Barrier Islands Page 16

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  Onion rose above her in the dark. It wasn’t true dark. There was the nightlight she kept on just outside their cracked bedroom door in case Jodie stirred and she had to find her way to the crib without tripping over something. And there was the yard light Lil and Bridge burned all night at who knows what expense to ward off intruders or maybe wandering ghosts from the cemetery down the lane. So it wasn’t completely dark, but dark enough to somewhat mask what they were doing under the sheets if anyone were to peak in the window, though the grunts and moans they were exchanging would surely give it away if the movements under the bedcovers didn’t, and those sounds would easily penetrate the former garage’s thin and uninsulated walls and would also drift past the open bedroom door and possibly wake Jodie—hell, lift the roof and wake the whole island if Onion didn’t drop the decibel level a bit.

  She pulled her free hand from beneath the sheets and gently brushed his parted lips with one finger. He quieted a tad but didn’t slow his determined march toward their oldest and best sharing. It did feel good, she couldn’t deny that; and the condom made him last longer, another plus.

  But now that she was outside herself, she couldn’t get back inside her body, at least not completely. So instead she studied her husband from down in the shadows of the pillows and the covers. His pale face seemed luminous, lit by some hidden light. His eyes were shut, his head thrown back as if getting ready to howl (she sure hoped not!) or maybe in prayer—but to whom or what? His hair glistened with sweat though the room was cool. The muscles in his neck were taut cords. She tried to find in this snapshot the boy she’d fallen in love with, seduced, and married. She tried to recall what had brought her here—to this boy, this family, this apartment, this bed. But try as she might, she couldn’t find that feeling, couldn’t find that love or that attraction or that memory. This failure did not produce fear or anxiety or revulsion or even emptiness in her. She liked this posture, this pursuit, this person doing what he was doing, this bed and the permissions it granted. Oh, yes, she liked that, and the frenzy of desire his actions were indicating, the crescendo they were rising toward.

  Those efforts brought her back into her body—a little at first then a little more and a little more then completely. She was swallowed by the need. Her quieting fingers became claws in his back. Her measured breaths turned into pants, her sheathed teeth into nips, gentle bites and pulling lips. Yes, yes.

  Had she retained any vestige of perspective, Brooke would have seen close-up just how potent and imperative this level of sharing was, how it could and did dictate decisions, actions, whole lives far into the future—years, decades, generations.

  But she missed that truth in the blaze. And later, when she woke deeper in the night with Onion asleep atop her, she noticed not his weight or the smell of pot on his breath or his damp hair on her cheek. All she could feel was the copious wetness dripping from her core and the touch of skin, not latex, where his penis still rested inside her.