Chapter 01
“Videl.”
One word, one simple breath of air – Videl…and that’s it. Videl. The warmth of his body fades and his hands light upon my chest and force the air between us. Videl. If I could get away with it, if I knew that it wouldn’t create some immitigable void between us, I would crush him. I would claw his face, and curse and scream at him until he realized the hell he puts me through…
But, then…
He never asked me to come here, did he?
His breath is ragged and skin red from…heat – the type of heat that swallows souls, he once said many years ago, and the last time he ever considered me a child or innocent. His body sags against the door barely able to stand now, the rush of the moment still coursing through him; his knees weakened with me…I am delighted to see that I can affect him like this – that I can turn his fists clenched-white, and make his head loll to one shoulder as he waits for the tide of want to pass over him. That I – alone and above all others – can tempt him to betray his marital vows.
It takes some time to straighten his clothes as I have ripped off buttons and torn the soft white fabric of his collar. He searches for the missing belt loop which hides somewhere on the other side of the door – perhaps in the yard, perhaps in the car…
Or perhaps it is in my mouth, where it rests tucked between gum and cheek, soaking up saliva and the hard won moments of feeling his fingers rake against my back…
When I smile at him he sees the frayed black corner of rigid cloth at the edge of my teeth. He is startled at first, then remembers, then that old wave of regret and shame washes his skin like dusk snow.
I know better than to do this – to place my hands behind my back, close my eyes, and wash the lost loop out on the tip of my tongue and tempt him to take it back from me. I can feel the sudden rush of guilt in him; the horror of what he could have done, what he wants to do, what he dreams about doing…softly, his feet pad across low shag carpet, finding refuge from me and my belt loop laden tongue. Pushing him over the edge has become my forte.
He occupies himself with books and papers and plants…anything that keeps his eyes – keeps his mouth – from me. He shuffles in the drawer for a small pair of pruners and takes a seat beside his bonsais. And though this is the world that he would wish with all his heart to disappear into – this world of liquid green and tiny branches – he can’t. He can’t get rid of me so easily.
I stand behind him, close – very close – but not touching. The burn of his skin sparks the air between us – makes it tangible and thick. With one finger I spur him from his seat, from his chores and send him to the other side of the room flustered and flurried, and staring wildly into the gap he has created between us.
I smile.
He shuts his eyes tight, mouthing calm meditations to himself, cooling down crimson skin. When he’s done, when he’s once again himself, he retreats to the library, pulling out books and boundaries and toppling them onto his desk. I rub my nose against his shoulder, playing the puppy dog because I’ve not quite had enough of his affections for the afternoon – but I know it’s wasted energy. Gohan the Academic is an intimidating form of scholarly knowledge and self-control. He is stone, cold steel, and a mountain. The Academic does not mean to be polite and does not tolerate my games.
For nearly forty minutes I sit on the ottoman to his right, waiting, watching as the display of genius comes to a close. He wants me to take affront to this, to be upset that I am being ignored; shoved to the side. He wants me to leave so that he can once again feel safe in the bonds of his marriage, but I refuse. And when the Academic realizes his own futility, Gohan the Host comes to the rescue.
“Lemonade?” he asks sweetly.
“No,” I reply, bored, uninterested; tired of watching him shift between selves. There is only one Gohan that I want – one Gohan that I came for, one Gohan that I will get. But for now, all I receive for my work, for my effort, for my perpetual chase of heat is salt-caked fingers and an ache that no matter how many times I visit the bathroom cannot be relieved. I will go to bed tonight unable to sleep for the throbbing between my legs and the thought of my hands soaking in the muscles of his chest dancing across my head like some fireworks display for the New Year’s parades.
There’s a part of him that stiffens and saddens as I rise to go to the door – he wants me to stay. He always wants me to stay, but he can’t let me. Rather than make it harder on him, make his decision run marathon backwards through his head, I make it for him. He is married to Videl – has been for some fifty years now. He loves her. I don’t hate him for that – I just want him to love her less.
“I’m sorry,” he says, black eyes stained with pity and guilt. He stands too, uncomfortable, watching me as I grip the doorknob and turn.
I laugh, “At least I got to see some skin this time.” It’s the wrong thing to say. I know this, but then, when he’s around, I don’t even try to find the right things to say.
