Chapter Eight #4
If it wasn’t Charlie, it wasn’t anybody.
My obsession with this man and his ability to make me high on nothing but his touch was a sickness I’d never recover from.
I was prepared to be alone forever once we finally went our separate ways.
But perhaps he could give me one last memory to cherish for the rest of my life, until I was an old woman reminiscing on times long past. It was important how we decided to bring this to its conclusion, and if this was our last night together, I wanted to remember us like this.
Young, passionate, lost in lust and acting like our love mattered.
If this was the last time I ever shared my body, I wanted to make it count, so that it lasted for the rest of forever.
Fuck it. I dared to speak the words before I fully comprehended them. “I want you to fuck me.”
Charlie balked, struggling to speak. “What? No, you don’t want that.”
“Don’t tell me what I do and don’t want,” I said forcefully. “We’re over with, but I’ll take anything over feeling like this, and I’m sure you would, too. So let’s forget about what happened and just play pretend.”
The water sloshed as I moved toward the edge of the tub. “Give me one last night so I can remember what it was like. One final goodbye, then we can sign those papers and go our separate ways. That’s all I’m asking.”
“I can’t do that,” Charlie insisted. “Ava, this is fucked up.”
“The only way I know how to be loved is if it’s fucked up,” I spat bluntly.
“Screwing one more time isn’t going to change things, so we might as well enjoy one last round.
I’m sick of going around in circles with this conversation, whether we should figure it out or leave each other in the past. It’s going nowhere, because this situation isn’t fixable.
This is the only choice within our control.
Either take me to bed so I can try to forget, or leave me alone. It’s up to you.”
Charlie paused, thinking it over. He slowly approached the tub, falling to his knees. “If that’s what I have to do to make this hurt less, then I’m going to give you the biggest mind-fuck you’ve ever had.”
Charlie gently grasped my chin and kissed me.
It wasn’t the same as it had been before, but something new and exciting.
I kissed him back, running my fingers through his hair as I drank him in.
His lips moved over my neck, and a shiver laced up my spine.
Fucking finally. Something was happening, and whether it was off-limits or sacred wasn’t important.
Just as long I didn’t feel like wilting away anymore.
While he was kissing me, he lifted me out of the bathtub, leaving me completely exposed against him.
He was still fully clothed, but I was here, braced up against his body and fully naked.
He carried me out of the bathroom, and the tempo our mouths made increased to a fever, devouring me alive with nothing but sensation and not thought.
The bedroom was vacant. I didn’t know where Oberi had run off to, if he approved or not, but so be it.
This was happening, because I didn’t want to think anymore, and neither did my soon-to-be ex-husband.
Once he put me down on the bed, he began stripping off clothes, his suit jacket, his shirt, his pants.
I observed his bare body with greedy eyes, reaching out to brush trembling fingers across his skin.
I might as well be sharing my bed with someone totally new, because I didn’t know this man, and he didn’t know me.
We were two strangers, connecting for the first time.
He tumbled into the bed beside me, and our bodies collided like fire and gasoline.
This is what happened when an immovable force met an unstoppable object.
We rolled over, sweating with ecstasy as we frantically grasped at each other.
His length pressed against my hip, and I wanted to open wide for him.
Charlie slipped a hand down to touch me.
His fingers stroked my clit, and the sensation rattled my senses.
It usually took so long to get me off, but after weeks with no touch, I was a live wire waiting to spark.
I gave a soft groan, tasting his skin. He played my body like he did piano, bringing me to a powerful crescendo.
In the depths of my bliss, I reached down to caress his perfect dick, and he shuddered against me so hard I felt the tremors coursing against my skin.
I didn’t know what was wrong with us. We were fucked up people. But maybe that’s what made this so perfect.
Charlie lifted me so he was supporting all my weight, wrapping one hand around my hair and placing the other on my breast. He yanked me backward against him, and slid inside from behind.
