Published 9 years ago
I came home to find the apartment in disarray. A lamp, which was still on, lay on the floor, shining a spotlight on a half empty bookshelf. The books were strewn around the floor and one was soaking up the remnants of vase of water that held the violets that were now trampled.
My Betty was a bruiser, a broad shouldered girl, too tall to ever be comfortable in her own skin. She was a tough one, beaten into shape as a kid by a step- father for a good 12 years until she was old enough to kick his ass.
Betty sat on the floor in the kitchen with the last of my bourbon. Unlaced rollerskates, a black skirt and an old wife beater. Tattoos turned shadows under the white cotton, thick black and red lines peeking out, bold and unapologetic. Symbols of permanence. Scars given validation with ink.
“We lost,” she said with slight slur and a particular assessing glare.
I poured myself a glass of water and leaned on the counter of the small kitchen, looking down at her as she rocked the bottle of amber liquid on the black and white tiled floor.
I looked over to the living room and then back at her.
“I couldn’t find a book,” she shrugged.
She took one rollerskate and tried to push off the other with it, failing miserably.
“I couldn’t find a book and I can’t get these stupid things off.” She pathetically kicked at the floor with her skate.
At 20, with a messy bob of black hair and a cut lip and the beginnings of a black eye, she did her best to pout like a little girl. Roller derby was good for her, because she seemed to always be in-between healing black eyes, though before they were from fights.
“Help me get ‘em off?”
Kneeling, I took one of the black leathery boots by the thick back wheels and pulled. She winced as the skate slipped off her sore foot. Her shin looked purple and yellow, she had a scrape on her knee. My eyes lingered up higher to the edge of her skirt, then abruptly back to her other skate. I pulled the second one off and I stood up, holding out my hand to help her up.
She groaned as her sore and swollen joints creaked and then she was holding on to me with both her hands on my shoulders, her cheeks red, her eyes slightly glazed by the bourbon, but still shining. Then there was one of those moments, when our eyes meet and she is hanging on me, smelling like bourbon and a little like sweat and somewhere under all that some kind of perfume. We were going to kiss, but her knees gave out a little and she almost passed out.
“I’ll put you in bed.”
“Tuck me in, too?” she teased, smiling and limping with one arm around my shoulder.
“I’m sleeping on the couch, Bet.”
“Pshh, I bet you ten bucks you’ll be in bed in ten minutes. And don’t fucking call me Bet, you know I hate that.”
I sighed. I was too old for this.
I was sleeping on the couch because this whole thing just wasn’t working and we knew it. She was all rough and tumble, late night at rock clubs and drunk five nights a week. I was in a PhD program, I had a full time job. My punk youth was over, though not forgotten. That’s not to say I grew up and became boring, but I just wasn’t in the same world she was in.
That’s one of the many things that can happen when you date a girl who’s ten years younger than you. Even if she is taller than you.
It was more than that, though, and we knew it. We just didn’t click anymore. I was a city boy, through and through and deep down she was a Midwest girl.
She put her weight on my shoulder as I led her to the bedroom. The only light was street lamps coming in from the window. It illuminated tangled sheets and books all over the floor and nightstand.
I sat her down on the bed and she put her arms around my neck.
“I miss you,” she whispered. It made my throat hurt and my heart ache.
“Just get some sleep, Bet, we can talk tomorrow.”
She kissed my chin.
“Don’t you think I’m pretty anymore?” She kissed my cheek, catching just the edge of my lip.
“I think you’re drunk and sweaty and you have a black eye and probably a sprained ankle,” but she was already pulling me in for another kiss.
“You used to give me black and blues, remember?” Her voice was rough, she chuckled throaty, sad and dirty.
“You always end up getting bruised, one way or another,” I started, but she kissed me.
It had been a while, probably a month. She was depressed and her sex drive disappeared. The roller derby brought it back a little, but this was something else. This was goodbye.
I eased her back onto the bed. I hovered over her. I kissed her bruised face. I kissed her chapped lips. She rubbed her cheek against my stubble. Her hands were on my belt.