I watch as my comment shivers through him – like nails or anvils or salmonella poisoning. ‘Little more than something to occupy my lunch break. You’re little more than flesh.’ I’d told him once some years ago when he rejected me. My behaviour had gotten the best of me and I’d found my mouth undoing buttons and zippers underneath the table of some upscale restaurant. He’d screamed and kicked hard at me, before escaping to the street, spaghetti and garlic bread still warm and untouched on the table. I’d followed after him, listening to him tell me how he didn’t want this, how he didn’t want me – that he was married to Videl and planned on keeping his wedding vows. Hurt, I screamed back – said what I did – and watched the pallor of anger turn yellow white like the color of old trash bags left on the side of the road for too long.
The same way he does now. Once again, little more than flesh – a body for me to tempt and taunt…
Anger turns to loneliness, then to willingness, then to deep-seated guilt, then, ultimately to sadness. For twenty years he’s been strong. While she’s withered away – become some old hag with cataract eyes and bagged skin – he’s stayed young and healthy, and alone. For twenty years they’ve kept separate beds, and he’s learned to be careful when he touches her, as one wrong move could shatter old, fragile bones. He’s lived with pecks on the cheek and nightly whispers of ‘I love you’ for so long that his body has forgotten what it’s like to feel desired. But his skin…his skin craves it…it needs the touch that I provide – it needs the heat I make him feel. It needs me…
When I touch his cheek, when I cup his jaw in my hands, he closes his eyes and holds his breath. “I’m sorry, Gohan,” I whisper in his ear, “I didn’t mean it.” I release a light breath and that breath tremors throughout his body.
He needs me…
Sensing his sudden moment of vulnerability, I place a breeze of a kiss against the soft under his ear. His jaw shakes and he intakes a sharp breath. Another kiss falls upon his closed eyelid – stardust and spring rains. He seeks my mouth but I evade, and instead fall lightly upon his forehead, whispering my apologies, my wish that he could see how much I love him, how much I want him with me; how much I need him.
When our lips finally catch, a spark ignites the air and his skin becomes the embers of flame. “I need you, Gohan. Please, don’t send me away.” His hands draw tight my coat, to pull me further and further into him, and he sucks away my breath and coats his lungs with my words. I willingly unclench my teeth and let him scavenge what of my desire he has not yet taken. I feel like silver – precious and smooth – beneath the fingers that climb under the hem of my shirt and set their mark upon my naked spine.
“Gohan,” I whisper. I let my head fall back as he presses lips upon my tender throat. And I can feel him – the loosening gates; hard years of self-containment crushed into my thigh at the sound of his name. So again, I call, “Gohan.”
The slow rumble of luscious moan rises from the bottom of his chest as I slip quiet fingers beneath his belt. He stumbles at the sudden onslaught of deadened nerves and the further awakening of his flames. I catch his fall; brace him against my knee and shoulder as finger slide further down, beneath white cotton. His breath hitches when I find the source of heat, snaking finger across shaft and head.
Stunned, motionless, he fights for the breathless “stop” that escapes his lips. With hands that shake with awareness, he again pushes air between us.
“Please,” I beg in a tiny voice, holding tight to the sleeves of his shirt, “don’t send me away.” In his black eyes I can see my reflection – sad, pitiful, perfect. His shoulders slump, and gently he tugs the remains of sleeves from my fingers.
He chokes, “I can’t…do this. I…can’t…”
He does not look at me – does not witness the sudden frustration, the simple disappointment; the wave of metallic anger that wrenches my face flat and cold. “I’m sick of this,” I spit. “I’m not playing your games anymore, Gohan,” I watch as spine crumbles and shoulders slump. I shouldn’t continue. I’ve done enough – said enough. But, well…for some reason, I do anyway. “You don’t want me? Then I’ll leave.”
His voice is heavy – like iron weights, “Trunks…” It’s the guilt. The guilt of hurting her. The guilt of hurting me. The guilt of needing more than just a head full of Sunday memories and good night words. I think he’s crying.
I shouldn’t leave. Not now – not when he’s so riled up. Not when he’s on the verge of tears. If I were any kind of person, I’d stay – I’d offer honest apologies, and make him tea and jelly sandwiches. I’d forget my selfish intent, my chase, the burden between my legs, and I’d see him again like I used to – as a person, a real live person that I looked up to even more than my father.
