It took longer this time, his tongue at my clit in flat, broad strokes, his fingers twisted inside me to rub against the walls of my swollen sex in a way that made my skin feel tight and my pulse too strong. He worked me from the inside out, wringing a third orgasm from me brutally, almost painfully, the edge of hurt only making the pleasure that much more phenomenal. I felt utterly used, completely broken apart and strangely clean, as if he had deconstructed me only to reassemble me properly again later.
And he did.
He mended my shattered, terrified soul by washing me once more, quicker this time, before pulling me out of the shower and drying me gently with a big fluffy towel. He did it by carrying me into his bedroom, sitting me on his dresser so he could find a big, old Entrance PD tee to dress me in, knowing I’d be uncomfortable going to bed naked. Then again when he carried me to bed, tucked me, then ordered an eager Hero onto the bed to lay beside while he checked the house and locked it down.
But it was when he returned, wearing black boxer briefs I wanted to peel him out of with my teeth some time when I had the energy, and fidgeted with the sound system beside the bed until the soothing twang of Hozier’s “Like Real People Do” filled the room that I knew, if any could fix me, if anyone could love the wild, broken spirit that was me, it was Lionel Danner.
He slid into bed and immediately pulled me close so he could curl around me. Suddenly, I was safe. My shield, my Lion at my back and my dog, my Hero at my front. After a night of horrors, after a month of living nightmares, I fell asleep the second I closed my eyes, secure in the knowledge that nothing could harm me.
Danner
2010
Harleigh Rose is 10. Danner is 19.
I spotted her right away. She was tall for her age, I noted surprised that she’d grown so much in the nine months I’d been away at RCMP training camp, but otherwise, she was unchanged. Same streaky blond hair, so many shades of gold, yellow and honeyed brown that it shimmered even under the artificial lights of Evergreen Gas. She wore her black biker boots, too heavy for her lanky limbs also decked out in her custom uniform of torn denim and a concert tee, this one Pink Floyd. She looked cute despite not wanting to, despite the neglect that was written in her tangled hair, dirty jeans and gaunt cheeks.
It killed me to see those telling signs even after all the talks I’d had with her mother, Farrah, but it didn’t surprise me. The bitch was an addict of the highest order so even having two grown kids and a baby wouldn’t stop her from sticking herself with needles and blowing herself high into the sky off of cocaine.
I was about to approach Harleigh Rose and tease her about not spending her Sunday at Mega Music, which is where I’d gone to look for her first because it was where you usually shot the shit when I was home from training. But there was something about her movements, too casual, too slow that made me pause and watch her from my position near the door to the gas station. I knew even before she took a handful of candy bars and stuffed them into the waistband of her jeans that she was going to shoplift.
My whole life I’d been observant, noticed people do things in the half second between the tick and tock of the clock, in the murky half-shadows of twilight and the dead hours of dawn that they thought they could get away with. Bad things, against-the-law things that I noted and felt no compunction about relating to the police.
I was the son of the Staff Sergeant for one.
For another, I was just that kind of man.
But for the first time in my life, seeing someone act illegally, I was torn.
I didn’t want to turn Harleigh Rose in for the inconsequential theft of candy bars, not when I knew she was probably just hungry because Farrah had forgotten yet again to feed her kids.
I wasn’t technically on Entrance’s police force until I was sworn in next week, but it was still my civic duty to do something about witnessing a crime.
While I vacillated, my morals and emotions at war with themselves, the decision was taken out of my hands.
The cashier had noticed her too.
Who wouldn’t notice a pretty kid with all that shining hair loitering around their shop?
“Hey kid,” the teenage cashier called out.
Instantly, Harleigh Rose was running.
She was fast and agile so even when the teen lunged for her, she didn’t look concerned or afraid.