The Long Walk into his Arms
      Chapter  5
 

I wipe my fingers across the tail of Nino’s shirt. I have blocked the reality of what I am doing, what I have done out of my mind. The bullet is in the palm of Danny’s hand and he is gazing at it as if searching for an answer. I prepare to ask him what he is looking for, but find that I just don’t care right then.


"Clean the blade off, too."


I turn slightly to look at him and numbly nod my head. I pick up his pocketknife and clear the blood and grime off, again using a dead man’s clothing and then I hand the knife back to Danny. I don’t look at him. I can’t.


"We have to push the body in the river. Come on, I’ll help you." Unsteadily he gets to his feet and although I thought myself dead to emotion at the moment, the sight of him in such a state sends a rush of love through my body and I am at his side, helping him.


"Just rest, I’ll do it," my voice sounds strange to my own ears. It seems a century since I had last spoken.


"Michelle, we have to do this quickly, and the two of us -"


"-- Danny, if you pass out again, we’ll be here that much longer," I interrupt him, the voice of logic for the two of us now. "I’ll do it," I finish wearily. "I’ll just drag the - I’ll drag him." He gazes at me for a moment longer and then nods his head.


"If you need help …" he trails off and I can hear in his voice, see in his eyes how much this is killing him that I am doing this, involved in this and I wonder who feels worse about the situation. I look over at Nino’s body and answer my own question. I do.


Danny doesn’t understand. He may be the gangster. He may have lived his whole life surrounded by violence, but he has never killed a man … he has never taken a life.


I have. Twice.


"I won’t need any help," I say quietly and move away from him, move towards the second dead body in my life.

Danny is in the shower. I didn’t offer to help him. I didn’t want to see the bruises on his body. And I couldn’t watch the blood fall from his body, a watered-down shade of red. As I close my eyes and see the bucket of dirty water washing away my husband’s blood from the concrete, lightening its dark hue, I swear to never wear pink or any variation ever again.


I open my eyes and try to remember how it happened, but I can’t. I can’t remember shooting Nino. I drove home; I entered the house, helped Danny upstairs and spoke not a word. I was trying to remember. I recall pulling the trigger. I still can hear the sound of the bullets hitting flesh, but I don’t remember seeing the bullet hit him. All I can see in my mind’s eye is Danny’s body reacting to the gunshot, Danny’s blood, Danny slumping against the wall.


I know that I killed Nino, but I can’t relive the moment in my mind. And it just happened. I look over at the clock on the bedside table. It is just after 8:00 p.m., less than two hours since Nino had called me. And I can not remember the bullet hitting him. I can not remember the sight of his death. It is almost a year since I had killed Mick and I can still see that vividly.


I had blocked it out, but with just a thought, I can see it all again. His hulking frame standing over me, and then turning to Drew, the rock I picked up, the way I slammed it into his skull, "the elbow I put into it," as Drew said. I can recite the details of that evening without hesitation even after all these months. But an event that had happened less than two hours before alludes my grasp.


Danny walks into the bedroom and I look up at him, - perhaps for the first time since first seeing him in a state of undress -- unaffected and tell him, "I can’t remember the bullet hitting him. I pulled the trigger, but that’s all I remember. Why can’t I remember?"


"Why would you want to?" he asks wearily and sighs. He looks dead on his feet and then suddenly I laugh. Dead on his feet. And I say it outloud, "dead on his feet." And I am laughing even harder and Danny is coming to me, kneeling before the bed and when it happens I don’t know, but suddenly my laughter turns to cries and tears are streaming down my face. I wrap my arms about him, clutching him tightly.


He holds me close, he whispers more nonsense words into my ear and then he tells me that he loves me. He loves me. He loves me. And I hold onto that, cling to that because I am a bad person, I am bad, but Danny still loves me. And I’ll be okay as long as someone still loves me.

He shifts on the floor, his arms loosening then tightening about me for the second time that I am aware of. I pull away slightly and then more, falling out of his hold. He looks at me and I can’t tell if the moisture on his face is from the shower, my tears or if he has been crying himself. I scoot back on the bed and hold my arms out again.


I need him right now. I need him to hold me.