But…I’m not a person anymore. I haven’t been for some time. Since the day he rejected me for the first time. No, since the day he married, when I was still too young…when I didn’t understand what I was losing to the human woman who spoke big and smiled pretty, and captured his heart in one fell swoop. That person has been consumed, eaten away and digested…
So, I don’t look back when I shut the door behind me.
Still, I know I won’t be getting any sleep tonight.
On Sundays, he takes Videl to the park. This I know as Goten avoids the park on Sundays. He has grown weary of the stares the strange couple gets – a young man and a very old woman, together, with matching gold bands. He hates the questions, the snickered comments; the gasps of horror at their coming. And normally, I spurn the park on Sundays, as I tend to avoid Videl, but today…today I have a plan.
Bra has friends – lots of friends. Lots of gold digging, smiling petite little girls that follow her around like a pack of dogs. They’ve been after me for some time – me and my name – as Capsule Corp is still under Briefs’ control. They want my money and the scent of my cologne in their hair. So I ask her, for one of them – a pretty one – with blonde hair and long black eyelashes, that speaks quietly if at all. She obliges and the girl is delivered to Capsule Corp doorstep some time before noon.
I take her for coffee and a light brunch, and then we head to the park. The park is best in spring when the cherry trees are in bloom and the air is lit with pink and red hope, but this is not spring. In the fall, the wind blows through empty trees and sends chills to your bones. The grass begins to turn brown, and the birds screech warning should you walk too close to their hidden nests. And we walk there, between the empty trees and screeching birds – her telling me of her childhood in the country and how she misses her family, and me nodding, looking, waiting.
An hour into our trek, she is tired and asks if we may sit for a bit as her shoes are hurting her feet. And though I agree with her, that I too, am tired of walking around patches of brown grass and the clumps of faded flowers, I ask her for just five more minutes. Reluctantly, she agrees to the bargain, and pulls slightly from my side.
Gohan is a master at hiding his energy signature. He can even hide from my father. So when I see him, staring at me with wide dark eyes, I am nearly too stunned to finish what I came here for. But then, I see her – the old hag’s face screwed tight into a derelict scowl – blue cataract eyes drawn like sharpened knives, and mouth pinched lemon tight. And Videl would have screamed at me – screamed my name or some version of ridicule – had I not kissed the cold and tired girl who had only moments ago given up on me.
Bra’s friend does not resist me – falling completely and helplessly into my mouth and hands – but, she does not grow warm either. Softly she moans between my lips – a curvaceous, pleasing moan, but her moan does not haunt my thoughts. I pull her tight – as tight as I would him – and fill my arms with her, and kiss her harder and deeper. And by chance, I felt the flicker of energy – an awakening, a need, and steal a glance upwards. He is looking away – both ashamed and envious; guilty and lingering; Videl and myself…
Videl takes his arm and leads him away.
“That could have been you!” I call, just loud enough to filter through the tip of his hearing. His head falls with acknowledgment.
I don’t return home when I drop the small blonde girl off. Instead, I drive – but I hate driving. There’s too much pressure, too much to concentrate on. So I abandon the car in some parking lot and take to the air. I fly through clouds and over oceans. I cross jungle and desert. And when I finally stop, the deep of the moon has replaced the sun, and I find myself at the doorway to his office. It’s strange, I realize, that he didn’t go home either.
I don’t knock. I simply enter, feeling that I have long since dispersed with politeness. He refuses to look at me, or respond to my hello and how ya doing. He does not flinch when I take the seat across from his desk, or twitch in the slightest when I remove the red ink pen from his hand. “Gohan?”
I went too far. Pushed him far beyond comprehension – tested his limits and broke them, and now, I am witnessing the recourse of my actions. “Go away,” he says in a low dangerous voice.
“Make me,” is the last thing I should have said. I know he’s stronger than me – he always has been, and since he continues to train while I quit long ago, he’s increased the gap in our strength one hundred fold.
When he rises from his seat, I wash pale with the sudden fear of consequence. “Get out,” he warns, his finger pointing at the exit. “Get out now.”
