backward. The blood rushes completely out of his brain and below his belt.
“When will your mother get back?” she asks, still staring at his lips.
“Uhm. A few hours maybe.” He almost short circuits. “Like n-nine. . . o’clock.”
A shiver rolls through him. He knows why she’s asking. But who is he kidding? Maybe she just wants to know how long she has to stay with him so he won’t be alone and try to off himself. And God, if she’d really left, maybe he would.
“You know I care about you, don’t you, Ray?” she asks, voice lilting, almost seductive. Her thumb slides down his cheek and brushes over the stubble on his upper lip. “You know that?”
“Sure.” It’s nearly punched out of him. He can’t breathe.
“You should know that. I know you care about me.” Her hand keeps traveling. Down his neck, his chest. “You know I care.” Down his belly. Down . . .
“Yes,” he rasps, and closes his eyes as her fingers press against his stiffening dick.
Stars start to dance in his vision as he loses all his oxygen and shutters into the pressure forming around his erection. Her hand seems to pulsate. Oh, god. Oh, GOD.
His eyes snap open and he grabs her wrist a bit more forcefully than intended. “I shouldn’t have said that. About. . .”
“It’s okay if you're a—”
“I don’t want you to think—”
Their words overlap, clashing. He looks at her, terrified, to tell the God’s honest truth. This isn’t how it was supposed to go. They were supposed to experiment together or whatever and then get married and make babies and do the whole white picket fence bullshit. But she dates men who beat on her, and he isn’t. . . Whatever that is. He can be an asshole but he isn’t that.
“You don’t have to pity fuck me.”
Somehow this doesn’t even make her blink. “Damn, I’ve really been bad about sharing my feelings with you, haven't I?” She sighs heavily.
“What?”
“I care about you. I like you, idiot.”
His breath catches. Say it, he chants to himself in his mind. Say it. The bravery ebbs and flows. He opens his mouth. “I. . .” And the confession dies on his lips.
Her expression grows more confused by the second. “Do you really think I would only have sex with you because I feel sorry or something?”
Yes. Yes, he does. But he can’t say that because then that icy shame will bite at him again, like a little rat terrier shackled to his leg. Biting. Biting. Gnaw to the bone. But not saying anything is just as bad, the silence speaks his answer for him.
“Don’t make me feel crazy now.” She turns slightly and crosses her arms over her chest. Her cleavage bulges in the low cut of her dress and the guilt behind his zipper aches. Pulses, much like her hand did. Jesus. He closes his eyes again. “Wake up!” she snaps.
He startles then shrugs. “What do you want me to say?”
“Every time we were alone I waited for you to make a move. I wore the shortest dresses I was allowed to leave the house in. Hell, I would watch you across a room while I was with other guys trying to make you jealous. But you never took any bait.”
His mouth falls open. Holy goddam motherfucking shit. If the stupidest person on this planet was in the room right this minute, he’d still be stupider.
“I. . . I did,” he says lamely.
“When?”
“I let Ed Crowley ring my bell pretty fucking good.” Her frown softens and he sees the realization form. “Yeah. Was tryna tell you something.”
She stays silent, looking at him with Drama Queen eyes and it pisses him off. All this time he stopped himself from wanting her, having her, because he thought she didn’t want him. And she didn’t, at least not that bad, because how could she go out with other guys? His stomach churns.
“You let him ring yours, too. More ways than one,” he adds.
“That’s not fair.”
The defeat in her voice dampens the angry heat burning in his chest . . . slightly. “No. It’s not.”
There’s a broad silence and she can’t look at him. That's the worst of all. Because if it ends here, this will be the image he has for those days on the road. The Long Walk to his probable death. And he’ll die with that last snapshot in his mind's eye and a belly full of rotting shame.
He steps forward and hovers over her shoulder as she turns further away. “Why do you let them hurt you like that?” he asks.
Tear rimmed eyes shoot daggers at him. “I guess I was just waiting for you to come save me. And that was wrong of me, so then I thought maybe that’s my punishment. Maybe I deserve it.”
He grabs her face in both his hands, turning her toward him, and looks her dead in the eye. “You’re not going to go back to any man like that ever again. Do you understand me?”
Her answer comes in a whisper. “Yes.”
Before she can say anymore, he crashes his lips down into hers. He tastes the salt of her tears, the sugar of a hard candy she’d been sucking on when she arrived. The smell of her shampoo and her body wash and her perfume mixes, throwing him into intoxication. His body is alive with sensation and he takes it all in at once. Every careful touch, every sound she makes. He has to bottle this. He has to keep it.
His hands pull at her, anywhere he can grab ahold. And she’s burning hot under his palms, like she has a fever. But he makes no mistake, this is much more than simple sickness. He shivers and groans, mouth breaking free.
Her soft female form presses against him and he’s painfully aware of how hard he is. Every heart beat thrums in his cockhead and he’s sure any minute now he could ruin this.
As if aware of it too, Connie reaches for his belt and shucks it off quickly. His zipper is next and the vibration of it damn near cripples him as she pulls it down slowly. Then pops the button. He’s so sensitive he could cry. Every jolt and jostle rubs him to overstimulation inside his boxers.
