Sunday Gardening

Once I start, it just comes pouring out. I thought it would be harder to talk about it, when the time came, but it isn't. It actually feels good, in a tear-the-bandage-off sort of way.

"Just the five of us. And my cousin. He worked in the call center. It's stressful in the call center, I learned later. No wonder he cracked, it makes perfect sense now, looking back. Customer service is rough work and he was under a lot of stress.

"His name was Crandall Hansberry, and he came in and shot everyone while I was bullshitting downstairs at the soda machine. There was a lot of work upstairs to be done, and so I went to get a soda so I could get out of doing some of it..."

"Oh..." His eyes are full of tears, and even though mine are stinging a little, I've cried so many tears over this I think I'm all out. "Oh, Jeremy..."

"He's dead, too, you know. Shot himself. In the head. I found them when I went back upstairs with my sodas. I didn't hear the shots at all, can you believe it? They were a lot of floors up and the vending machines were in the lobby but still, I think I should have heard something. But I didn't. I just didn't hear anything at all. And I was riding in the elevator thinking about how pissed I was about coming into work on Saturday and how I hoped they'd done the difficult parts while I was downstairs, because I didn't want to be..."

I'm not all out, it seems, and hot tears drip off my chin. Lane's in even worse shape than I am; he's buried the lower half of his face into a pillow and his shoulders are shaking like he's having a seizure. I touch his face and his hair and kiss his hand.

"It's okay," I tell him. "I made it. I'm okay now."

He nods and presses his face harder into the pillow.

"There was blood, just, everywhere. I never knew so much blood was inside a person. He shot some of them in the head, but I guess other people tried to run, and so...they got shot in the back, a lot of times. I guess he was mad that they tried to leave.

"I couldn't believe it when I saw him. He went into the bathroom to do it. He didn't leave a note or anything."

Lane pulls me into his arms and presses my face into his shoulder. I let him. I can tell he wants to do something to make it better, to comfort me.

After a while, he lets me go and wipes his face.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I can't...I can't even...I-"

"It was really hard at first," I say, "but Dr. Rondan helped me a lot. And the garden. The garden helped me, too."

"But-"

"I'm telling the truth, Lane. I'm going to be okay now. I promise."

He spends a few more seconds looking skeptical, but then he nods.

"Okay."

We kiss lightly at first, just brushing the skin of our lips together, really, but then it turns serious. I'm on my back and my legs part for him, and he settles between them, his full erection nestled against by burgeoning one. We kiss faster and more desperately, our lips breaking contact ever now and then as his hands reach between us to pull off his jeans.

He pulls a bottle out of a pocket and throws them to the floor with my shorts. He suckles my earlobe into his mouth, and then whispers to me.

"Just like before." There's a quiet click as the pops the cap on the bottle. "We'll go really slow."

Memories of the feel of his fingers inside me bring me to full hardness, and I swallow a groan. We kiss some more, and then he moves down my body, leaving another trail down my torso.

"Tell me if it's too fast," he says. "We can stop anytime you want; don't worry about disappointing me or anything and I'll go one finger at a time, even though we've done more before, I want you to be comfortable and to like this, so don't be afraid to speak up if it gets to be too much, because I'll slow down and-"

"Lane." I can't believe how horny I am again; I feel like I haven't come in years. "Less talking..."

"Right!" He fumbles with the lube, opening the cap again. "Right, well, then..."

I look down between my legs at him, and even in my state, I have to smile. He's been so smooth, so confident when we've done this before, but now that the moment of truth is here, he's nervous about my comfort and enjoyment and safety. It's adorable, and the feelings I'm having now assure me that I'm making the right decision, starting something real with him.

He loves me.

A groan I can't swallow escapes me as he swallows me again. He suckles very, very gently this time; it's maddening. His tongue moves in and out of the tip of my cock and his jaws move slowly against me. I'm throbbing so hard it hurts a little; it feels like there's blood pressure cuff tightening somewhere inside me.

