Chapter Song: Civilian - Wye Oak
XX
When Isaac returns, the smell of grilled hamburger wafts in after him, and the sky beyond his bedroom window is dark save for a fading afterglow of sunset. True to his word, he's holding two styrofoam containers in one hand while his other arm is cradling two bottles of wine. My shoulders relax when he smiles; his trip to town went well, at least.
"We'll need to get you new boots soon," he says, eyeing the pair I've left on the floor by the door. "The snow is getting deep."
"It's pretty, at least," I offer, folding myself into his arms. I have secrets too, I think, but I let him kiss my hair and pull me close. He'll be the last man to ever hold me like this, but maybe that isn't such a bad thing. I'll be happy to be done with men.
We eat the burgers sitting in bed, watching one of the Die Hard sequels on a shitty laptop that whirs so loudly with the effort that Isaac turns the volume all the way up. When we're finished with dinner, I settle into the arm that wraps around me, and there's a strange comfort to it when I know I'll be able to leave it soon enough. When I'm not fighting it, I relax into it, and I think Isaac feels that acceptance too as he pulls me closer and presses his lips to my temple. I don't want to consider how fucked up it is that I'll miss this feeling. It won't be long and I won't have to consider it.
Halfway into the movie, we've each already had two glasses of wine, and Isaac pours the last of the first bottle into my glass. His wine- heavy hands linger when they touch me, and I don't mind it as much as I should, because in this moment it feels good to be touched gently, it feels like something I've missed and something I won't have again. I'm beginning to feel pleasantly sleepy, resting my head against his shoulder, when I register with a lurch in my stomach the fingers stroking along the inside of my knee. My wine buzz disappears and a painful clarity takes its place. It was easier to give into it yesterday, when I was so high on fear of him. But there's no fighting the desperate urge to shove him away from me now.
I just don't know what to say to him, or when to say it. His hand slips higher, and Isaac kisses the corner of my mouth, turning my face to him with his other hand. I kiss him once, then a few times, but the urgency is causing my heart to race. And that hand is only working its way higher up my leg.
"Isaac," I whisper, breaking away as he sighs against cheek. The fear makes my tongue heavy, makes the words sticky when they stumble out. "I don't want to...tonight."
His hand pauses its ascent but doesn't leave my thigh. "Okay," he breathes. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I'm just not feeling it." I press my lips gently against his, running a hand along his collarbone. It shouldn't be this terrifying to tell someone 'no.'
Kissing me deeply again, his hand moves to the outside of my thigh and he squeezes. "I just want to kiss you," he says softly. "I just want to be with you."
"Okay," I manage, and I hate the word as soon as it leaves my mouth. My neck and ears feel hot with panic when he kisses me hard and leans me back until I'm lying beneath him, the Die Hard movie already a forgotten thing. I can make out with him; I can make him feel like I'm not rejecting him. But it doesn't take long before his hand is wandering beneath my shirt and along the waistband of my leggings, while his lips trail down my neck and across my collarbone. When he pushes my shirt up, he pulls my bra below my breasts and kisses the top of each.
"Isaac."
"It's okay," he soothes. "I've got you, Layla. I won't do anything."
I won't cry; I won't fucking cry. It isn't all bad; as much as my muscles are melted with terror, it does send a spark of arousal between my legs when he takes a nipple into his mouth. But it isn't the same fear as it used to be, the anticipation of the unknown. This is the anticipation of the known, of the understanding that I don't know if I am safe with him in this moment.
The bra comes off, and then he's coaxing me from my shirt as he loses his. Say something, Layla. Fucking say something. I can feel the threat of his erection pressing against my leg each time he moves against me, and I want to believe that it won't matter, that Isaac won't push farther since I've already told him no, but I can't bring myself to actually buy that. But what if sleeping with him is enough to quell his suspicion of me? Maybe caving to him will buy a better opportunity for escape.
Isaac isn't stupid though; he isn't going to just believe that I've had a change of heart. And I don't know that there's any way to feign comfort when all I feel is panic. I can't do this, I can't, I can't. His fingers are slipping along the inside of my waistband before he dips his hand lower, and he doesn't move when I gasp away from his mouth.
"Let's just make out," I try, fear raising the pitch of my voice. It doesn't even sound like me saying those words, and they barely make an impression.
"I'm just touching you, that's all."
"No, Isaac, I don't want to."
His hand slips out of my leggings and he braces himself on the bed above me, forehead pressing into mine as a jagged sigh leaves his mouth. "What's wrong?" He says it with a tired edge, like he's so used to dealing with my frustrating whims.
"You know what's wrong."
"No, I really don't. We were having such a good night, Layla, I'm just trying to be close to you."
"Then let's cuddle and watch our movie."
He sighs again and shakes his head. "Are you mad at me?"
I can't manage a response. Mad doesn't cover it, mad isn't even a word that applies anymore. Isaac pulls away to look at me but it's too hard to meet his gaze.
"Seriously, Layla? You're going to hold out on me because you're pissed?"
"You said you wouldn't do anything! So you were planning on going back on that?"
"Oh come on, what are we 15?"
"No, we're fucking adults who keep their word."
"Are you trying to take things slow? Because I think we've already crossed that line." The mean edge to his voice is enough to make me pull my arms closer to myself, ready to push him away or curl into myself. He's still settled across my legs, and a lump of worry grows in my throat when his hand slides over my wrist. "Come on, don't do that, Layla." His voice is a little softer now, and his thumb swipes over my hand. "I'm sorry I snapped, let's just start over, okay?" He pushes one wrist aside and then the other, threading his fingers through mine as if he hasn't effectively pinned me down. I don't know what to do but kiss him back.
