Fall: a Sean Poole short Read online

  “Food and sex—I can’t. Some people do, but I cannot, and just no.”

  She laughs. “Okay. No food. Anything else?”

  I run through the list in my head again, trying to make sure I didn’t forget anything. “No,” I say finally. “That’s it.”

  “No spanking,” she says, “but what about strikes in general?”

  “Are you asking if you can slap me in the face?” I look over at her, and she’s red as a beet. She won’t look at me. That means yes. I turn back to the road, even though she still hasn’t answered. “Strikes are fine.”

  She swallows so loud I can hear it.

  “You’ll want to keep in mind,” I say lightly, “that if you do plan on slapping someone in the face for fun, it’s a lot different than slapping them in the face to injure them. And if you’re not sure about your technique, gentleness is your friend.”

  “Sure,” she says softly. “Of course.”

  “You’re googling it right now, aren’t you?”

  The light from her screen shuts off. “No.”

  “Do you want me to teach you how to hit someone, cupcake?” I can feel her eyes on me, so I spare her a glance. She looks away, fast, like I caught her doing something wrong. “It’s okay to say no.”

  She’s quiet, and another glance shows me running her fingers over her lower lip, staring out at the road ahead of us. “I’m not saying no,” she says softly. “I just—I don’t want this to be, like, a thing.”

  “You mean you don’t want to find out I’m secretly a switch?”

  “I mean, if you are, that’s—”

  “I’m not. I promise.” I reach over and squeeze her thigh. “I only offer because you might want to hit someone someday.”

  She shrugs.

  “Is that something you’ve thought about?”

  She’s quiet for a few moments. “Not that seriously, no. I’d only want someone who fights back. I don’t have any interest in someone who’ll just do whatever I tell them. That’s boring.”

  “It’s not that boring,” I mutter. “You should try it sometime.”

  She laughs. “No way. Half the fun is earning it, you know?”

  “Oh, you earn it, all right.”

  “Oh my gosh, you know what I mean.”

  “So do you want me to teach you how to hit someone?”

  “Yeah,” she says softly. “I think I do.”

  The smile that curves my mouth feels sharp and mean. “We can make that happen,” I say, and I hope it comes out a lot more casual than I feel. The imagery my brain has conjured of Talia’s hand tangled up in some girl’s hair, pressing her against the wall, down on the bed, turning her ass pink-red-purple—it’s a lot.

  I have to adjust my pants. Jesus, I can’t wait to get to that campsite.

  “You’re really into it, too,” she says. “The idea of me hitting someone.”

  I shrug a shoulder.

  “The idea of me hitting you?”

  My eyebrows go up. “Don’t get cocky, little miss.”

  “Me?” She presses her hand to her chest, positively scandalized by the implication.

  I laugh. “Yeah, you. Your hour hasn’t started yet.”

  “When does it start?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  She snorts. “I don’t get prep time?”

  “How much prep time do you need?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe long enough to peruse tumblr for ideas.”

  “Ideas,” I say, giving it air-quotes. “Sure.”

  She flicks my arm, and I grab her hand, bringing it to my mouth to kiss it. “I’m sure you’ll be my favorite dominatrix.”

  ***

  We’re almost in Conway when I break the news. “I booked us a primitive site. I hope you’re ready to rough it.”

  She looks at me, and I glance over to see her eyebrows raised. She says, “Primitive site?”

  “No electricity or water hook-ups.”

  “Do people camp with that stuff?”

  “Technically, yes, but I don’t consider it camping.”

  “So you’re a snob?”

  “I’m an Eagle Scout.”

  “Same thing.”

  I reach over and pinch her thigh. She doesn’t even try to squirm away from me. She just smiles.

  “It’s late in the season, cupcake. You better hope there are people at the sites near us.”

  “Mmhmm. I’m whatever the appropriate level of intimidated is.”

  The mouth on this girl.

  We crawl up into the mountains, and she eventually wakes up enough to press herself to the window again. We stop in Intervale for groceries and last-minute supplies, and end up with chicken sausage for dinner and Clif bars for breakfast and jerky for the hike.

  Our campground is just a little north of Mount Washington; the ride down in the morning will be easy enough. By the time we get there and check in, the shadows are long and orange, and I hope I can get a fire up before dark. It’s not busy, but we’re far from the only ones buying firewood at the check-in desk. I wait in line while Talia wanders around the little office, looking at the maps plastered all over the walls. My little nerd.

  When I’m paid up, I bump her butt with one of my firewood bundles and she turns around, surprised. “Come on,” I say, nodding my head towards the door. She goes first into the purpling evening, rubbing her bare arms.

  “It’s cold,” she says.

  “Nah.” I sling the two bundles of firewood into the back of the SUV. “You’ll be fine.”

  She scrunches her nose up but climbs inside without saying anything else.

  Our site is near the back of the campground, which I may or may not have requested. In all fairness, it is awful late in the season, so we probably won’t have that many neighbors. Average overnight lows up here this time of year are in the high thirties, so this isn’t exactly most people’s easy weekend adventure. The temperature’s dropping even faster than the sun, and I’m really glad I double-checked the clothes she packed to make sure she’d be warm enough.