Then his mouth moves off me and his tongue is at my entrance, dancing its favorite dance. My thighs try to clamp shut on him again and I cry out, but his elbows hold them open while his tongue tortures me.

"Please..."

I try to say it louder, but I can't get enough breath. Then the warmth of his tongue is gone, and something cold and large and insistent pressing into me.

"Ah..."

His hair shimmers in the low lamplight as his head snaps up.

"Too much?" His finger backs out of me.

"N-No..." He backs out further, and it's the last thing I want. "Don't stop...more..."

"Oh. Okay..."

He works it in to the base knuckle, and I arch against him. He twists it inside of me, moving it in and out, and soon it feels so small, so inadequate.

"More...Lane, more..."

He pulls out completely and just when I start to speak again he's back inside me, only bigger. I take a deep breath as two fingers bury themselves inside me, and I wish I could watch, but it's all I can do not to explode as it is.

"Are...a-are you ready for a thi-"

"Yes!" I inhale through clenched teeth. There's a pulse deep in my abdomen. I fight the urge to give into it. "Yes..."

I squeeze my eyes shut and grasp at the comforter as the pressure of another finger threatens to shove me over the edge.

"You're almost ready," he breathes. "Just a little bit l-longer, okay..."

I grunt. I'm hyperventilating now, and biting my lip. Two was nice, but three almost fills me, and they press against me inside, touching every surface there is to touch, twisting and stroking.

"Okay okay okay I think that's enough." It comes out all in one word. "Is that enough? Please say it's-"

"Yes..." I need him to hurry. If I wasn't in such a state, I would be embarrassed at needing to come so quickly. "Please, just go..."

He mounts me in a flash and his lips are on mine. I taste myself, and it drives me higher. Our cocks are touching again, and the sensation is overwhelming.

"Put it in, hurry, put it in put it in..." My body is thrumming like an instrument, and I need him now. "Please, put it in..."

He does.

It's nothing like his fingers. He's not very big; smaller than me, in fact, so he's not so large that it hurts after the fingers. It's both harder and softer, somehow. Warmer, too; the lube made his fingers cold, but it hasn't done that to his cock. It's warm and smooth, and I feel stuffed as it slides into me, one centimeter at a time. He goes much slower than he did with his fingers, and I'm glad for it; there's a tug, and a stretchy kind of semi-pain, but it's nothing, nothing compared to the bliss of being full as he bottoms out inside me.

Nothing.

My arms are wrapped about him and my hands are clawing at his back. I chew my nails so I'm not scratching him, and he's mauling my face and my neck and collarbone with his mouth, whispering nonsensical things and stroking my pecs and my nipples and the hair under my arms.

He stays buried inside me for a while, and we run hands over each other's bodies, careful to avoid touching my cock. He suckles and teases my nipples over and over until I pull him back up to my face before I come. I don't know how I'm holding on now, I honestly don't, but I don't care.

Then he backs out a few inches, and slides back in. He's shaking like a frightened dog in a vet's office, and the pleasured anguish on his face tells me how hard it is for him to hold back.

"A-are you okay?" It sounds as though there's gravel caught in his voice box.

"Do it," I tell him. "Just do it..."

His expression crumbles and suddenly he's ramming in and out of me. It doesn't hurt, at least not right now, and the feel of his cock rubbing me inside, all over, is more intimate than I think I'll ever be able to tell him. Our chests move with and against one another, his sweat dripping down onto me.

His hand begins stroking me and our eyes meet, and I know the moment is here. He looks down at me, his expression desperately tender, and I tangle my hands in his hair and pull his face down to meet mine.

He comes first.

His lips vibrate as he cries out into my mouth, then into my neck as he buries his face there. I can feel it squirting out of him inside me, and then I'm coming hard in his hand and in the small space between us. The pulsing inside me is ceaseless and I'm on the cloud again, only this time Lane is here with me, our bodies tied up in each other.

I bend my knees and wrap my legs around his hips, pinning him to me as my arms stroke his back and his hair, our faces pressed side to side. He's talking, but what he's saying, I have no idea; words don't make sense yet. So I listen to the rhythm of his voice and let it carry me down, down, down.

