Last Light

by Claire Kent

I’m not nearly as intimidating as I’d like to be.

But my gun is loaded, and I know how to use it. I hope he can see that.

My grandpa always said he was an honest man. But the world I knew four years ago has cracked at its core, and even men who once seemed decent can’t be trusted anymore.

I know some men are still good, but all the ones I knew are dead now.

Curiosity is like sympathy. It will kill you in the end.

There are words I could use to explain it to him. About hope. About remnants of lost beauty. About echoes of meaning in a bleak reality. But I don’t even try to explain. Maybe I am crazy. Reading poems at the end of the world. I don’t say anything at all.

I didn’t cry when she died. I couldn’t. There’s a defense mechanism built into the human soul. You get to a point where loss is so immense that the part of you that hurts when something dies simply shuts down. You go numb.

“I have a man,” I say without thinking. “She’s got a man.” The voice follows on the heels of mine. Lower. Gruffer. Louder.

Travis. He’s come out of the old store while we’ve been talking, and now he steps over and puts a hand on my shoulder. It feels significant. Possessive. Like he’s staking his claim.

“I’m her man,” Travis says, rough and intimidating. He’s got his shotgun propped up against his shoulder. Not aimed or in position, but clearly visible. “So y’all just back off.”

“It just makes me feel weird.” “What does?” “The idea that I need a man.”

Men can’t make it now without women any more than women can make it without men. We need each other.” He clears his throat and avoids my eyes. “I need you. Like you need me.”

But maybe he thinks about my scent the way I think about his. Present but not really unpleasant. Familiar. Triggering some bone-deep instinct of possession.

And besides… We have far more important things to think about right now than sex.

I am fine. Sex simply isn’t a priority right now. And it doesn’t matter that the irony is bitterly amusing. A virgin at the end of the world.

He nuzzles my hair, my shoulder. “I shoulda come faster,” he mumbles. “I’m so sorry, Layne.” “You came fast enough. It wasn’t your fault either.” I remember the words Travis said to me earlier. I repeat them. “It was him. It was all him.”

I know what he’s giving me right now isn’t personal. He’s a man who takes care of people, and I’m the only one he has. It still means something to me.

This small space where I don’t have to always be strong.

Comfort at the end of the world.

I’m tired of always feeling that way. I have for years now. Like I’m not in control of anything. I want to do something about it. I want to do something to change it.”

“What do you wanna do?” I swallow hard. “I want to feel something different. I want to feel something… good.”

“You wanna…” His voice is soft and guttural. “Have sex. With you. Yes. I do.” I’m staring down at my hands twisting in my lap. “If you want.”

“Do you… do you like how I look?” He’s so tense he’s almost shaking too. “You know I do.” “And it seemed like… you might want… twice now…” “It’s been more’n twice.” His eyes drop down like mine were earlier.

“Okay. So. We both want to. Why shouldn’t we? Why do we always have to… have to work and suffer and hurt and fight? Why can’t we… why can’t we have something good?”

He does want this. He’s just cautious. Worried about overstepping lines. But he does want this. And I do too.

to suckle my other breast,

Ew

The knowledge that he’s telling me the truth—that he’s trying so hard to make sure I enjoy this—provokes a different kind of tension inside me. This one from emotion.

“I woulda been gentler with you. Treated you more careful. If I’d known.” “I know you would. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to be only careful and gentle. I wanted… to feel it.” “And did you?” He’s holding my eyes with a slanting look. “Yeah. I did.” I pick at the sheet. “Did you?” “Yeah. I did too.”

So awkward

He was really sweet.” I take a shaky breath. “Maybe too sweet for the world as it is now.” “Yeah. Maybe there’s no room for sweetness no more.”

Travis isn’t sweet either. He’s rough and raw and coarse and strong. He’s not sweet. But he’s good. I know he’s good.

“Oh fuck, Layne.” His voice is muffled by my neck. He’s sucking a hickey into my skin. “You’re the hottest little thing I ever felt.”

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined being attracted to a man like Travis. Much less letting him touch me, fuck me, make me come the way he just did.

Travis shifts position, leaning forward, bracing himself above me with one hand, taking my messy braids in his other hand and holding them as he fucks me.

Right now, in the dark of a stuffy cabin, on a smelly mattress, surrounded by his scent and his body heat, I feel like maybe I’m giving as much as I’m getting.

It matters, taking care of someone else, even at the end of the world.

“It’s horrible when you think about what’s just gone from the world now. The Eiffel Tower. Westminster Abbey. The Sistine Chapel. I remember going to the Louvre and seeing the Mona Lisa. All of it… all of it’s just… gone forever.”

Sometimes we gotta cry ’bout the smaller things because the big things are just too big.”

“Never said anythin’ smart about art before. Just read those poems and tried to figure ’em out. Since you like ’em so much.”

A spark of humanness at the end of the world.

I lean over, my lips moving toward his, until I notice how still he’s grown—almost frozen—and I suddenly realize what I’m doing. He doesn’t kiss me on the mouth. Ever. So that means I can’t kiss him either.

If a man has a woman willin’ to put her mouth on him and he whines about her techniques, then he don’t deserve her at all.”

And the truth is I’m scared. Scared of getting this close to Travis. Scared of needing him too much—emotionally, not just to survive.

love might be the biggest risk of all at the end of the world.

He’s still meeting my eyes as he squeezes himself through his own climax, coming on my stomach. For some reason our held gaze is just as intense as my orgasms were. More intense.

I give him a wobbly smile at that as he lowers his face toward mine. My heart skips in that way it always does when I think he might kiss me, but he doesn’t. He nuzzles my throat instead, pressing a soft kiss against my pulse point.

He doesn’t say it, but I know he’s thinking of Cheryl. His ties to her will always be stronger than his ties to me. For good reasons. He’s known and loved her for years. Travis is my traveling companion and temporary sex partner, but I’m not fool enough to expect anything else.

The place this world has become can only ever hurt you. And eventually you lose the people you love.

It’s lovely. And strangely sad. To watch the last light of day bleed into purple. To witness the sun’s hazy brightness slowly dying as it sinks toward the horizon. Leaving us in darkness.

Then he’s pushing into me. I wrap my legs around him, hooking my ankles to hold them in place. I’m wet and pliant but kind of sore from our enthusiasm earlier. I don’t feel like I need to come. I just want to feel him, hold him like this. Know that he’s with me.

I give the dog a quick, hard hug, bury my face in his fur for a minute, and then let him go. I climb into the passenger seat of the car. I’m not going to cry. It’s a dog. We haven’t even named him. We knew we’d have to leave him.