It’s superficial, but I’d miss her tattoos. It’s the main physical trait that would define her in my mind forever. As I kissed her shoulders, thick black letters and all the little symbols and secrets of her I remember every story, every detail. I still remember the why and where of all of them.
Her kisses grew wilder and so I held her down. Given time every action turns cliche, but just then it seemed more like nostalgia. That was until she started to fight. This wasn’t a little wilting flower, this was a tough girl who could take most people I know in fight. This wasn’t submissive, this was earning it. I held her down by the wrists with all my strength and all my weight. She had opened my pants, but there was still a lot to do.
I pushed her legs open with mine and pressed against her. She bucked and writhed, she bit my lip. I let go of one of her wrists and she immediately pushed at my chest with her free hand. I pulled her shirt up. I pulled the cups of her bra down and sucked at her thick brown nipples, I bit down just enough to make her let out a little yelp. Her hand in my hair, pulling me away.
Suddenly the haze of a day at work and the sadness of this whole situation was gone for a moment. I was strong and she was hungry. I reached down, pushing away her skirt. I found her panties and pulled hard, ripping them, but not enough. She raised her ass, trying to push me away. I pulled again and came away with most of the fabric.
She was gasping and moaning. This wasn’t playful roughness, this was gut wrenching. This was the only thing keeping us from crying. I pulled out my cock. I had to concentrate on her, I had to bury my face in her tits and grind against her cunt and kiss her copper tasting lips just to get hard. I had to do anything but think.
There is an intimacy in this that is sort of rare in these dangerous times. My bare skin on hers. It still felt forbidden, even after living together for this long. I’d been trained for so long, but we had trust. That trust would be gone soon, any minute. My cock pressed against the coarse hairs of her sex.
She was wet, I could smell her, strong and tart. She was still fighting, but her hips were rising up, her legs open, her moans turning into needy whimpers. I rubbed against her, I slipped against her and then I was pushing into her.
Sex with Betty was always a quick affair for some reason. Maybe that was one of reasons it was going to end. I liked to draw things out. I liked to tease and play. She was impatient and deep down very ashamed of it all. All that wanting went to waste with her.
She needed to be hit and be needed to be held down, but she could never talk about it. Those secret moments of violence, when she pulled my hands to her neck. Electric and forbidden and lost once they ended.
All I ever wanted to do was talk about it, but that was me. I overthought it, or so she said. If I tried to make her beg she would grow cold, and really, for me, the begging is the best part.
All this fluttered through my mind as I fucked her. Looking down her eyes were closed and she bit her lip. She was wet to the point that I could feel it on my thighs. The muscles of her sex were tight around me; her powerful legs, now wrapping around me and pulling me in.
In bed she didn’t like her clit played with. It bored her, she would brush my fingers away. Going down on her was occasional and for my benefit. Even when she played with herself she only fucked herself with her fingers.
As I fucked her I remembered that first time in a motel. She was strong and wild, so different from other women I’d been with. It was sort of awkward, because I didn’t know how to top her, and really I didn’t know any other way. At least not in that moment, in a motel room, both of us drunk and high from a concert.
Fucking her that last time, I felt almost detached. She was lost in it, though, and I watched as her body went through the motions and cycles. Her blush, her breath getting faster. When she came she came hard and punched me in the shoulder, needed more of me to hold on to as I fucked her through it.
After the wave of her pleasure I lost my drive. It was gone and I was growing soft. I just rolled off her and she didn’t seem to notice that I didn’t come. She rolled onto her side, our bodies no longer touching. I couldn’t tell if she was asleep or crying. I crawled off the bed and pulled the blanket onto of her.
I cleaned up the mess in the livingroom and wrote through the night, knowing tomorrow she would leave, and knowing I had to get the memories down before they were tainted or gone.
After that it was all packing and crying and the long days of uncertainty. I came out better in the end. She moved back west and found another boy to hurt her, one way or another.