He gets to his feet and there is an awkwardness in his movements, his customary grace diminished in the wake of his pain and exhaustion. The towel falls from him and he climbs into bed beside me naked. Absently, I note the bruises on his flesh, the bullet wound on his arm. And then he wraps me in his arms again, and nothing else matters.


My face is buried in the curve of his shoulder and he smells wonderful. Clean and fresh. The scent of blood and gunpowder is gone from him. He smells wonderful. My tongue darts out and I taste his flesh and he tastes wonderful. Clean and fresh. I pull away and gaze up at him; he is watching me warily.


"Michelle?" I shake my head, I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to talk. I just want to be held. I want to be alive. I want to know that I’m alive.


I want him.


"I want you," my voice is a whisper and his lips part as if to speak, but I can read in his eyes the confusion. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know how to act. He doesn’t understand. He can’t understand. He has never taken a life.


I have. Twice.


"I want you," I repeat and I kiss him. My mouth opens and my tongue is inside his as I raise myself up, cupping his face with my hands, devouring him … the taste -- the wonderful, clean, fresh taste - of him. He kisses me back, but I can feel the hesitation, that wariness. His hands rest on my arms and he is trying to hold back, but I feel the heat of his erection pressing against me. I pull away from the kiss, my lips trailing down his chin, his throat and I murmur against his flesh, "you want me, too" as his hands slip away.


He falls back against the pillows as I wrap my fingers about him. I don’t look at his face. I don’t want to. I just want this, I think, as my head descends, as I open my mouth to take him in. He moans slightly as my tongue swirls about him, my lips widening to engulf the hard heat of him. My fingers curve tightly about the base of his manhood, too tightly for a moment as a whimper of pain escapes him.


I feel his hand on my head, his fingers entwining in my hair as I take him deeper and deeper inside my mouth, as my fingers glide over him and I am desperate for his climax. I want him to come, I want to know that I have made him feel this way, that I have given him this and then he does. His fingers pull at my hair and he lets out a hoarse cry as his seed spills out and I have the sudden urge to hurt him, because he came without me. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to be there in that moment.


I needed to be there.


I sit up, pulling away from him and tear my blouse off. Literally. Buttons fly across the room and I feel a savage pleasure that I’ve destroyed a gift from him. He gave me this blouse, this pink, watered-down bloody pink blouse as a birthday gift. His eyes open and he is beginning to understand, I see it at last in his eyes. He understands that I need all of him, the good and the bad … especially the bad.


I don’t want softness. I don’t want comfort. I don’t want to be made love to. I want to be fucked. I want to feel nothing but pure, unadulterated lust fulfilled. I want … I need to feel alive.


He lunges for me and jerks my skirt up, his lips hungrily fastening on mine. We fall to the floor, but neither one of us cares. He roughly pulls down my panties and his hands are holding my face as he plunders my mouth, refusing to let me take control again. I jerk against him, but he holds me still and then he rips at my bra and that is destroyed too.


And his lips are marking my skin, the scratchiness of his five o’clock shadow burning against my throat, branding my breast. His fingers are inside me and he isn't playing games, he is touching me deeply, getting straight to the core of my desire and I am forgetting about tonight, about Nino and Mick, and death. I am losing a grasp on anything other than the way he is making me feel.

He parts the folds of my flesh and pushes into me and I cry out at his intensity. I look up at him and he is gazing down at me and there is a savage look on his face and his eyes are glittering as he pumps inside of me and I clutch at him, my nails raking across his back. My legs are wrapped around him and with every plunge into me, I raise my hips, urging him on ... urging him to go harder and faster, harder and his hands are holding tightly to my wrists, my arms stretched out above my head.

And he is all that I can see, he is all that I can feel. There is no room for anything, anything, anywhere inside of me but him ... this man, this moment, this feeling. And then he explodes inside of me and I feel like a thousand bullets are going off inside of my body, my vision darkens and the room spins around me. I shut my eyes and a tear and then two slides from under my lids.

He is gently rubbing my wrists, the lengths of my arms and then my face, his fingers so tenderly wiping the tears from my face. And then he is whispering against my lips, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" and I shake my head and kiss him. Softly, sweetly, lovingly. I kiss him and I refuse his apology as I wind my arms about his neck, holding him close to me.