“Of course,” Atticus said. “Anything.” A new smile broke in his face then. “Unless you want me to start giving all of our stuff away to drifters. They can find their own; work for it like we have. And yeah, I know we didn’t exactly work for the stuff at the farmhouse, but that was different.”
“No, it’s not that…”
His smile faded again.
“Then what is it?”
I wrung my fingers in my lap, and then raised my eyes to his.
I will not be afraid…
“I want you to kiss me.”
ATTICUS
I froze inside my skin; nothing moved but my eyes for a moment.
“What? No—” I went to stand up.
She reached out and placed her hand on my wrist, stopping me.
“I know you don’t see me in that way,” she said—(are you freakin’ kidding me, Thais?), “and I could never be bold like those women in the city, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the need for human touch just as they do.”
I got up again. She stopped me again.
“Thais, that’s not…” I couldn’t get the words out, much less look at her. I could feel her eyes on me, could feel them tugging at my composure and my resolve, every inch threatening to tear it down. “I…can’t do that to you.” I want to, Thais, I do, but— “Why not?” She looked stung by my refusal. “Do you not find me attractive like the women in the city?”
I thought back to the night in my room, when she was going to give herself to me to help her sister. She didn’t want me then, not in the slightest bit. This time was different; I could feel it; it may have only been a kiss, but Thais wanted it. I wanted it. I wanted to kiss her and to touch her and to feel her body beneath me. But Thais was not Evelyn; she was not Petra, or the women in the brothel who gave themselves away for cigarettes and companionship. Thais was…special.
Finally, I stood up, and her hand fell from my wrist—I would end this before it began. But before I could answer, to at least ensure her that, yes, I found her attractive—more than the women in the city—a tear slipped down her freckled cheek and stole the words from my mouth.
She reached up a hand and wiped it away, then turned her back and lay on her side against her quilt.
I sat down behind her and stared out into the dark woods at the moon peeking through the crawling black limbs.
“I know you feel lonely,” I began in a steady voice, “but loneliness will play games with your head, Thais. It’ll make you think you want something that you don’t.” I glanced at her, seeing only the length of her hair spread against the quilt.
She sniffled lightly.
“And sometimes, in situations like the one we’ve been forced into, a person will start to cling to the only other person around. I can’t take advantage of you like that.” I also didn’t want to believe it was the only reason she found an interest in me, that she was experiencing Last Man On Earth syndrome. Deep inside, I wanted more from her. I may never have allowed myself to have it if it was there for the taking, but the thought pushed me forward, and I wasn’t ready to give that up.
Thais rolled onto her back.
I looked down at her, and every part of my body ached for her when I did.
THAIS
“But I am lonely,” I said, peering up at him. “I’ve been lonely for a long time, even before I met you.” I wanted to tell him that I’d never felt the urge or the need to be close to someone as great as I felt with Atticus.
But I said none of these things. I wouldn’t know how to say them if I could.
“We could die at any moment, Atticus.” I sat up; we were close enough I could feel the warmth of his breath. “Every day that goes by I think about how lucky we were the night before to have lived another day. But what if tomorrow will be our last?” I paused, reflectively. “What if there is no tomorrow? Will we have made the most of yesterday?” I reached out a hand and patted the dirt with my full palm. “Today”—I patted it again with emphasis—“is all that ever matters anymore. And I don’t want to die not knowing—.” I stopped abruptly; my gaze strayed from his own. What I had been about to say, I could not. I could not tell him I had never known what it was like to feel the touch of a man, to know what it felt like to be kissed by a man. But I wanted more than that from him; it confused me and made my pulse race with excitement and fear, the thought of his hands on me, yet I couldn’t tell him the truth.
“Not knowing what, Thais?”
I laid back down and put my back to him.
“I just thought you’d want to kiss me, is all. In case we die tomorrow.”
Maybe he didn’t find me attractive. Maybe he really did think I was nothing more than a young, inexperienced woman with nothing to offer him other than a thorn in his side. I felt foolish and small and unsightly suddenly, but I was prepared to live with it—starting with dropping it altogether and going back to sleep.
But then I felt his hand collapse around my elbow.
I turned my head slowly; it seemed an eternity the time it took to find his blazing blue eyes in the darkness, and when I did, I felt like I could fall right into them and get lost forever in their depths.
ATTICUS
“Thais,” I said, “I do think you’re beautiful. I just—.” I couldn’t force myself to say the things I wanted: I want you to want this kiss, not because I’m the only man here to give it to you. But her heartfelt speech about todays and yesterdays and tomorrows and the very real possibility there might not be another one, didn’t alleviate that thought—it only reinforced it.
After fighting with myself, all that mattered was what Thais wanted, what Thais needed. And if it was simply a kiss she asked of me, then I would do it. For her. Not for myself, though as much as I, too, wanted it, as much as I knew it would only make my own needs and wants more unbearable, I would endure the impending ache if it would ease hers.
I leaned toward her slowly; my eyes swept the curvature of her lips, the tiny hollow beneath her nose, and I touched the left corner of her mouth with my own.
The right corner.
The center.
The impending ache…
THAIS & (ATTICUS)
His unexpected movements took the beat from my heart, and my eyelashes came together. My lips parted in response to his as he explored my mouth with a slow, deliberate hunger that made my legs weak—had I been standing, I would’ve needed to hold onto him for balance—and he hadn’t even kissed me yet.
I felt my heartbeat pounding in my ears, and my head swam feverishly as he parted my lips the rest of the way and slipped his warm tongue between them. I felt my body being pulled toward his as his mouth collapsed around mine; his hands seized the sides of my face, and the once deliberate, skillful kiss became one so deep and ambitious that I all but disintegrated in his arms beneath the power of it.