Summer Loving

CW:Sexual content.

Summers here are chaotic and slapdash. A misfiring engine of weather that brings with it rain, winds and an unreliability that saps a person’s energy. When it’s hot, the temperature gauge does not climb all that high. The day itself is lazy and obese. It sweats and sweats until it gets unbearable. An argument of an atmosphere that would be spoiling for a fight, if it had the wherewithal to get itself up off the sofa. Passive aggression that builds and builds until your nervous system shudders and your head aches for an absentee ending.

The hottest days seem to last for an age, but the reality of them is far away from that timing. These days are a fleeting myth. Yearned for, for an age. Gone before they have really begun.

This Summer, the growing heat and humidity robbed me of my sense of self. I was lost in the infernal waves. Listless and inexplicably sad. I did not want to be here, but I had nowhere else to go. I could not function. I was a teenager again, but with no promise of a bright future ahead of me. The intense light of the sun held within it a darkness for me and I felt like hiding in the bowels of my house. Held prisoner by the raging sun. No escape from the pulsating heat. A pulse that matched the vein in my temple. Hitting me. Hurting me. Sending me delirious with a dizziness that made me want to give my life up. If only I could.

Somehow, I carried on. Going through the motions. Adhering to a routine. Fulfilling my obligations via well practiced repetition. Ignoring a sense of futility which grew with the vindictive humidity.

Jane gave in from the off. She’d worked her last day in a job she’d dedicated herself to for over a decade and then she seemed to lose her mojo. I indulged her in this whilst quietly resenting her for it. The timing of her fall matched the heatwave perfectly and I had this strange sense of collusion. This was no accident. Jane and the heat were in cahoots. Ganging up against me. Testing me. Preparing to do something secretly momentous. A pending demolition job that no amount of appeals would avoid.

At first, I attributed her behaviour to a hangover, and I suppose it was. She’d had a leaving do at work. Stayed over. Came home the following morning, broken and incoherent. There was a time when I’d found those rare occasions of drunken brokenness almost cute, but there was something different to her this time. Something I couldn’t put my finger on as she avoided looking me in the eye. A wrongness that curdled my insides. A change was occurring. An unwelcome change the flow of which I could not stem.

The hangover continued. The blues that followed her rejection from work. The structure of her days had been plundered and as the heat enveloped us, she chose to remain indoors. An exile from the light, she curled up on the sofa or returned to bed for naps. Attempting to sleep off her loss.

I looked for her whenever I took breaks from my laptop and the endless meetings that filled each hour come what may. I would bring her mugs of tea when she was on the sofa. She barely touched them. Remaining withdrawn, even from our shared sanctuary.

Increasingly, she took herself off to our bed. Annexing it. Appropriating it for her depression. Excluding me and making my own fight with the hot weather all the more desperate and conflicted. I felt as though I was not allowed to feel down. That I had no reason to be experiencing my own sadness. My struggle with the heatwave was illusory and meant nothing. A dramatic ploy for attention that was never forthcoming.

And still I tried. I tried as each cheese grater day ate away at me. I’d slip upstairs to gaze upon Jane. Failing to read the message that she was becoming. Fancying that I could no longer see her chest rise and fall. The Summer heat a hellish demise for the both of us. Fitting somehow that she should go first. A thin hope that her sacrifice would free me from the pain of a heat that was dismantling my sanity and casting me adrift in lethargy.

Tired. So unimaginably tired. I staggered through the day, only to collapse on the bed and lay beside Jane in a wakeful state. Sleep had deserted me and I did not know where to find it. I drifted in and out of delirium. Unable to keep a hold of what was real. In the night Jane would absent herself from our bed. Sometimes, I would slip downstairs, taking care to be as quiet as I could. Unsure as to why I felt the need not to disturb her. Finding her on the sofa. The two places she occupied now. Sofa and bed. A game of cat and mouse between us as we turned in slow circles in the relentless heat.

When I did sleep, I had strange dreams of a faceless visitor to our home. A dark figure that Jane was always waiting for. Opening her arms to embrace them. Becoming one with them. Her sigh as they held each other thrilled me. I sensed a kiss bestowed as another sigh escaped her lips. These were the only sounds I heard from Jane as we dwelt in this furnace of a Summer.

My dreams fuelled a paranoia within me. I was losing her. Something was coming between us. The heat was burning what we had away. Now, as I gazed upon her, my vision was interrupted by a heat haze. She shimmered as though she were a ghost of a memory. More imagined than real.

