“Oh fuck... God. Cleo... please...”
I roll the condom down to his thick base and he thrusts against my jaw. I open up. He slams into my mouth, his hand grabbing my hair. I take him deeper than I ever have and roll his balls and lick the underside of him.
He bucks. “Ah—my hips.” My heart hammers. Is he in pain? “That motherfucking mouth... motherfuck...” I squeeze his balls again, and suck his head. I twirl my tongue around him. His thighs grip my body.
“Squeeze my dick. Right now, squeeze hard.” He’s panting. “Harder. Press... down under. The underside... press... aaaah... ahhhh.”
When my fingers press down underneath his cock, he moans and twists his hips. “Pull... on my balls. Harder...”
When I’m squeezing his sac so hard it has to hurt, his hand comes over mine, working from his head down to the base of him, smoothing like he’s trying to keep his load inside. He growls. “Suck... me. My cock... in your mouth. Right... now.”
I start to worry someone will come in—but I don’t have much choice. He’s got me by the hair. I feel his balls tighten, but then he stops me, urging me to rub my fingers down the underside of his cock and squeeze his balls again.
Each time he makes me do this, he seems lifted further from here. My mouth and hands make him forget the world and finally, the third time I drag my thumb along the underside of his cock, I realize: I’m prolonging this.
I do it one more time—until his monitors have started beeping and my heart is pounding hard, and then instead of stopping me, he plants his palms on each side of my head and fucks my mouth like it’s a sport.
He comes with a sharp cry, his cock twitching hard before his cum fills the condom. By the time I pull it off, his eyes are closed.
I cover him back up and rush into the bathroom to take care of myself. As soon as I see the blue tiles and the rail by the toilet, I don’t think I’ll be able to do it... but I sit inside the shower, stuff two fingers inside myself, and focus on the memory of Kellan’s hand around his cock.
“IF ALL ELSE PERISHED, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger.”
–Catherine, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
I’ve taken to dramatic quotes. So sue me. When I placed an order at that 24-hour random shit delivery service, I came across an origami kit, and of course, I had to have it. I remember mentioning an origami sparrow in one of my first letters to R.
R.
Kellan.
I still can’t wrap my head around it. Kellan Walsh—Drake, it legally is—is R. And he has cancer. My sweet, dirty lover, with the .gif body and non-stop boner, has cancer. Not only that, he has relapsed AML that he was just... ignoring. What the actual fuck?
I want to ask about it. When it’s dark and quiet in the room and he’s curled on his side with IVs running to his chest, and I’m folded behind him with my cheek pressed against his back, I want to whisper, “Tell me why.” I need a reason.
He overdosed this summer, tried to take his own life before the relapse could. God knows I can’t judge. I haven’t been there. But I need to understand. I just need to hear about it from his mouth. Because I love him. I love him. And I want him to live.
Unfortunately, I haven’t asked about it. Because he isn’t talking.
I fold the slip of paper with my quote on it into a sparrow and then thread string through one of the wings. I wrap the other end of the string around a piece of that special double-sided tape stuff, which pops off when you tug it for removal.
As I stand in a desk chair to press it to the ceiling, I look over at him, lying in the bed. I can tell he’s awake because the gray box on the bed side table—the one with the red numbers showing his pulse and blood oxygen saturation—shows a pulse too high for him to be asleep.
But if I go over to him and try to talk, he won’t answer me.
It’s been that way for almost three whole days. He gets chemo ’round the clock, lots of IV fluids to flush out the chemo quickly, plus a ton of steroids, antibiotics, painkillers for the bone pain he still has, and a laundry list of random other drugs like Zofran, Ativan, etc. Yesterday and the day before, he got shots of chemo in his spine as well. Both times, I went with him to the procedure room, and both times I wrapped my arms around him as he curled over on his side.
He’ll hold my hands and lean his head against me. He might answer a question or two—as long as he’s speaking with his eyes closed—but he won’t really engage.
