Chapter 10: It burns
The train to the suburbs was a jarring shift from the sterile quiet of her apartment. It rattled through graffiti-scarred tunnels, emerging into the flat, grey expanse of the banlieue. Julie watched it all blur past, her reflection a pale ghost superimposed on concrete housing blocks. She wore simple jeans and a sweater, an attempt at invisibility. In her bag was a bottle of wine and a cold certainty.
Mark was already there, waiting on a low concrete bench in a patch of scrubby grass behind a residence building. He looked out of place in his American jacket, larger somehow than the surroundings. He stood when he saw her.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other, the wind whipping stray litter around their feet.
“You found it,” she said.
“You gave good directions.”
She sat on the bench, patting the space beside her. He joined her. The silence wasn’t comfortable. It was full of everything they’d done in her white apartment. The phantom scent of sex and leather seemed to cling to them both.
“Are you not going to kiss me?” she asked, the question quiet, almost lost to the wind.
He turned his head. Studied her face. Then he leaned in, and his lips met hers. They haven't kissed for a while. It has been nothing but the frantic, consuming sex. This was slow. Tentative. A careful rediscovery of a shape once known. Her hand came up to his cheek, cold fingers against his stubble. When they parted, her breath was a visible cloud.
“Do you know where we are?” she whispered.
He looked around, at the plain brick building, the identical windows, the tired playground. His eyes widened slightly. “Is this…?”
“My old studio. My first job out of school, after Quebec. Up there.” She pointed to a third-floor window, its blinds drawn. “That’s where I lived when we first… and last met. That dreadful night.”
"Dreadful?"
"Unfinished. Too many hopes. This is what led us to this self destroying race since we had our reunion"
He let out a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Jesus.”
“The Japanese restaurant next door,” she said, nodding across the street to a still-familiar façade. “It’s still there. We can go. If you want.”
They went. The restaurant was unchanged—same booths, same smoky scent of teppanyaki, same elderly couple behind the counter. They ordered the same meal they’d fantasized about all those years ago: sushi and japanese beer. They ate mostly in silence, the weight of the past pressing down on the Formica table. Every glance was loaded. Every clink of a chopstick sounded like a promise once made. And the tension of what's next.
“I thought about this place a lot,” Mark said, pushing rice around his bowl. “When things got bad at home. I’d imagine sitting here with you. A different outcome. A different life.”
“It’s just a restaurant,” Julie said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“It wasn’t the restaurant. It's what happened next. Or didn't. And the possibility. That's what kept me up at night”
The beers warmed her, blurring the sharp edges of her nerves. When they stepped back outside, the early evening light was a pale gold, softening the grim lines of the suburb. He walked her to the lobby of her former apartment building. Literally 10 meters. In the gleaming, impersonal lobby, she faced him. He remembered back then, it took all his courage. She picked the closes possible restaurant from her place. Surely it had to mean that she...
“It's still early" he paused "Do you want me to come up?” he asked. “We could… watch a movie.”
A slow smile touched his lips, the one that still made something flutter behind her ribs. “I’m not sure we’ll watch a movie if I invite you there.”
She didn’t smile back. She just turned and led him to the elevator.
The silence in the ascenseur was electric. They didn’t touch. They watched the numbers climb. Her hand shook slightly as she unlocked her door. The apartment was exactly as they remembered it—clean and small. No bed, but a sofa that could unfold. No table but a console that could unfold. An island "separating" the kitchen from the living/bed room. She dropped her bag.
He closed the door. The click of the lock was deafening.
She turned to him, and whatever dam had been holding back the last twenty years broke. They came together in the middle of the too-white living room, a collision of mouths and hands, all tentative gentleness burned away. This was hunger, pure and simple. He bit her lower lip, and she moaned, her fingers tangling in his hair, yanking. They tore at each other’s clothes, fabric ripping, buttons pinging off the lino floor.
Keeping just their underwear, they stumbled towards the sofa, a trail of discarded garments marking their path into the small foyer. He pushed her onto the sofa, her back hitting the cushion. He didn’t pause. He feasted on her breast and spread her legs with his hands, his breath hot on her neck.
“I need to taste you,” he growled, his voice thick. “I need to fucking drown in you.”
"Wait" she said" Let me pull out the bed".
When she was done, his mouth was on her before she could talk. It was not gentle. It was voracious. His tongue licked a broad, rough stripe through her folds, then circled her clit with relentless pressure. He fucked her with his tongue, deep and urgent, his nose pressed against her. She cried out, her hips bucking off the bed. The sensations were overwhelming—the scrape of his stubble, the wet, sucking sounds, the sheer indecency of it. He gripped her thighs, holding her open, his fingers digging into her flesh.
“You taste like you’re mine,” he muttered against her, the vibrations making her shudder. “Like you’ve always been fucking mine.”
She came with a sharp, broken cry, her body arching. He didn’t stop. He drank her through it, his tongue gentling to laps, then intensifying again, pushing her towards another peak before the first had even faded.
“Mark… please…” she begged, her words dissolving into a gasp as he slid two fingers inside her, curling them, finding a rhythm that made her see stars.