The hot Summer days were separating me from the life I had known. Isolating me. Providing me with a private hell. I yearned for Jane to snap out of it. Wanted to speak words in an attempt to break the spell the humidity was steeping us in, but I had no words. Nor the capacity to speak them. Besides, I knew my breath would cook in this heat and any sound would be burnt to a crisp before it could be heard.

The silence of the Summer terrified me when I heard it. Too hot even for the birds to call warnings to each other. I felt like the world was dying. A slow motion nuclear blast that would render everything to ash. Trapped in the final moments of a life that was already ended. Cremated alive. Conscious, but beyond caring.

Those Summer days fed upon me. I became a shade of my former self. A shadow taunted and teased by the intense Summer light. I barely ventured out. Jane was my anchor. She held me within the confines of our home. I had pretensions of waiting it out. I knew a heatwave such as this could not last. There would be the blessed relief of thunderstorms and cleansing rains. This was not forever. Even if my torment seemed unending.

I was worried about Jane. We had not spoken for days. I thought we had. Speech was a part of our routine. But when I took the time and precious energy to consider it, I realised that we’d lapsed into a dull silence. Conserving our energy so we could survive the heat.

Asking if she was OK seemed inadequate. She did not look at me. Said she was fine. I’d brought her water with ice in it. Placed it on the bedside cabinet. Hoped that she would drink from it after I’d gone. Feel the benefit of the ice before it melted away. I told her I was worried about her. That she’d barely spoken since her leaving do and the ending of her job. She told me it was the heat. That she’d talk once everything was cooler.

Leaving it at that, I returned to the blast furnace of my office with a sense of dread. All the heavier for my attempt to confront the reality of our situation. I held out little hope for better days once the sun relented. If anything, the heatwave was holding something dark at bay. I found myself thinking about the dark ghost in my dreams. The change that was taking place within Jane. She was different. This wasn’t about the loss of her job. There was more than grief at play here. The unbearable heat was a distraction. One hell masking another.

I feared the future. A future I had no control over. I was stuck under a magnifying glass and I felt the eyes of fate staring down at me balefully. There was a punishment in this. But for what wrongdoing, I had no idea. Perhaps the sins of the father and all the fathers who proceeded him. I was the sacrifice that was required to make amends.

My pending execution took my last reserves of strength from me. I sat staring into the screen of my laptop. Missed meetings. Failed to cover work I could have done with my eyes closed. I barely coordinated the basics of my life. Moving from the chair in my office to the kitchen seemed like the biggest of challenges. I looked at the open maw of my office door and would have burst into tears if I had the wherewithal to do so. No tears, but my entire body was crying. The sweat mummifying me.

That night was darker. There was the threat of a storm that made the heat all the more oppressive. There was a brooding anger in the air. I left the curtains open and sat on the edge of the bed wondering whether this was the end of the heatwave. Wanting that end, but not the beginning that waited on the other side of it.

After the first fork of lightning rent the sky, I lay down and wonder whether I will feel any relief. Whether I will find the strength to move through this world again. Some of the electricity recharging my worn out body and bidding me rejoin the flow of life.

“At last,” Jane breathes the words into my ear, making me shudder with the shock of it. I thought she was asleep. He prone form hadn’t moved when I’d entered the room. I turn to look at her. She’s on her side. Next to me, but not touching me. That gap closing as our eyes lock. She slips a cool hand along my chest and draws closer to me.

“You’re cold,” I tell her.

“And you’re warm,” she smiles at me and her smile makes me shudder once again. There’s something far colder about that smile. Cold and hungry. “We can talk now.”

And suddenly, I don’t want her to talk. I don’t want to know. Think I already knew what’s coming. Not the shape of the words themselves, but the overall form. The dark form I’ve dreamt of. She’s about to bring it into our world. Into this room. To show me what it is that has come between us. The big reveal. A huge betrayal. I don’t want to lose her. Already have.

I begin to turn towards her.

“No, lie still,” she whispers to me. Stroking me. Lips brushing my skin. Drawing even closer. “Lie still. I want to make you feel good. I want you to understand. I’ve been waiting for this. For you.”

She’s crouching over me now. Her lips more insistent. Her touch awakening me. Another build-up of heat. My own storm approaching. Lit from time to time by the lightning tearing down the humidity and restoring order via passionate conflict.

“Did something happen at your leaving do?” the words spill out of me. Emboldened by the storm and the gentle breeze now lapping into the room, dispelling the humidity and bathing me. Cooling me.