But I’m stupid. That’s my only excuse. Stupid and stubborn – one of my own faults, the other heritage. I cross my legs and smile wide, “No.”
He chokes me with my collar, pulling me from my seat and into standing position. “I don’t want you here, Trunks.” His skin is blushed and the flames that rise from him are intoxicating.
“Tell me you don’t dream about me.” Completely stupid.
Anger whips across his eyes, flashing threats and bombs, and he throws me into the bookshelf. “Get the hell away from me,” he clenches, his jaw bulging.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. With grace inherited from my mother, I pick myself up from the floor and begin unbuttoning my shirt. Gohan watches nervously as the thin material falls in a heap on the floor. “Tell me – one more time – Gohan, and this time be honest. Tell me you don’t want me.” His eyes become full moons and breath stops when I loosen the belt around my waist. “Tell me you want me to go.”
His pants suddenly become uncomfortable for him and he shifts where he stands to accommodate. “I want you to go, Trunks,” he replies nervously.
I smile wider. “I said honestly, Gohan,” I tease and I feel the draft as my pants fall loosely to the floor. Unclothed – save for shoes, which I can’t seem to gracefully remove – I bridge the air between us and watch excitedly as his cheeks melt to claret. His breath is slow and unsteady, and his eyes roam heavenward when I begin to undo the buttons wrapped around his neck. His pulse rises as I tug free the starched white cloth from his shoulder and place wanton lips on the undershirt beneath. “Tell me, Gohan,” I slither, “Tell me you don’t want me.”
“I…” But words fail when my lips brush the soft underneath his chin. “Trunks…”
I take my time, realizing that the longer I delay the end of my hunt, the harder it will be for him to escape unscathed. I first rid him of the shirt, which happens easily enough when he graciously lifts his arms. I lean him against his desk as his knees threaten to give, as dead nerves scream fire after too many years’ rest. And push him back and back until he lays still, his head upon badly written essays and hands gripping the edge of rough wood. Soft voice escapes barely parted lips as I brush my fingers down his ribs and press my naked body between his legs. And in the pit of my stomach, I can feel just how much he has been thinking of me.
Quickly, to hinder my own racing thoughts, I trace the outline of his lips with the side of my thumb. “Gohan,” I whisper before sinking into a deep and prolonged kiss. His body responds with the slightest of thrusts, and I feel the edge of sheathed burning push further into my stomach. As we lay there, our kissing becomes frantic, and his hand slide across my shoulders and down my spine and holds me there, against him, as tight as he can – so tight that I fear losing breath, but so tight I know he does not intend to let me go.
I escape to the sensitive skin of neck before passing out and his body heaves when I brush moist lips at the point where his collarbone jags. For seconds I remain there, sucking warm skin against teeth until a helpless moan escapes. His eyes are closed, so he does not see the grin widen and become devious like my thoughts. Slowly I unwrap myself from his arms, pull free from the legs that have twined around me, and as I swirl my tongue across soft pink nipples, I undo the belt around his waist.
My mouth makes its way downward – a slow trail of kisses that capture his breath and give me time to relieve him of those uncomfortable pants. By the time he notices the absence of his lower clothing, he has no time to react, as my trail of kisses have led me to the taut skin of his inner thigh. Closer and closer I come to it, my cheek brushing against aching shaft, forcing an involuntary thrust.
With able hands I hold him still, pressing him flat against the desk but before his eyes can pop open with sudden remembrance that he is a married man, my tongue snakes the heated length and he cries as the last of slumbered nerves find the rush of awakening.
“Trunks.”
I lift his legs to my shoulders and slide my tongue again from shaft to head, and when his eyes do open they are filled with stars and the inescapable nature of his situation. No matter what he does now, he can’t turn back – his body now belongs to me and won’t let me go. He blazes white heat and desert afternoon as my hands creep down his hips and grapple the legs that threaten to kick and push and thrust, and knock me to the floor. Enclosing the source of flames in the wet caverns of my mouth, his body shudders and ecstasy escapes through tremoring jaw. Slowly I lift my head, leaving the wet trails of desire behind me and he begs me through soft whimpers to finally release him.
“Trunks.”