  I put the tent up while she puts more clothes on, and she sits crosslegged in the open back of the SUV while I start the fire. I packed some low profile chairs in our packs, but haven’t put them out yet.

  “I feel useless,” she says.

  “You’re not,” I tell her. “It’s just cold and I want to get this started as quick as I can so you don’t freeze to death.”

  “I’m not going to freeze to death.”

  “No, not with this fire.”

  She sticks her tongue out at me.

  “Grab the chairs and come over here,” I say, but I’m laughing.

  She slides out of the back of the SUV and unhooks the chairs from their packs and joins me by the fire. It’s not very high, but I don’t want it very high. We’ll need enough to cook dinner and stay warm while we eat, but it’s been a long day, and I’m old. I wouldn’t say no to turning in early.

  We get close and cook our sausages, our knees bumping together. She’s in jeans and a hoodie now, huddled into herself despite her proximity to the fire.

  “You gonna make it?” I ask her.

  “I’ll be fine,” she says. “You wouldn’t let me get too cold.”

  “That’s right,” I say, bumping her shoulder with mine and kissing her temple.

  “It’s September,” she mutters, and I laugh a little at her dismay.

  Dinner is good—hot—and she’s leaning against me in front of the fire and I wish there was a way to capture this whole moment, this fullness, this comfort and satiety, the sound of the fire and the wind in the trees, the scent of her hair and of the woodsmoke, the dancing shadow and flame along the length of her legs. I wish there was something more reliable than memory, something I could use to package this little pocket of time and keep it with me forever.

  We’ll have dessert tomorrow night.

  “Come on,” I whisper, and kiss her head. “Let’s tuck in, huh?”


  She nods slowly, sleepily, like she dozed with her head on my arm like that.

  “I’ll put the fire out if you’ll lay out the sleeping bags.”

  She nods again, and stands up, stretching. I pour water and sand on the coals until everything’s black, and Talia’s leaning against the SUV. All the food’s locked up, and we grab our toothbrushes and head down to the communal bathroom to get cleaned up for the night, and I realize at some point that I’m nervous. Like I’m a teenager again, like this is the first time I’ve brought a girl back to my room or something. Everything feels serious and heavy, like we both know that we’re going to fuck tonight, and we both know we both know it. As if we’ve never done it before. There’s not enough room in that tent for the two of us and an elephant.

  I meet her outside the bathrooms and we walk back to our campsite, her tucked against me. She unzips the tent flap and I grab the electric lantern from the SUV’s bumper and switch it on.

  “After you.”

  She ducks down into the tent—I’m missing those leggings right now, but her ass looks great in anything—and I follow her in. It’s a four-man tent because I learned the hard way that a two-man tent was not meant for me if I had any other human with me, so there’s a little space between our sleeping bags. I’m not sure why she did that, but it’ll be fixed before we go to sleep.

  Door is zipped, vents are unzipped, boots are off. I’m sitting cross-legged on top of my bag. She’s kneeling on hers, siting back on her heels, looking at me.

  She’s waiting.

  I start to unbutton my shirt. “Are you going to get undressed?”

  She hesitates, unsure if this is the start of a game, or if this is just me making conversation. I don’t clarify. She says, “If that’s what you want?”

  I slide out of my shirt, then pull my undershirt off over my head. “I always want you naked.”

  She nods, like that was the directive she needed, and unzips her hoodie, peeling it off over her arms. That softball t-shirt is underneath it, clinging to her torso like water.

  “Wait.”

  She waits.

  The dryness in my mouth surprises me. I am, I’m nervous. It’s so absurd I want to laugh. I don’t.

  I say, “Let me take your picture.”

  She blinks. “What?”

  “I want to take pictures,” I say. “I’ll delete them afterwards if you want.”

  “Oh.”

  This has never come up for us. Hell, it’s never come up for me. I’ve never asked for this before. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted it before. But I do now. I want to photograph this whole weekend from every possible angle, from every axis and dimension. I want to capture the fading scent of smoke on her skin, the sharpness of the air, the sideways slide of her eyes as she considers. I want to hold on to her wonder and bright laughter and the sun in her hair.

  She says, “Okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She runs a finger over her lower lip, back and forth. She nods. “Yeah.” She smiles, sudden and bright, and says, “Sean, I trust you.”

  I don’t think there’s ever been a time when she’s said that to me that it hasn’t knocked all the air out of my chest. I’m not sure there ever will be. Love is great, but trust is everything. Love can bring guilt, can imply obligation, but trust doesn’t bear that burden. Trust is freely given, freely retracted.

  So when she says I trust you—she’s saying a thousand things love could never touch.

  I pull my phone out. Snap a shot of her just like that, in her t-shirt and jeans, kneeling, her hand hovering near her mouth. The light’s okay; a little harsh, maybe. Everything cast in sharp relief.

  She’s blushing. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just do what you were doing,” I say. “Get undressed.”

  She laughs. “While you take pictures.”

  “Pretend I’m not even here.”

  “Sure, because that’s possible.”

  “If you don’t want to do it—”

  “No,” she says. “I do.” She crosses her arms to grab the hem of her shirt, and pulls it up up up.