She sighs that sigh. A sigh that signals her pleasure. A sound that’s always turned me on. Despite my question and the answer I am expecting, I respond. Stroking her back. Encouraging her. Urging her on. Wanting her come what may. Giving all I have in an attempt to keep her.

“It’s been happening for a while,” I feel the words as she breathes them upon my skin, punctuating them with kisses, “but he was at the hotel where I stayed the night of my leaving do. Came to me when I least expected it.”

I should be upset. I should be angry. Somehow my need to know takes over. The welcome distraction of her helps. I’m no longer worried about Jane. I’ve wanted her to talk. To respond. To be with me. And now that’s happening.

“It was only kissing at first,” I feel her lips against me and imagine those kisses, “it was gentle. Something needed. I’d lose myself in those kisses. So simple. So addictive.”

“Addictive?” I ask her. Understanding that addiction as she toys with me, sending waves of pleasure through my body.

“The more he kissed me, the more I wanted. After the night at the hotel, he’s come to me every night.”

I freeze. The dreams. They were real. He has been here. How did I not know? I saw him and dismissed him as an apparition of my fevered imagination. She raises her head and there is that cold smile again, “you’ve seen him. You’ve watched us. Don’t act like you didn’t know. It aroused you. You encouraged him to kiss me harder as I cupped his head against my breast.”

I frown, I never did any such thing, but my mind is clouding as she stares down at me. My body continuing to respond as she strokes me, “I…” but the words are lost as she pleasures me.

“You were as addicted as I was. Watching. Wanting more.” The lightning illuminates the room briefly and lights her pale face. What she’s saying is starting to make sense. It’s turning me on. The thought of those kisses. Wanting her kisses. Wanting her. Wanting this.

“You want me don’t you?” she purrs the words. She knows that I do.

“Yes,” I gasp the word as her fingers play with me.

“When his mouth found my neck, the pleasure was so intense. How was it to watch that?” she asks me.

My mind is reeling. I don’t believe that I saw that. What I saw was a shadow. Nothing more. A part of me wants to see it now though. Wants to please her. To join her in this fantasy. I stare into her eyes and I can see her pleasure. Pulling him closer as they move together. Still I don’t see him, but I see her well enough. “The sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.” I tell her. Going with it. Wanting to see where we go. Together. Not wanting to let her go.

“And when he bit my inner thigh?” she bites her lip in that way that sends me wild. I groan at the sight of it.

“I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted you.” I say this and feel as though I am passing beyond a point of no return.

“Good,” she says as she moves closer. On her knees now as she looks down at me.

I’m holding back as my pleasure builds. I slip a hand down and match her movements. Pleasuring each other in unison. She lets out a low moan that is all too familiar. I have a moment of confusion at her response, but then I feel rhythmic movement. She’s being firmly pushed against me. Another flash of light affords me a glimpse of her lover. But all I see is darkness. A dark form filling her. Sending her crazy. She’s groaning with a building pleasure and transmitting it through me.

“No!” I gasp as I see that smile of hers again. This time, there are two wickedly sharp teeth. Another burst of lightning and she buries her head in my neck. I struggle for a moment as she bites down, but I’ve nowhere to go and my body swiftly betrays me.

Now I am encouraging her. Urging her on. Telling her how I want more. Feeling her body shudder with pleasure. Mine joining hers. Holding her close as she continues to feed.

Later, I will mourn the loss of the cloying heat. The last Summer. The end of my days in the sunlight. Chasing an addictive passion. Giving Jane my warmth and my life as she gave the dark stranger hers.

I will not dwell on how we feed our addiction. I won’t see past my addiction to Jane. She is my sun now. The heat that we slowly take from others doesn’t matter to me. That world has no meaning anymore. That was a dog eat dog game. We have evolved into something more. Far stronger in our simplicity. We take what we need and it is given freely by lethargic creatures grown fat on life. They burn all the more brightly for a little while. Then they are gone. Just like that final Summer that ended with a union beyond my imaginings.

When you came to my hotel room on the night of my leaving do I knew something special was happening. And it kept on happening until we became what we were always meant to be.

The intensity of Jane’s eyes matched her belief, dispelling the last of my confusion. The storm of her passion cleared the way, and the Summer of our previous existence seemed a dream away. Another life. Other people. Gone now. Never to be seen again. My response to her words was to bite down on her neck and drown in the darkness of her again and again until I was cleansed of my former life and reborn in a cold, endless and hungry darkness.