“Please,” he says and sounds foreign to his own ears.
Her deft fingers slide inside the chafing fabric and wrap around him delicately. His hips jump. His next breath is gasped. Oh, shit. Oh, god. The muscles of his thighs and ass tighten and he starts praying mindlessly as the pressure wanes. He’s so close. How pathetic.
The light outside is starting to disappear, bathing the room in twilight. His mom will be getting home soon. Damn it, he’s losing time.
She seems to realize this as well and throws his pants and boxers to the floor with a comical thud. “We have to hurry,” she says, breathless. Then her lips find his jugular and he almost loses it.
He grabs fistfuls of her dress skirt and yanks it up so he can find her underwear. His thumbs hook lace and bingo! They slip down her thighs with no effort and puddle at her socked feet.
“Jesus,” he groans, moving his fingers across the thatch of hair between her legs. “I’ve wanted this forever.”
Her body shakes as he plays with her and he likes the way it feels when she tightens her arms around his neck to stop herself from falling, as if he’s her lifeline. Her hips roll and his fingers slide into wetness. Oh. This is going to totally kill him.
“You know what to do,” she whispers.
He’s never done this but she’s right, that animal part of himself designed for rutting and breeding surfaces. It’s scary how well he knows what to do. How easy it is to find the groove of her thighs with his hips as he bends to a better angle. She wraps a leg around his knee and he takes his cock in hand like a man for the first time. Feels it pump with blood. Virility.
“Ray, it’s 8:30,” she whines and he plunges inside her. Their shared moan is so loud his ears ring and he almost loses balance.
Notched inside her now, he takes both hands and lifts her under her ass. She whines again and wraps her legs around him. Her tight, hot depth takes him to full capacity and he almost loses it again. He stumbles into the dresser and holds her there.
She arches and throws her head back. The only logical thing to do is bury his face against her breast and groan. Her nipple hardens under his mouth and he can feel how it responds to his warm breath. He sucks her through the ribbed fabric of her dress top until it darkens. Her hips pitch and he weakens to the onslaught of pleasure it causes.
Her fingers curl into the hair at the back of his head and she moves down on him, slipping almost out of his grasp. Her slick heat tightens and he hisses—scared to thrust. It’s too much. But a dull aching builds until he can’t stop himself, his hips move anyway because they’re supposed to, it’s automatic.
His cheeks burn, his thighs burn, he’s struggling to keep her up. And every time she slips unexpectedly, he sinks so deep they both cry out. He can’t last much longer like this.
His forehead falls against her collarbone and he pistons shakily, unlearned, inexperienced. But this is it, he’s sure of it. The mechanics are second nature. He almost thinks he could go on like this forever, in the space between nothing and pure thunderous release.
Her body seems to be in on the joke though, it clenches and unclenches around him as he thrusts her into his old wood dresser. Frustrated, overwrought, and out of his mind. The sounds of her moaning and her body taking him over and over is so obscene and absurd to him at the moment that he almost laughs.
He leans back slightly to readjust and finds a small resistance inside her, the angle tightening her depth around him until it’s suffocating. Sweat trickles off his brow and he dissolves into whimpers, jerking his hips with untamed and uncoordinated impulse.
He loses control and she slides down his thighs. His grip goes. His knees buckle. And they both go to the floor with a heavy grunt.
Connie’s hands claw him back on top of her and he slides into her so fast his breath puffs out of him. She sobs with joy. And he almost comes.
He has to focus on how they’re laying in his dirty laundry on the floor. Focus on the birds chirping outside his window. Focus on the cramp threatening the bottom of his foot. Focus on anything but how fucking good her pussy feels.
He goes boneless on top of her, feeling his energy draining, his weight dropping. But god, she sobs again and he’s right there. So close. He doesn’t want to come. He doesn’t want this to end. He strains and sobs himself. Panting. Whimpering. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” He trembles and moans wetly, open mouthed, as she cradles him against her breast.
At the height of it all, those three words come to his mind again. A nasty ear worm since he was eight years old. I love you, I love you, I love you. His thrusts punctuate the thought. He’s never wanted to say something so bad in his life.
Connie’s thighs squeeze his hips until he’s sure his pelvis is blushing her with bruises. She hums. And sucks in a breath. “I missed you.”
A tingle of pleasure turns his body to stone. And it shoots down his spine and into his thighs. They feel weakened from her words. It rips through him so quickly, so violently. Tears prick his eyes. The tension mounts and he feels his balls pull up like never before.
He comes so hard he almost loses consciousness. Feels it shooting, that flow of sensation, tugging, twitching. And he cries into Connie’s neck then, like he just lost everything. She holds him, petting his damp head like a mother does a child. The pathetic hiccup and crack of his own voice stops him. And he lies, panting, waiting for the sensory overload to pass.
A blanket of sleepiness falls over him so he nuzzles her neck trying to rouse himself but he can’t open his eyes. “I missed you.” He repeats her words back to her.
She tilts her head down and their noses bump. “I’m gonna miss you more,” she says and sounds sad. He knows why but he puts it away somewhere else in his mind. Not now, Major, don’t you even fucking knock.