When he finally lets go of me, I return my hands to his shoulder, too many words gathering at the back of my tongue that I don't dare say. And Isaac's kisses don't leave much room for protest. His lips dip to my neck and his hand trails over my breasts and stomach before slipping beneath my leggings and underwear. "It's okay, Layla," he murmurs. "You know I'll make you feel good."
I don't know that, though, and I don't think that's the currency here. He works my leggings down to the middle of my thighs and pushes me on my side with a fluidity of motion that is disconcerting enough that I barely register the sound of his zipper. An arm wraps around me from behind and I feel his naked erection prodding the back of my thigh as I lean away.
"Isaac."
"It's okay, Layla," he murmurs into my hair, pushing my thighs up as he adjusts himself beneath me. "I'll be gentle." And I don't believe him, but I am losing some critical function that makes my muscles move and tells my mouth to speak. His arm around me is crushing, a promise, and his first shove into me burns while he coaxes away the gasp that leaves my mouth. If I bear this, he'll be happy with me. If I fight him, he might just hurt me even worse. At the very least he will be cruel to me later. He's whispering in my ear about how lovely I am, about how much he wants me, and I am spreading my fingers against the blanket and discovering each pilly fuzz where the dryer singed the fibers of the fabric. My body is damp and heavy and it feels like the only part of me that I can move are these fingers that have only this blanket.
"It hurts," I whisper. "Please slow down a little."
"Almost there baby," he growls into my ear, and I grow to hate the slick feeling of his chest against my back and the sound of our bodies colliding. He breathes heavy against my neck and then shudders against me with a groan, grinding hard before his muscles go slack behind me and he relaxes into the bed, pulling me close.
As we lie here, I catalog the feelings in my body as if it is someone else's, the burning, numb pain deep between my thighs, the tightness of my ribs where Isaac holds me, the knot at the back of my throat where a sob threatens to break loose. It's like I can notice all of these things while feeling none of them for myself, a separation that disturbs me on the surface but brings peace below.
Say something, I urge, to myself or Isaac. Let whatever words that follow shape what just happened. The numbness doesn't linger long; I am dragged back into myself by the feeling of him kissing my hair, and I realize that he never got up to remove a condom.
"Isaac."
"Mmm," he hums into me, fingers flexing in tired response.
"Did you use a condom?"
The silence, the stillness, from behind me is unbearable. "Shit, Layla."
I take a moment to draw in breath. It's difficult to quell the nausea that rises, the threat of sickness only growing when his arm tightens around me.
"Layla, I'm so sorry."
"Do you have the morning after pill somewhere?" I wonder if he notices the flatness in my voice, or if even I should be alarmed by it.
"I think so." He kisses my hair again and again. "I'll get it in the morning, okay?"
"No, Isaac, now."
Go, now. Get your fucking arms away from me and never touch me again. I wish I had crushed twenty sleeping pills in that bottle. I wish I had enough to make him rot eternally in this bed.
"Okay." He hugs me close again and kisses my cheek. "I really am sorry. I just got caught up in the moment."
"I know."
"I'll be right back."
He slips from behind me and I welcome the sudden expansion of the space around me. Isaac is dragging on a pair of pajama bottoms and stamping into shoes, and I lay with my back to him and listen for the sound of him leaving me. When the door is closed, I drag in a breath. I can feel him leaking out of me. It's enough to make me tumble out of bed, to fall against the toilet and vomit into it until I only smell red wine and stomach acid. I want to scour my body with hot water, but there isn't any time, not now. Pulling on one of his t-shirts, I find the second bottle of wine.
The crushed pills dissolve easily in his glass, but I can only hope that he doesn't taste what I've slipped him. I leave his wine on his bedside table, terrified of somehow confusing it for mine. My heart is racing as I pace inside the room and wait for him to return. If he finds me out, I'm so fucking dead. My head snaps up when the door handle turns.
"Vic had some in his office." He holds the little package out to me, brow furrowed with worry as he takes in my face. "Layla..."
"It's fine, Isaac." I pop open the package and swallow the pill down with my wine, watching Isaac's gaze flick to my filled glass. The red wine nearly makes me puke again as I remember the scent of it spilling into the toilet.
"Night cap?"
"I need to relax." I nod to the glass on his side of the bed. "Poured you a glass."
It's hard not to stare when he rounds the foot of the bed and spreads the blankets out again before taking his wine.
"Cheers," I say softly, holding out my glass. The clink of the rims fills my heart with something dark and elated. I watch him take the first sip, drinking from my own glass to hide my expression when he wrinkles his nose. "This brand is a little bitter, isn't it."
And he drinks it, all while the rest of the Die Hard movie plays in the background, all while I settle into the full realization that I cannot go back from what I've just done. I was going to wait. I was going to be smart about this. But I can't do this every night until he trusts me. I don't know when that will be, or if it will ever even happen. Still, the sight of him growing drowsy next to me fills me with a dread I don't know how to handle.
When we turn out the lights, I listen for the gradual slowing of his breathing. Every now and then, he pauses long enough on the exhale that my heart skips a beat, but then he'll breath in again, an unsteady rhythm that grows more irregular as the night passes.
By 1:00 in the morning, Isaac is still breathing, but he doesn't stir when I shake him by the shoulder.
"Rot in hell, Isaac," I whisper, and I stand alone in the dark room.