I cried out with the release of it all. Everything I’d been holding on to— the resentment, the anger— faded away into puddles of nothingness.
Charlie began to thrust, biting on my shoulder while his hand pulled at my hair and his fingers worked my nipple. I whimpered with pleasure, feeling myself going to putty in his hands.
“Do you think I don’t know you?” Charlie whispered as he fucked me. “Do you think I don’t remember because our bond isn’t there? Because I know exactly who you are, Ava-Marie, and I remember everything about you.”
I was wrapped up in too much desire to give anything more than a mindless moan. He slammed into me harder, faster, until he gasped as he came inside of me. I met my peak when he arrived at his, biting down on my tongue so I managed to suppress calling out his name.
Our bond had caused us to experience the pleasure of the other’s climax whenever we met it, but that was gone now.
Yet this almost felt… better. I couldn’t explain it. He quivered, emptying himself into my core. Charlie clutched me to his body so tightly I thought our spirits might meld together again.
Obviously, when that didn’t happen, both of us fell forward. We collapsed onto the bed, curling away from each other and becoming silent. Now that the sex was over, reality was setting in.
Shit. That wasn’t a goodbye fuck.
That was making love. Despite my determination that this marriage was over, it obviously wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself that I didn’t love Charlie anymore, all of those tales were lies. Losing the bond had shattered us, but my feelings were still there, plain as day.
I still loved him. And I think he made his feelings pretty clear about me.
But this wasn’t about love anymore.
The lump in my throat was still there. We’d lost the bond, but hardly anything had changed. We couldn’t read each other’s thoughts, couldn’t feel each other’s emotions, and I couldn’t read Oberi.
But all the important things still remained. Charlie could read me like a book whether his soul was attached to mine or not. He’d studied me and been my companion for years. He didn’t need magic to know what I was feeling or thinking.
Just like I didn’t need our bond to understand him. And he didn’t want to let me go. There was nothing magical still holding us together, no spirit bond or soul tie, so why did I still feel this way?
I wrapped my arms around my body and didn't say anything. I felt cold and empty. “What did we do?”
He cringed. “Uh…”
“I’m sorry. This was all my fault. I made a stupid mistake.” I was so furious at myself right now for caving into my worst impulses.
“It wasn’t a mistake,” Charlie muttered, so quietly I’m sure he thought I didn’t hear.
I acted like I didn't. I reached out to grab something to wear, before I realized my clothes were in the bathroom and the rest of my things were in the Ladies’ Court. I knew Charlie couldn’t see me, but it’s not like I wanted to have this conversation with him when my tits were out.
“Here.” He held out a white button-up of his that had been draped over a chair nearby.
Whatever. Better than nothing. I slipped on the stupid shirt that aggravatingly smelled like him, and he said, “That was… nice.”
Nice was a polite way of saying it’d been mind-blowingly amazing, but a good time in bed didn’t save your relationship when you were two psychos trapped in a toxic cycle. “It was nice, but it doesn’t change anything.”
Charlie didn’t say anything right away, but once he did, he spoke in a whisper. “Maybe it should.”
The mattress was soaking wet from the bathwater, the sheets were as twisted as our psyche, and we were just a mess. Two people stuck in a complicated situationship who could only give the worst of themselves to each other.
I figured we might as well get straight to the point. After all, how could it get any worse?
I sat up, leaning against the headboard. "Charlie… who are we?"
“What do you mean?” He reached for a pair of pants, pulling them on before he sat on the bed beside me. We weren’t touching, but we were close… enough.
“I mean, as a couple. What do we do together?”
“We do all kinds of things. What are you getting at?”
I was getting frustrated. He didn’t understand what I meant, and though I knew it wasn’t on purpose, it felt like it was. “I know music and sex is our thing, but what else is there? Our whole lives can’t be spent writing songs and going to BDSM conventions. What’s left now feels so… empty.”