When we’re in his room, he’ll lie in bed and feign sleep.
I’ve gotten good at gauging his pain level—the pulse number can help me tell—so if he gets up to do something, and I can tell he’s hurting, I’ll wrap my arm around him... and he’ll lean on me.
But this is all, until night time.
Around nine or ten, I’ll play a DVD—one of the episodes of Walking Dead, from the DVDs Arethea pointed out when I first got here. I’ll slip in bed behind him, and I’ll wrap an arm around his hard, lean waist. At night, Arethea only comes in every three hours, so I have time to really touch him.
I stroke his neck and shoulders... trail around his sides, down to the firm plane of his abs... and always, there’s his dick, standing straight up. He will guide my hands to it, or sometimes urge me to come lie in front of him, where we’d be facing each other. I’ll pull his head against my chest so he can suck my nipples, and I’ll stroke his cock until he comes in my hand.
Sometimes it takes a long time, and I know it’s because of all the painkillers. But always, if I roll a condom on and suck him... play with his balls and tease the rim, or drag my fingertip over his taint, I can make him come.
He lays his fingertips on my pussy... pushes inside. We both come, he falls asleep... he wakes again; I always wake to him. His hands grab me... His sleepy mouth strokes mine, his tongue delving inside. He says my name against my skin, and when I whisper his name, he moves against me.
Usually, after the second round, we’re facing each other. I pull his head against my chest and wrap my arms around him. Once or twice, I think I feel him shake a little... feel some moisture on his cheeks, but I can never tell for sure.
As this third day of chemo wears on, I miss Kellan more than ever. I know that this is where I want to be—I withdrew from school this morning, via phone, from the shower stall in Kellan’s bathroom—but it’s lonely. Dr. Willard explained that I have two choices: I can stay in Kellan’s room and be part of his quarantine—a necessary thing while his immune system is so off—or I can come and go a little more, but when I’m in here with him, I would have to wear a mask and gloves. I’ve decided on the quarantine.
If Kellan has an opinion about the origami sparrows, he doesn’t let on.
A few times a day, he has to get up to “stay moving.” I lace my arm through his, but Kellan hardly looks at me. This afternoon, he does PT and chokes down some chicken and rice. His eyes are tired. His face is pale. He falls asleep with the food tray in his lap. I tuck pillows around him. I hang more birds. No one stops me. By the time the sun starts going down, one-fourth of the room is filled with sparrows.
I can’t.
I think of it. I map whole conversations. Jokes. In my mind, I tell her that I love her. How soft she is, how good she smells. I tell her to stay in bed with me all day, to keep her hands around my dick all night, because I need that. I need her.
But that’s a script. In the real world, I am silent. When she holds me in the daylight, I don’t move. Poison drips into my veins. I tell myself if I don’t speak, if I don’t move my mouth, I won’t get sick. I tell myself if I get sick, Cleo will leave. I can’t be here without her. She is holding up the sky.
“IF ALL ELSE PERISHED, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger.”
–Catherine, from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
Chemo da
y four, Kellan doesn’t eat his breakfast of bacon, a biscuit, and a TwoCal. Dr. Willard comes in and asks him how he’s feeling, and I’m shocked to hear him have a normal conversation with the doctor.
“My hips hurt some. Better, though...”
“We’ve dropped back on the Dil since that pain’s lessened,” the doctor tells him. “What about your stomach? Any nausea yet?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes. Not much.”
“We can go up on the Zofran.” Dr. Willard nods at the stationary bike and gives Kellan a crooked smile. “You been training on that thing?”
Kellan shakes his head, rubbing his forehead, like he’s tired. “I wish.”
The doctor pats his arm. “Take this pretty girl and dance around the room. Just keep him up and down,” the doctor tells me.
Kellan’s eyes meet mine, and I feel warm all over. When did he stop looking at me?
When Dr. Willard goes, I perch on the foot of the bed. “You want to play a game or something? Maybe watch a show?”
Kellan shakes his head. I notice he’s got his phone cradled in his hand.