He dozes slightly and awakens to her finger tracing his lips. Back and forth, the shape of a wide M. He smiles and her pattern flattens out.
“Are you gonna miss me?” she asks, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear.
Of course, he will. How could he not? He would’ve missed her before but now it’s gonna be torture. Shit, maybe the Major will have to release him instead because he’s pretty sure he can’t walk now. The laugh he wants to have never materializes. He knows come tomorrow he’ll have his energy back and he’ll be in his mothers car heading upstate.
He sighs into the soft skin of her chest. “I will try,” he jokes and his face shimmies with her laughter. “I know, I know, I’m an asshole.”
She pushes him off of her into the bigger heap of his dirty clothes and he turns onto his back to watch her. She leaps off the floor like a jungle cat and sways those gorgeous hips back into her underwear. Her gray eyes hypnotize him and he swears blood begins to swell his dick again. God, he’s totally fucked.
The sound of tires on the driveway startles him and he’s barely off the floor before the first car door slams. Mom’ll have groceries. Right? He doesn’t remember. He picks up his pants and stumbles into them, forgoing the boxers, as the second car door sounds. Please, have more in the trunk, he begs some force bigger than himself.
Connie laughs at him knowingly. If he could just shove her out the window, he would. He can’t look his mother in the eye after that, not while Connie is still here.
The front door opens and closes but Connie ignores it, grabbing his shirt collar and kissing him deeply with tongue. He’s definitely hard again. So hard.
“Should I go help Ginnie with the groceries?” She raises an eyebrow and he whines dramatically. “You stay up here and recover.”
“Ha. Ha.”
He smiles mockingly at her when she laughs heartily, then watches her leave. He wipes his face and fans his shirt, trying to cool down and get rid of the stubborn stiffy. Trying desperately to go back to being normal. But he doesn’t think he ever will be again.
The morning dawns and he curses God that he didn’t wake up dead. Oh, soon, boy, the evil voice in his mind whispers. He goes through breakfast on auto pilot. Checks his bag, adds sunscreen and his hat. It’s almost time to leave and he’s starting to disassociate.
His shoes feel abnormally heavy as he steps onto the front lawn. He slept like shit. Maybe that’ll be the thing that gets him. Tick, tock, tick, tock. The hour strikes and the car engine revs.
Connie slides across the dew-covered grass in her Mary Jane’s and right into him, arms thrown around his neck and tightened like a boa constrictor. He glances at his mother, who looks quietly irritable.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Connie tells him, voice pitched high and wet with sorrow. “I just . . .”
She thought about not coming. He’s sure. But she did, so he tries not to think like that. He knows it’s hard. She’s sending him off to the cemetery essentially, he doesn’t expect complete composure.
He pulls her away so he can look at her, good and hard, really commit every mole, blemish and pore to memory. “I’m gonna miss you,” he says, but it feels hollow. Not enough.
“You’re gonna win this, Ray. And I’m gonna make you the happiest man alive when you get back. Just one more tomorrow, that’s what I want you to think of every day. One more tomorrow. It’ll go fast.”
His mother tuts and honks the horn.
“I’m coming!” Ray shouts, then turns in on himself. Unraveling. Begging. “Just a minute.” That’s all he asks, all the whispered prayer amounts to. He rubs Connie’s arms up and down and his heart breaks for the tears in her eyes. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Her mouth opens, chin trembling. He knows she wants to say it back, to echo his words and have them be true. But it feels like a jinx. She doesn’t say it.
He squeezes her shoulder and nods, tight lipped, then turns around. His footsteps drag as he makes his way to the car. His mother puts it into gear prematurely. He grimaces. He falters.
Jesus, what is wrong with him!
He turns around and sprints back to Connie, grabbing her up and kissing her until he’s out of air. He wants to taste her. Breathe her. Take her with him. But he can’t.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he murmurs against her lips. “I love you.”
And that’s all he can do. He rushes back off, tears streaming down his face faster than he can wipe them off. He gets in the car and slams the door but Connie’s voice is still there, like a bell, like heavenly angels singing.
“I love you! I love you, Ray Garraty! I love you, too!”
The car begins to roll and his mother clicks her tongue again at the rear view mirror as they drive away. He doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t even glance at the mirror. He can’t. It’s all he can do to keep from blowing this whole thing.
He thinks about her voice, that chant of confession and yearning. It’s a song he’s waited for his entire life. He hears it as his mother drops him off. He hears it on the front line. He hears it in the first few miles. But when McVries turns and asks him about his girl, he tells him a lie. No one else gets to have her in this place, on this godforsaken road, on the descent into hell. Only him.
And she walks with him. With that lilting, wind chime voice. I love you, I love you, Ray. It stays even when his exhausted mind can think no more, when his feet can do nothing else but walk. Walk. Walk. And at the very end, her voice is clearest. When he’s stumbling, falling down, and getting the last of his warnings. He’s not afraid to say it anymore. I love you. When the guns draw and he passes the point of no return. Her voice is what he hears when it happens.
a/n: thanks for reading! if you enjoyed this, please consider reblogging or leaving me a comment with your thoughts! 🌱
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