“It doesn’t feel that way to me.”
"I'm not explaining myself," I started. “What I'm trying to say is…
at the Institute, everything was so regulated, and we didn't have a lot of choices, so what we did together was what we had to work with, not what we chose.
Then after we broke out, we were so preoccupied with all the chaos we caused that we didn't pay attention to all the little things.”
His brow narrowed in confusion. “I’m sorry, I’m not following.”
“Take food, for example,” I began. “At the Institute, we had to eat whatever was in the cafeteria, because that’s all that was available.
Here, the servants make us whatever we want, but do we actually know what our favorite food is to eat together?
If we were to go out to eat, would we even know what restaurant to pick?
Or what meal is our favorite to cook on Saturday night? ”
He was slow to respond, but still came to the same conclusion I did. “No.”
“And that's my point. What’s our favorite show, our favorite place, our favorite hobby or holiday? What do we do on the weekend when we’re bored?
What do we talk about when there’s no bad guy to face?
When you remove everything that brought us together, the prophecies, the bond, all of it… what are we?”
He considered my words carefully. “You’re wondering if we would be together if we hadn’t been bonded.”
“Yes,” I said, though it broke my heart to say.
“If we were just two average people who met in boring, average circumstances, would we have gotten married if we hadn’t been forced into it?
Sometimes I wonder if we’ve been through so much shit together that the trauma we faced forced us to fall in love.
And that deep down, we don’t like each other that much. ”
Charlie sat back and said quietly, “I sometimes think that, too.”
That crushed me. I wanted him to argue, to say I was being ridiculous and that there was more that held us together than what was obvious. That he didn’t tore me up inside. It was evidence that what we’d shared hadn’t been as deep as I’d believed.
I sighed. “There are so many little things that make up a marriage, and I don’t know if we share any of it.”
He nodded slowly. “I think you’re right.”
Stop agreeing with me, I wanted to plead, but the answer was clear. We had music, and that was the one thing that still gave us some sort of connection, but that wasn't enough, and sex wasn't going to fix this, either.
I didn’t know if we had much in common. We'd been great at committing crimes together, but that was a horrible trait. I didn’t want us to keep bringing out the worst in each other.
Even if I left his side out of it, I wasn’t sure what I should do.
If I wanted this marriage to work, I had to completely re-learn who my husband was.
I’d once thought this man was the love of my life, but now he felt like the biggest stranger on the planet.
How was I going to get that feeling of being madly in love back again?
How could I regain trust, rebuild intimacy that didn’t involve sharing our bodies, but our hearts and everything we were?
I didn’t think I could. So that left only one option. To go our separate ways, and never unite again.
Charlie crossed his arms over his chest and said softly, “I’m sorry I broke your heart.”
I wanted to cry. But I refused to allow any more tears fall tonight. I gave a scoffing noise and let a snide joke slip out instead. “That’s not the only thing you took. You must be a demon, because you stole my soul.”
“Must be. I belong in hell.” He held himself tighter, his eyes haunted and dark. His voice quivered, and wetness edged his eyelids. He couldn’t break down, because then I would, too, and then where would we be?
“Hey.” I reached out and wiped a tear away. “If it helps, I think demons are hot. And don’t judge yourself too harshly. Because I belong down there, too.”
He smirked through his tears. He heard me swing my legs over the side of the bed, indicating I wanted to leave. He brought my chair to me and I gathered my things, redressing before I slipped out quietly.
I really wanted to spend the night, to sleep warmly beside my husband and wake up the next morning like nothing ever happened. The last thing I desired was to spend another lonely night in a cold bed alone, vacant of someone who wasn’t truly mine.
But he was barely my husband anymore, and I didn’t think he would be for much longer. No matter what I desperately craved, we needed time apart. To figure things out, if nothing else.
This relationship couldn’t be saved. But tonight, Charlie had given me just enough hope to consider trying again.
Maybe.