“I think I’ll take a nap.” I swallow, because all of a sudden, my throat is aching. “Do you mind if I lie down beside you?”
“Go for it,” he says quietly.
I slip under the sheets, but when I go to spoon myself against him like normal, I find that I... just can’t.
I lie there, staring at the small sky light above the bed. I feel him shift beside me. He turns on his back. I catch his eye and realize he looks more alert than yesterday. As I just saw, when he spoke with Dr. Willard.
I blink, making the ceiling blur.
Did I do something wrong? I thought he’d want me here, but... I cover my face with my hand.
“Cleo?”
I peek my eyes open and see him leaning over me. He grabs my hand and puts it under the covers, where I find a rock-hard erection.
I stroke up and down his velvety length, slowly at first, because I’m not sure if I want to do this. But I find I do. I need him. I’ll settle for anything I can get. I trace around his bulbous head and roll his balls in my warm palm. His chest rises with his heavy breaths.
“Yeah... oh... fuck... Cleo.”
I feel a pearl of moisture on the head of him.
His thighs flex as he pushes himself into my hand. “Oh God... mm... underneath... my head again. Like that. Fuck.”
I feel his hips tremble. I stroke his balls. I jack him for a few and return to his head, to the silken rim, where the barest stroke of my fingertips has him snarling in my ear and threatening to blow all over me. I wrap both hands around his thick shaft. He thrusts as my hands pump, and when he comes he groans, “I love you.”
“And if you are not a bird, beware of coming to rest above an abyss.”
–Nietzsche
My hands shake just a little as I fold the square of bright red origami paper into a sparrow. I kind of suck at origami. None of the sparrows look the same, but I don’t care. I’ve got to stay busy...lest I go completely nuts.
I’m sitting at the desk, over near the exercise bike, which is right by the room’s two big windows. Kellan’s lying on his left side in the bed, eyes on his iPad.
He’s lying on his left side. The side where he has two broken ribs and a fucked up shoulder. The side that puts him facing away from me.
I grab another square of yellow origami paper.
I’m folding that into the shittiest-looking sparrow yet when he gets off the bed and pushes his IV pole slowly to the restroom. After a few minutes, he comes back out. From halfway across the room, I can’t see him very well, but I’m pretty sure he’s going out of his way to avoid looking at me.
This time, he lies down on his right side like a sane person, but he’s quick to get the iPad back in front of his face.
Fury spreads its fingers through me. So he loves me, does he? Or maybe he just loves my hands around his dick. It feels wrong to be so pissed off at him, considering the situation, but I can’t help it. I want to saunter over to the bed and let him have it, but that isn’t fair. I tell myself that’s why I take my own vacation to the bathroom.
For Kellan’s sake.
Yeahhh.
I strip out of my clothes, pull a pair of loose gray sweats and a long-sleeved red t-shirt out of my bag, and seek refuge under the luke-warm stream of shower water. I don’t know if cancer patients can’t get over-hot or what, but this shower sucks.
Still, I stand there in the muggy, not-quite-steamy space a long time after I’m finished shaving and washing my hair.
Even if he really does love me, he’ll never say it again. I bet he won’t. I dry myself slowly and dress more slowly, then stash my bags back in the bathroom closet.
I hang my head upside down to dry my hair, so it’s got a little more body than it has since I got here, and brush and floss my teeth before I brave the room again.
I’m surprised to find him on the stationary bike. His blue eyes flicker over me, then quickly come back to the bike’s small digital screen. I watch his legs move for a minute. I can’t help admiring the way his body moves, the way he looks, even with the IV lines in his chest. He’s just…perfect.
I sigh. Fuck me. I thought this would be so different. I thought he’d be glad to have me here. I thought at the very least, he’d share his feelings. Fess up to liking me at least. Is that selfish? Maybe I’m not being understanding.