*****

Marianne and Ronald and Tisha Woods are gone now.

I'm sitting in the grass, looking at them, or what remains of them. Tears are flowing freely. I don't bother to wipe them away - somewhere inside, I know they're the last ones I'll be crying for a while, and I want to experience them, even though they hurt.

I'm forgetting whatever it is I found here before.

I know that I used to feel them and know they were here, even just looking at the stones. They had heart and character and spirit and it was like the rocks were extensions of who they'd been, and I could have them back again with just a ninety minute drive and a little imagination. But now they're just headstones, polished and engraved granite that came off an assembly line somewhere, no doubt. Just stones in the grass.

The tears fall a little harder, and I'm angry, because nobody ever told me about this part. I knew I'd have to mourn them, oh yes. Mourning I am good at. But what am I supposed to do now that it's time to stop? Once I stop mourning them, I'll start to forget them, I know it. I'm already starting to forget them. Not everything, I'll never forget everything, but enough to make me afraid to let go of any more of them. But I can't carry them all anymore, I know that, too. I'm ready to let them go, to get on with my own life. I can do that.

But nobody prepared me for forgetting them.

I sit and stare for a while longer, but they don't come back. I suddenly want Lane here with me, and I stand to go home to see him when Michael speaks. Michael, who was shot in the back, trying to run away. Michael, who hasn't said anything in all the time I've been here.

Go on, he says. Go on home.

And then he's as gone as the rest of them.

*****

We sell the food from the garden at fall Festival now.

Half of my yard is garden now. Lane planted more tomatoes; he ate them all up too fast when we only had a few bushels. He says they're way better than the ones at the store, even the organic ones. He makes spaghetti sauce from scratch every time they ripen, so they don't stay in the house long. He's half Italian, it turns out.

The pumpkins finally sprouted.

I could hardly believe it when Lane called me out one day to ask me what the unknown vines in the dirt were. I was so happy I tripped over a small fence in the yard in my rush to go inside to get my camera, and ended up breaking my lower leg. There were big rocks in the ground I didn't see in the grass. We had fun finding ways to have sex around the cast, though.

Lane found a new job.

We never told anyone we were together, but we didn't want any drama, and my job paid more. He's still an executive assistant, and he's still the office secret keeper. I think he'd turn into that no matter what his official job description was.

I still see Dr. Rondan from time to time, though we don't have a standing appointment anymore. I have nightmares still, not as bad or as frequent as before, but bad enough that I keep her number handy. Lane's been really great about it. Sometimes I don't even need to go see her because he steadies me so well. Having someone who loves me hold me all night works better than the pills or the therapy ever did alone.

I've come to terms with the fact that I'll forget the details of the lives of those four, but perhaps it's for the best. Now I can remember them for the nice things without every object in the world triggering a memory of them laid out in blood. I have photo albums, too, with work pictures and some of the nicer ones from the papers. I don't often look at them, but it's enough to know that they're there if I need them.

It's funny. I'm in a place I could never have pictured myself on the afternoon of the fifteenth, trying to form words to say to the police. Life can surprise you, sometimes, even though you think you've had all the surprises you can take.

"Did you get the spaghetti?"

He's in front of the stove, stirring things in pots. He fancies himself a master Italian chef, but he only knows how to make spaghetti sauce and garlic bread. He's good at those, though, I have to give him that.

"It's in the cabinet on top of you."

He opens a package and cracks the pasta over a steaming pot.

"I found this letter in my office mailbox today from Ward," he says. He bounces from the fridge to the cupboard to the stove, his hair bouncing with him. I smile. "It was asking me if I knew what Kara's - she's the operations manager - favorite color was. And I'm wondering, like, is he planning on giving her a gift? Because she has a very mean husband - he's a bit loose in the head if you ask me - and I don't think he'd take too kindly to it. But he could be asking for something completely different that has nothing to do with that, and I don't want to tell him to back off and come off looking like a stupid asshole..."