He moved up her body, his cock—hard and leaking— in his brief pressing against her stomach. He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips.
“I want to be inside you,” he said, his eyes black with need. “I want to fuck you until you forget every man who isn’t me. Until you forget your own name.”
“No” was all she could manage. "I wouldn't have you then, I wouldn't have you now."
His breath hitched at her words, a sharp intake that felt like a small victory in the damp, charged air between them. She watched the conflict flicker in his eyes—the need to claim warring with the shocking truth of her statement. Her hand slid down his stomach, over the tense muscles, until her fingers found the straining bulge in his briefs.
She didn’t look away from his face as she began. Her palm cupped him through the cotton, feeling the hard, hot length of him. She started a slow, firm rhythm, her hand moving up and down. The fabric grew damp with pre-cum. His eyes rolled back, a low groan escaping him.
“Fuck, Julie.”
“This is the only thing you got,” she whispered, her voice steady despite the pounding of her own heart. She hooked her fingers into the waistband of his briefs and pulled them down. His cock sprang free, thick and veined, already leaking. She took him in her hand, skin on skin this time, her grip tight and knowing.
She worked him with a ruthless efficiency she didn't have back then, her thumb smearing the bead of moisture over the swollen head. His hips jerked into her fist. “I’m not your redemption.” Her strokes grew faster, twisting on the upstroke. “This was just a mess. Our mess.”
His breathing became ragged, torn gasps. His hands fisted in the sheets. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t fucking stop.”
She didn’t. She watched his face contort, the pleasure overwhelming the pain. With a choked, guttural shout, he came. Thick ropes of cum erupted, streaking across the sofa, the wall behind, one hot splash landing on her chin. He shuddered violently through it, collapsing forward onto his elbows above her, spent.
For a long moment, the only sound was their ragged breathing. Then, without a word, she gently pushed him off. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, found her panties on the floor, and stepped into them, the fabric clinging damply to her skin. She walked to the kitchenette, the air cool on her sticky flesh.
She took two bowls from the cupboard. The freezer hummed. She scooped vanilla ice cream, the sound of the spoon scraping the carton absurdly loud. She brought the bowls back, handed him one, and climbed back into bed. They ate in silence, the sweet cold a bizarre contrast to the salt and sex that coated them. The sheets were a ruined landscape.
When the bowls were empty, she set them on the floor. She turned to him, her eyes soft now. She leaned in and kissed him, a slow, tender exploration. His hand came up to cradle her breast and his thumb found her hardening nipple, rolling it gently. It was a quiet communion, a temporary ceasefire.
After a long time, she stood, collecting the bowls. He watched her walk to the small sink, the neat curve of her back, the stark white of her panties against her skin. The water ran. He followed, actor of their shared memory.
He came up behind her, his body warm against her back. He parked his harden dick against her ass. He nuzzled her neck, his lips soft below her ear. His hand slid around her hip, under the elastic of her panties. His fingers parted her, finding her still swollen, still slick. He began to move them in a slow, circling pattern, his mouth on her neck.
She gasped, her head falling back against his shoulder. One hand came up to hold his head there, her fingers in his hair. She ground against his hand, a slow, rising rhythm. Then she turned in his arms, her eyes dark.
"Here", he said " That's where it started for me. That was the beginning of any fantasy"
"I know" she replied as she pushed him back a step, then sank to her knees on the linoleum floor.
She took him into her mouth, all of him, deep into her throat in one smooth, urgent motion. He cried out, his hands flying to her head. She worked him with her tongue, her lips tight, until he was fully hard again, until his legs trembled. “Okay, okay,” he gasped, pulling her up. “Enough.”
He led her, stumbling, to the kitchen console. He lifted her onto it, the veneer against her thighs.
"Here" she said "I would have had you here."
He pushed her panties to the side, not bothering to remove them. He positioned himself and pushed into her with a single, deep thrust that forced a ragged cry from her lungs.
He hooked one of her knees over his arm, lifting it, opening her wider, changing the angle. Each drive went deeper. The console rattled against the wall with their rhythm. He held her gaze, his own fierce, desperate. “This,” he grunted, pounding into her. “It’s the only thing that’s ever made sense.”
She clung to his shoulders, meeting each thrust, her nails digging into his skin, her breaths coming in sharp, broken pants as the world narrowed to the raw, joining point of their bodies.
“Do that thing again,” she whispered, her breath hot against his ear.
He understood. He lifted her off the rattling console, her legs wrapping tight around his waist. He carried her the few steps to the unfolded bed. He laid her down, the memory-stained sheets cool against her back.
Without a word, he grabbed the pillow from the sofa and shoved it firmly under her hips, tilting her pelvis up, exposing everything to the low evening light filtering through the blinds. He knelt between her splayed legs.
He didn’t kiss her first. He buried his face in her, his tongue flat and demanding against her clit. He licked her like he was starving, his hands holding her thighs apart with a firm, possessive grip. The sound was obscenely wet, a slick, rhythmic slapping.