But I’ve waited too long, worked too hard for this moment to disappear so quickly. I force my fingers inside him and the shock of this entry registers white pain upon crimson cheeks. I fill my mouth with him again and pain dissipates in favour of his fraying nerves. And when I am done – when his erratic breath no longer hitches when my fingers climb inside him – I pull my mouth away, returning to the long moaning line of his chest.
When I stand straight, he stands with me, entranced, and he cradles my head in his arms and kisses me with more passion than I thought existed in the world. We partake of the kiss like wine, deep with undertones so pure and bold that I find myself trapped inside it. Breath racks emptied lungs, and quivering lips find the arch of my cheekbone, then the soft of my eye; my hair, my neck. Fingers press against my spine, dragging imprinted red to the plush of my tailbone. And we are wrapped inside each other – an endless maze of limbs and glistening beads of sweat, and cries of mercy and want and heat.
Fingers touch skin – warm, smooth skin – and they ripple across muscle of chest and shoulder blades, trickling down spine, through hair; upon tip of ear. And I feel myself falling and being caught and held tight in strong arms. The tremble of fingers climb the arch of my neck and splay across jaw, and thin moist lips press into mine, digging; delving for secrets and love and desire. He grows sun warm as he kisses me – as I touch him – and he moans, polite and airy and breathless. The soft of his chin becomes mine, and his breath stops and his eyes close, and he pulls me up, his eyes manic with suddenness and instinct.
I should be happy with this – just let him fill me with his dreams…
I move and my tongue and lips trace the curvature of his spine. His skin tastes faintly of salt and fresh soap – it’s not unpleasant. Pressing my mouth deeper into the winding muscles behind his shoulder blades, the skin itself becomes more apparent upon my tongue – a soft taste, indescribable other than it is soft and makes the world behind my eyes spin. He moves between my arms and tongue, his body becoming hot like a dying star, his skin reddening as implosion becomes more imminent. And he pleads, his voice like the drifting wind – almost inaudible over the blood rush in my ears.
I lead him to the floor, where on our knees, I find the means to the end of my chase.
Pain was the last thing he expected. His eyes flash wide as I thrust into him. Breath stops. Skin cools like winter. It is a sudden thrust – by no means soft or gentle, or otherwise caring…His body falls forward with the sudden shock of pain that makes his nerves wish they had remained asleep. My hands upon his shoulders keep him still and again I break through barriers and push my way deep inside, and his name falls from my lips.
My breath staggers. My eyes close and the world around me is lost to the building pressure inside me. My knees begin to quake and my arms lose their control and fall loosely to his hips. Harder I drive myself inside him, and faster as if my body has developed a mind separate from my head. Like an ancient ritual of flame and burning brands, I bury myself inside him. I can feel it rise, and a cry develops in the centre of my stomach. And soon I am yelling his name, over and over like some ancient pagan prophet slicing his dagger upon the altar, purging blood and deed and promising peace everlasting.
As eruption comes closer, my nerves seize against flame, crashing into starburst heat and red sun mornings. I can feel the beginning tremors, and though I know I shouldn’t, though I know I have wasted the moments he dared give me, I can’t stop. I explode – my body, mind and heart an eternal quake, wracked and wracked by tremors that coarse my veins and throat and knees; my voice loud above me, calling his name until voice fails completely…
I collapse upon him – a mound of sweat and satiation – and twirl my fingers in his hair, then realize how cold he has become. An impish grin tweaks the side of my cheek and I dip my hand low, fingers breezing the side of dissipating heat. “You didn’t think I forgot, did you?” I tease, but he pulls away from me before I get the chance to relieve him. When the shock of hitting the floor finally fades, he is already half clothed and picking up his shirt from the floor. His face is hidden from me, his body quiet as it moves to find his jacket and discarded tie.
“Gohan?” I question, my voice like a child’s seeking approval.
He merely shakes his head, pulls his jacket around him and fumbles with his tie. I grab the tie. “I didn’t forget, Gohan – promise. I didn’t forget.” I turn him to face me. His face is streaked with tears. “Gohan?”
He takes back his tie, but his hands are too shaky to fix it into place. Tears roll from his jaw as he tries and tries again to fix the tie. And it comes to me what I’ve done.
“You don’t have to leave,” I whisper five seconds too late.
