Bad Wrong Things

by C.P. Harris

“I desire very little, but the things I do consume me.” ~Beau Taplin

No one knew me better than me, and I wore my trauma like a badge of honor because if life didn’t hurt sometimes, we wouldn’t have a frame of reference when things were going good. I didn’t want to be fixed, I wanted to be loved for my brokenness.

He knew when to give, when to take, and when to take more. He held court in my corner. He was the light in my darkness, and the forever in my forever-and-ever.

“I told you I wanted to be alone,” he’d said, his reprimand gobbled up by my sweatshirt. “I’ll always find you in the dark, Raven,”

“You didn’t seem to have a problem being loved by a whore, Clint. Does it scare you to know no one will love you more than me? More than this whore.”

“Because love doesn’t waver with moods, Clint. It doesn’t question or doubt its existence. It isn’t based on whether or not the world around it will be accepting. And it doesn’t only want its presence felt when it needs something to fuck! Believe me, I know.”

Clint got me, and I made it my business to get him. No one would ever belong to him the way I did. So completely and without conditions. No one would know me like him. Not without an endless amount of instruction and a roadmap to my missing heart. A roadmap to him. I promised I’d love him forever. And Millers don’t break promises.

Clint had already broken everything worth having and scattered it about in pieces. Even my heart.

Being with him was second nature, like knowing how to breathe without being taught. Being cared for by him made all the decades I’d neglected myself worth it. And being between his legs was the closest I’d come to true redemption.

“I love you,” he said hatefully, finally starting to regret it. “When you get over this, and I’m gone, it’ll be my love for you that’ll linger forever. That is what you’ll die wishing you could forget,”

The substance I abused was Clint. He was the only thing I couldn’t quit at a moment’s notice. Not without an intervention or rehabilitation of great proportion. And not even then.

“If I stay, Joey won’t. You should’ve never saved me,” I whispered, leaning over him and crying into his hair. “You’ve changed my life for always.”

“I’ll find you,” he said, fighting sleep. “I…love you.” “This isn’t love, Clint.” I cried for all three of us, weeping all over him. “Not anymore.” “Then what is it?” he mouthed more than spoke. “Poison.” The low dose, slow-killing kind, and we’d reached the death end of it.

“Remember, we’re not enemies, Raven. We can be as much or as little as you want us to be. We can even be nothing. But we aren’t enemies.”

“And no yoga or moping around. Go get laid.” His tattoo gun buzzed back to life, head lowering to the job at hand. “I don’t mope,” I objected. “You don’t get laid either, dude. Go on, you deserve it.” He waved me out the door.

He used to smell like nicotine, fire, and mint. Now he smelled like sun, moon, and stars, all things that were promised to return. He smelled like second chances.

“It turns my body to tinder, and you’re the fucking flame, Clint. Together we burn.”

happened the way it did for a reason that is beyond me, but I’ll always cherish the time I got with him. Had it not been for that accident, I wouldn’t have Joey. And me falling in love with you didn’t make me a bad parent or person. It was my right to love you. A privilege, and I should’ve honored you better.”

“What do you need, Raven?” “What you gave me so spectacularly. Love.” He shrugged. Plain and simple. I helplessly kissed his cheek. “Was that a move?” he asked when I pulled back, his eyes glassy and gleeful. “It wasn’t a move,” I swore, with big innocent eyes. “’Cause it felt like a move.” “But it wasn’t—” “And you promised me the next move—” “And you have it.” “I do?” His eyes thinned. “It’s all yours, sweetheart.”

“Hi,” he said groggily, and realization hit me like a sledgehammer. I wanted him sleeping next to me. “I need you here with me,” I whispered. “I’m on my way, sweetheart.”

“You’re my dream, and my fantasies, and my heart. We’ll make it work. I’ll drive or fly or run to you whenever I can. I’m setting things up so they can run efficiently without my constant presence. Now tell me,” he said, letting the ball roll away and restraining me by the hair. “Have I won you?”

need you now,” he said frantically, sitting up to capture my lips. “Need to be inside you. Need to be home.”

“Do you love me?” “Yes,” I said easily. With all of me. “I need you to tell me often. And when it seems like it’s too much, just know it’s not. Never stop, Raven.” “I love you, Clint.” “Say it again, baby.” “I love you.” I had half of him in me now. I burned all over. “One more time.” His hands grabbed panicky at my ass, back, and nape. “God, I love you.”

“There’s my foul-mouthed lover-boy.” One palm kneaded my ass while the other slid north into the hair at the base of my skull. “I love you. I swear it, Raven. And I promise I always will. Now let me in, sweetheart. Make room for me.”

We were making beautiful what we had eroded, feeding our shared greed to a gluttonous degree.

“Are you going to bathe me in your cum, Clint?” “Yes, sweetheart. All night.” “Are you going to fuck me long after I’ve had enough, when my pleas for you to stop turn into cries of no?” “With pleasure,” he growled, spanking and bunching my ass between his palms. “And I’ll take your mouth after I’ve worn your hole out, spilling down your throat.”

Clint was my map, my compass, my way out of the dark. I’d learned that I could live without him, but that I didn’t want to, and I no longer had to. I’d love this man forever, until the end and beyond. To the grave.

My feelings for Clint were incoherent, and his for me a riot of hearts and flowers.

He held himself up on one forearm as he raised my arm and circled his nose around my armpit, which probably smelled too clean for him after our time in the water.

His cock cried milky tears as it reached for something warm, and I got to my elbows and backed away.

“I promise to never waste another minute of our lives on what-ifs. I’m going to love you for however long I’m privileged to do so, and you’ll let me because I don’t plan on giving you a choice in the matter.”

“This is what love should look like,” he whispered into my mouth. “This is what love should feel like,” I returned. “Home,” we said in unison. Love should feel like home…

And that’s what love is supposed to do, Clint. Your love no longer breaks or makes me. I make me. But you fucking make me better.”