“Yeah, just like that,” she moaned, her fingers twisting in his hair, not guiding, just feeling the motion. “Fuck, yes.”
He added two fingers, thrusting them deep inside her, curling them to press against that spot that made her vision swim. He fucked her with his mouth and his hand in a relentless, synchronized rhythm. She could feel the pressure building, a deep, coiling tension that was different from a normal climax.
“I’m gonna—” she gasped, her back beginning to arch off the bed. “Mark, I’m gonna squirt.”
He growled against her, a vibration she felt in her bones, and doubled his efforts. His tongue flicked furiously as his fingers pumped. The release was a violent, flooding wave. A gush of warm fluid erupted from her, soaking his chin, his mouth, the pillow beneath her. She cried out, a raw, unpracticed sound, her body convulsing.
He didn’t flinch. He bathed in it, drinking, lapping at her as she shook, extending the brutal, wet pulses of her orgasm until she was whimpering, pushing weakly at his head.
Only then did he rise up on his knees. His cock glistened, rock-hard. He replaced his soaking fingers with the thick head of his dick, pressing it against her drenched opening.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice gravel.
Her eyes, glazed, focused on his. He pushed in, a slow, devastating invasion that made her gasp. He filled her completely, a stretching, perfect ache.
Then he started to move.
It was pounding, exactly that. No finesse, just deep, driving piston strokes that shoved her up the bed with each thrust. The wet slap of their bodies was loud in the small room. Her earlier orgasm had made her impossibly sensitive; every stroke lit new sparks along her nerves.
“Again,” he grunted, his rhythm relentless. “Come again.”
She did. It ripped through her, a dry, shuddering climax that clenched tight around him, milking his cock. He didn’t stop. He kept pounding, his own breath coming in ragged grunts. The friction was becoming almost too much, a bright, burning sensation.
She felt him swell, felt the jerking pulse deep inside her as he came, a hot flood filling her as he drove in one last, final time. He collapsed onto her, his weight a comforting anchor.
They lay there, slick and joined, breathing in the shared air for long minutes. The streetlamp outside flickered on, casting long shadows.
Slowly, she shifted out from under him. She walked naked to her bag, rummaging past the empty wine bottle they emptied with the icecream. She pulled out a small silver pill case. She tapped out a single, small blue diamond of a pill.
She held it out to him on her palm. “Take this.”
He looked from the pill to her face, his expression unreadable. “What is it?”
“It makes sure you don’t have to rest.” She looked at him, her eyes dark and serious in the half-light. “I don’t want to rest. I want to fuck until it burns.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he took the pill from her palm and dry-swallowed it. “Okay.”
They ordered pizza at midnight, eating it naked on the floor, grease on their fingers and chins. They didn’t talk about tomorrow. They talked about the terrible bands they’d liked online, the embarrassing usernames they’d used.
By the time the empty box was discarded, the chemical current was humming through his veins. He was hard again, a persistent, artificial urgency. It felt like he was going to burst out. He pulled her to him on the rug.
They fucked on the floor, her back against the scratchy weave. They fucked in the shower, steam clouding the glass, water sluicing between their bodies as he took her from behind. They fucked against the balcony door, the cool glass a shock against her belly, the sleeping suburb spread out below them like a secret.
Each act was a layer painted over the previous one, a desperate archaeology of sensation. She used her mouth on him, deep and sucking, until his hips jerked and he spilled bitter salt across her tongue. She swallowed, her eyes on his.
The burning came hours later, a raw, internal ache for her, a deep muscular fatigue for him. Her skin felt scraped thin. His movements, though still hard, were powered by will now, not instinct.
She guided his hand between her legs. “It hurts,” she whispered, not a complaint, a fact.
“Here?” he murmured, his finger circling her swollen clit, making her flinch.
“Inside. It’s raw.” She rolled onto her stomach, presenting herself to him. “Not there.”
He understood. He kissed the small of her back, his hands spreading her cheeks. He pressed the head of his cock against her other hole, tight and unyielding. She hissed. He used the slick mess of their previous fucking as makeshift lubrication, pushing slowly, an inexorable, burning stretch.
She buried her face in the pillow, her fists clenched. It was pain, bright and sharp, a final violation of a boundary. He groaned, a sound of pure, exhausted release, as he sank fully into her. He moved, shallow thrusts in the tight, clutching heat.
“Come,” she demanded, her voice muffled.
He did, with a choked sob, his body shuddering as he emptied himself into her ass, a final, claiming possession.
He pulled out and collapsed beside her. The first grey light of dawn edged the blinds. They didn’t touch. They lay on their backs, staring at the water-stained ceiling of her first apartment, two ruins in the silence, the only sound their slowing, synchronized breath. The burn was a testament. It was all that was left.
"I can't" he said.
"We have to. We will coming back to it"
"I won't, there's no more pleasure"
"Good"
"How did you manage to keep the place?"
"I didn't. But the landlady is still the same, I track down the current tenant. She's as broke as I was so it was easy. I'm going to have to pay for a new sofa and sheets. And I think you broke the shower curtain"
They laugh, without interruption, holding each other. Until sleep came.