Let Me Go (Owned 2)

“Hell yes you can. You’re comin’ Gracie. Come for me.”

“Oh god. Oh Eli. Eli!” I yelled into the rug as Eli pounded into me and continued to finger between my folds. Eli gripped my thighs tight, his fingers bruising the flesh, and thrust deep into me. I felt his hips flush against me.

This is it.

Eli groaned and I felt him jerk and tighten inside me, a delicious and wholly unique feeling. I’d missed that feeling. My thighs wobbled exhausted from holding myself up but more exhausted from Eli. I was spent from all the orgasms. When he came inside me it was too much, a sensation overload. I fell all the way down, still prepared to let him do whatever he wanted with my body.

As his twitches slowed, I felt him retreat, slowly pulling out of me, leaving me feeling hollow. His length moved against my very sensitive insides on the way out and I shivered, biting the cushion to keep from screaming out. Eli stroked my back and removed himself entirely. I could still feel him though; I felt his juices flowing out of me and…

Blood. So much blood. Between my thighs.

“Never again?”

“I’m afraid…”

I scrambled from beneath Eli, suddenly feeling suffocated on the sprawling ground. I blinked, trying to get the memory out of my head, but I couldn’t. The wetness between my thighs had relit the memory.

“What’s wrong?” Eli asked, but I couldn’t see him. I could barely hear him over the loud rushing noise of my memory. It wouldn’t go away! I put my hands over my ears, trying to shut the thing up. Eli said something, but I couldn’t hear him. The memory was breaking in, cracking everything around me like a rock to glass.

“Get out!” I screamed, rushing farther away from Eli. “Get out! Get out!” Eli reached for me, but I slapped his hand away. “Get the fuck out!” I swore at him. By the look on his face I could tell he was finally taking me seriously. He didn’t say another word. Silently, Eli zipped up his pants. He grabbed his shirt and was out the door in less than a minute. I watched him leave through the door, relief washing over me when it closed with a snick.

I sat naked in the living room for at least thirty minutes after kicking Eli out. I knew I shared the place with Vera and Chad, and if they were to walk in I would be mortified, but I couldn’t move. I felt horrible for kicking Eli out. I was paralyzed with self-doubt.

Was it a mistake? Should I have let him stay?

My fingers itched to call him and have him come back over. He’d left his number on a torn piece of paper and now I cradled it like it was gold. I wanted us to cuddle like we were normal. But that was the thing: we weren’t normal. When I… When I… I still struggled with the word, even though I had yelled it over and over again with Eli. Though I had conquered much of the sexuality taken from me, years of sexual oppression still hid in secret places inside me, surfacing at the most random and inopportune times.

I fisted my fingers, the nails digging deep into my palms, and focused on the pain instead of the shame. I wanted to be over this. I wanted to destroy every ounce of my rotten childhood.

When I orgasmed with Eli. When I came—because that’s what had happened, I came to him, body and soul, without reservation—every bad memory flooded in my mind like my own personal picture show. It didn’t matter that my entire body was lit up like sparklers on the Fourth of July. The fact that pure

pleasure coursed through my bones and vibrated my marrow was unimportant. As Eli took me, he also shook me. Every memory I buried rattled loose.

I saw the ruination of our relationship: our dead baby.

The coursing pleasure turned to shockwaves of pain and sorrow. When he came inside me it felt like blood. I’d lost so much blood that day. Just like the blood, his come poured out of me like a broken spigot. It was too much to handle. So I kicked him out.

I couldn’t tell him what was really happening. How could I explain without revealing my deepest shame? I had killed our baby, and as punishment, I was made barren.

Sitting on the floor, my butt pressed against the cold hardwood floor, I felt empty. I had dreamed of this day ever since he’d left for college. I’d dreamed of us coming back together and all our problems being solved. The thing about dreams, though, is that they become distorted in reality.

My body still burned with the aftermath of his pleasure. I had felt good, really unearthly good, for about five seconds. In those five uninterrupted seconds, everything was brilliant and easy. Then, just as quickly, it wasn’t.

Picking up a discarded pillow, I threw it across the room. A primal scream erupted from my throat when the pillow landed indifferently on the floor.

I always found it amazing—and slightly disturbing—how much changes with nighttime. Just looking at the ocean I could see how true that was. In the day, the ocean was a beautiful, albeit dangerous, turquoise gem. At night it was an inky void reflecting an even inkier void.

Hours had passed since Eli’s and my combustion. Night had come. I’d since donned clothes and was now sitting on the porch, watching the inky void, wondering if it could swallow up my thoughts. I needed something to swallow up my thoughts or they were going to swallow me up.

Slam!

I jumped straight up at the sound of someone banging the door shut. Turning around, I saw Vera barging into the apartment.

“I don’t know how you got this number, asshole, but don’t call again!” She pulled the phone away from her ear, looked at it for half a second, and then threw it across the living room where it landed with a thud against a wall.

“Vera?” I asked meekly, standing up from my seat on the porch. Vera blinked a few times before looking at me, as though pulling herself out from her mind. I understood that too well.

“Grace,” Vera said, her face changing from angry to happy slowly. “I’m sorry.”