He has cancer, after all. The other day I came across the thick stack of consent forms—just for this one particular hospital stay—and learned a little more about what that means for him. Trials usually don’t promise specific survival statistics, but I’ve read the stats for repeat bone marrow transplants online…with a reduced intensity radiation regimen (as Kellan had, the day before I got here) and—yeah. They’re not so fab.
God, I really am an asshole. Obviously, he’s scared. Who wouldn’t be? He’s scared and feeling bad and I’m here, all up in his space, demanding things. Even if I don’t say I am, I’m sure he can feel it. How I want him to talk to me.
I go to the recliner with my cross-stitching and watch him through the forest of my lashes.
A masochist. He must be. The IV pole stands beside him, and he’s not wearing a shirt. Two IV lines pump chemo into his chest. His eyes are sad and tired, his handsome face perpetually tight. I know it now: his look of pain.
I’m so fucking helpless, I can’t stand it. I prick my finger with my cross-stitch needle. It stings more than I think it will.
I murmur, “Fuck.”
His eyes shift to my face. I roll my eyes. “Pricked my finger.”
I’m surprised to see his legs slow their cycling. To see him move down off the bike, his motions slow and desperately careful. He walks to me in his longue pants, pushing the IV pole. My heart beats like a drum the entire time. And then he’s standing right in front of me. Just standing there.
I want to scream.
He stands there for the longest time. I don’t look up. Not because I don’t want to, but because I know I can’t. All the desperation that’s locked up in me would spill out, and he’d see it and know I care too much.
I care too much. Maybe I really do.
I sit there feeling nauseated. I just watch the needle and the thread, and make the “e” in ‘bitterness.’ Until he kneels in front of me.
His hand comes over my knee, and I can feel his eyes on my face. “Cleo?”
God—I’ve really missed his normal voice. Not just his dirty whispers, but his real voice.
“Mmm?” I feel terrible for it, but I can’t look at him.
His hand squeezes my leg and tension builds between us. “I want to tell you something,” he says quietly.
“That’s new.” I can’t help it. I’m hurt.
“I want you to go after your... after you donate.” His voice is low and husky, making chills roll over my skin. “You’re giving me enough... you’ve been here long enough... you have your own life to get bac
k to. I know I... have to let you go.” The words are thick and soft. I feel a shot of hope. My heart pit-patters as his blue eyes come to mine. “I’m being selfish,” he confesses hoarsely. “It’s my default with you.”
I put my hoop on the table by the chair and reach for his handsome face. His eyes are full of pain. I lean in close because despite that, I feel the need to look at him. I want to kiss him, but at the last minute, I decide it feels better just to press my cheek against his.
“Kell...” My arm goes around his shoulders. “It’s not like that with us.”
He inhales, and I can tell it hurts his ribs because he also tenses. He presses his cheek gently against mine and wraps his right arm tight around my back.
“What is it like?” he whispers. “Tell me.”
I curl my hand around his nape and kiss him near his ear. “It’s like I really care about you. I love you... and I just want to be here with you. Close, so I can see you every day.”
He pulls away. His face looks anguished. “I feel like such a fucking bastard.”
“No.” I pull him back to me. “Why would you say that?”
I cup his head, and he lowers his forehead to my shoulder. His arm wraps back around me. I feel his fist clenched above my shoulder blade. “Everything I do will hurt you.” His voice shakes. “I make you go...” He shakes his head. “I love you, I’m a liability to you. I fucking hate myself.”
“You are not a liability.” He lifts his head at that, his blue eyes wide and pooling with emotion. Which gives me hope. He cares what I say here. I kiss his lips lightly. “I love you and I want you any way you are.”
His mouth tightens, as if my words hurt him. He hides his face back in my hair, and for a moment, I can feel him breathing hard.
“It’s gonna get worse,” he says in a broken voice. “You might... watch me die here. I don’t want that for you. Goddamn, Cleo. I want you to go. Just get as far from here as you can and don’t look back. If I come through—” he shakes his head, his forehead rocking on my shoulder. “You’re never gonna need this shit.”