  I catch

  the wishbone of her ribs

  the serpentine curl of her spine

  the splatter of freckles on her stomach

  The tent ceiling is low and she can’t stretch her arms all the way up. The wind buffets the tent, bowing the vinyl walls in toward us.

  I catch

  the flex of her abdominals

  the ridges of her serratus

  the curve of her lats

  She pulls the shirt off and the loose bun her hair was in is even looser now, half-undone, strands brushing her shoulders. She’s smiling, but still shy.

  I catch

  the fan of her lashes against her cheek

  the press of her teeth into her lip

  the brush of her fingers across her forehead

  She lies back, her legs sweeping out from under her to lie straight, and she unbuttons her jeans, unzips them, pushes them down over her thighs.

  I catch

  the swell of her hips

  the polka dots on her panties

  the definition of her quads

  She kicks her jeans all the way off. “Are you having fun?” she asks, reaching up for her hair elastic.

  “I am.”

  I catch

  the column of her throat

  the light in her hair

  the curve of her breast

  Her hair is long, unruly from a day of traveling. I want to feel it tickle my stomach, sweep over my legs. I want to slide my hand over it, curl my fingers into it, squeeze a fistful of it until she gasps, until she whimpers, until her eyes glaze over with the pleasure of it. I want to give her that painful little push from pleasant to pliable, that one nudge that gets her from happily game to shamelessly desperate. It’s not the same thing every time, and it’s not always the same level of pain—but half the fun is solving the puzzle.

  I stop taking pictures, and something flips. She’d gotten comfortable in front of the camera, and now that I’ve stopped, she’s nervous again. She doesn’t know what’s next.

  I do.

  I beckon her with two fingers. She crawls over to me. Even if there was enough room to stand in here, she’d crawl to me.

  It’s so quiet out here, I can hear her breathing. I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. The vinyl rustle of the sleeping bag against the tent floor.

  “Are you cold, little miss?”

  She nods. Now that she’s close, I can see the goosebumps on her skin.

  “Do you think you’d like me to warm you up?”

  She nods again.

  “I know you’re not so cold you can’t speak.”

  “No, Daddy,” she says softly, “I’m not.”

  I stopped wondering a long time ago why a soft, pretty girl made me harder along the edges. Why my smile turned sharp as a razor, why my voice turned into a whipcrack. Why doesn’t matter.

  What matters is that she’s here, and she’s into it. What matters is the way her face lights up when I say, “Then use your words, little girl.”

  “Sorry, Daddy,” she purrs, and I want to bite her.

  “Stay where you are.” She does, and I climb to my knees to move behind her. She’s wearing sensible underwear, underwear you’d travel and hike in. They’re fucking perfect. I drag my finger along the edge, over her thigh; her skin is freezing already but a new wave of goosebumps erupts. She shivers.

  “You’re cold,” I say.

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  I press my thumb into the flesh of one cheek, hard, hard enough I hear her suck in a sharp breath. I smile and ease up, but pull the skin tight and smack her ass. Hard.

  Hard enough I hear her suck in a sharp breath.

  “Is this how you want me to warm you up, cupcake?”

  She says, “Will someone hear?”

  “Maybe.”

  Her voice is shaking. “I don
’t—I’m not—”

  “Fair enough,” I say, and bite her, right where I like to spank, right on that little sweet spot where ass meets thigh. Right on that little spot that gets the best jumps, the best noises. She doesn’t let me down: a sharp gasp, close to the top of her register, and a slow slide down into a groan when I don’t let go.

  I don’t let go until I know I’m leaving a bruise.

  When I do, I bite her again. On the plush roundness of her cheek. On the sharp handle of her hip. On the strong stretch of hamstring. I bite her, hard, and I leave the imprint of my teeth on her. She’s breathing hard, not on her hands anymore but her elbows, her forehead pressed to the ground. She’s not saying anything, nothing I can understand anyway, just breathing, breathing through it. I can smell her, and I barely get her panties pushed aside before I’m pressing my fingers into her, twisting my hand, and I bite her again, right next to my thumb, right next to her cunt, and she’s trembling, shaking, and I don’t think it’s the cold.

  “Your pussy is so wet,” I tell her. “Why’s your little pussy so wet?”

  She doesn’t answer, so I pull my fingers out and wipe them across her ass. She sags, and I bite her, and she tenses up.

  “Answer the question.” I pinch her, hard, too close to her cunt, and she jerks away.

  Finally.

  I twist my fist up in the back of her panties and pull them up sharply, so the fabric’s digging into her pussy. The sound that comes out of her sounds like relief.

  “Don’t pull away from me,” I snap. “Don’t ever pull away from me.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  “I asked you a simple question, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, Daddy.” She sounds dangerously close to tears.

  “So why won’t you answer me?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “I didn’t ask for you to apologize,” I tell her. “I asked why you wouldn’t answer me.”

  Silence. Then: “Because it’s embarrassing.”

  “What’s embarrassing?”

  “Why—why I’m so wet.”

  “Where are you wet, sweetheart?”

  “My pussy.” She says it so quietly I can barely hear her, even out here in this silence.