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This is my room, Martha thought, yet somehow it's not. The beige curtains seemed to be a slightly different hue, not quite right, off. It no longer felt like it was hers. The warm hue of her bedside lamp was a vigil, to commemorate life as she had known it.
The confusion of all these new places and people, supposedly from the future - her future. No. It couldn't be. Instead, it was an inescapable nightmare, where the details were realistic enough to be immersive, drastic enough to be frightening, different enough to be unnerving, and happening fast enough to be unreal.
"At school... when you came through the door, I... I had this feeling," Martha explained, choosing her words carefully. She glanced at the floor, as though the perfect sentiment was tucked away under a floorboard. "As if we knew each other. From a dream, or…”
Words failed her.
Jonas had such a pained look on his face. Similar to how she felt, she was certain. Woken from the nightmare, the flashes of memories fresh and raw, her stomach knotted, her heart raced.
"I'm sorry. About it all," Jonas said. He took two steady steps towards her, his gaze not leaving hers. His dirty blond hair was unkept and parted to the side.
His chocolate brown zipper jacket and underlying dark jumper encased him in a cocoon, a spider’s woven trap. Yet his emotions yearned to escape.
Within the new and grotesque, Jonas remained familiar. Strangely since she had never met him until a day or so ago. Yet he knew her, some other version of her, a different world. Maybe he could have been honest about knowing how she felt. Insisting the details were sickening and wrong. The new worlds she had seen were so different, with traces of what she knew, twisted. The memories were disassociated, nauseating, a type of extreme culture shock. Perhaps if she understood where Jonas had come from it wouldn't be so frightening. She could comfort herself from the nightmare.
"Where you're from..." Martha said, her throat sore. "What was I like there?"
It sounded insane just to think, much less say.
Jonas's eyebrows tensed together and he blinked several times, as if unsure what she had asked. His scar was visible around the front of his neck. Red and dotted, curled around him like a hot chain had been pressed into his flesh, branding him as cursed. Maybe he was in a way. But beautiful nonetheless with earnest, honest eyes, arms that looked warm to hold. Why was his silence so sharp, sinking into her heart?
"Was I different?" Martha prompted again, edging nearer. Her voice cracked like the desert earth of the other world. The nightmare coiled around her lungs, restricting her breath. Her eyes, stupidly, welled with tears. Why did a stranger have the power to hurt her like this, make her feel waves of emotion? From this close she spotted a grey shirt underneath the jacket, damp from blotches of sweat. More silence. The memory must be too powerful for him. But why? Looking at Jonas didn't do that to her. He was a pillar of comfort within a storm. When he had first approached her in the forest, she was repelled. He looked like he had been sleeping rough for months, filthy from head to toe, covered in bruises, scratches and wounds. A drug dealer perhaps, for hardcore drugs she didn't want. He had made her feel weird. Now? Where she had travelled to had been so outrageous, so shocking, that Jonas had become a source of intrigue, a lighthouse guiding her home.
Jonas reached a shaky hand towards her face, separating his fingers. His nails were dark, as if they'd been hit with a mullet, bleeding underneath. The nail beds were black too, with dirt or blood, she wasn't sure. She glanced upwards, hoping changing her expression would hide her disgust. Not of him, but the smell of him.
Jonas's stench was palpable, overbearing. A stink of someone who had been hiking for a week without a proper wash. Sweat fermenting in his clothes, mud underneath his boots. Dirt of multiple biomes, each not belonging with the next, meshing into a blocked pipe. The strength of it obliterated her sense of grief and unease. Her heart steeled itself, as did her senses.
Her fingers found his chest and pushed gently.
“Shower,” she gasped and gave a small cough. She wasn't trying to be rude but it was really difficult to keep a straight face.
“Don't have time,” Jonas breathed. Even his breath was putrid.
Martha pulled away and wiped her mouth, and grabbed his hand.
Perhaps he was so rushed from one world to the next, that he was paranoid it would happen again. They would be pulled from the warm water, from a semblance of normalcy.
Jonas threaded his fingers between hers. He appeared guilt stricken and heart broken at the same time. He must not understand why she was pulling away.
Like my stupid brother, she thought. Magnus’s room normally smelt so gross that mum would open the windows for him. Jonas must have lived in his odor so long he could no longer smell it. Or perhaps it was like what she had read about abuse victims, making themselves wear ugly clothes to push away their abuser. Time was Jonas's abuser, and it had started to become hers too.
“We do have time. I have made it so,” she invented. Anything to make him listen, to dig into his heart, to unravel the pain. “I promise.” She closed his fingers over his. “Come with me.”
Jonas started shaking. He looked over his shoulder, from side to side, keeping watch for a ghost. Fresh tears fell, still not thick enough to cut through the layer of dirt. “O-o-okay.”
He shivered as they walked, as if it had become winter. His shoes thumped on the floor as if his sneakers had become lead.
Martha reached the bathroom. She turned on the light, water and decided against the fan. Maybe it was best to have some quiet for a change. Holding her breath, she unzipped Jonas's jacket, then gripped the sides of his shirt. He gripped her forearms.
“Dunno,” he mumbled. His eyelids lowered. “It will hurt.”
“What will hurt?” Martha asked, slowing.
“Injuries.” He tugged at his shirt near his chest. “Under the water.”
Martha hesitated. Jonas looked worried. Maybe there were more cuts like the one around his neck. But she couldn't turn back now, couldn't give up. “Can I see?”
Jonas nodded and his grip slackened as she lifted his shirt over his head. She caught a gasp in her throat. It wasn't just Jonas's neck that was cut. He had wounds over his arms and back too. Martha stepped back and changed the water temperature to lukewarm. It wasn't how she liked to shower, but Jonas's wellbeing was more important.
“You're beautiful,” Jonas said, as he watched steam fog the mirror more slowly. He let his shirt slip around his wrists. A chain holding him back. “Not like me.”
“It doesn't matter how you look.”
If he needed more motivation to join her, she would feed his temptation. She slipped her pants and underwear off, feeling a heat rise to her face the more she exposed her body. It wouldn't be right to blubber like a blushing schoolgirl. She had to be the strong one. She kept her mouth slightly open to remind herself to breathe properly, beads of sweat forming on her neck.
Steam filled the room. She pulled her jumper and shirt off, then tugged at his shirt, letting it slide onto the floor. Her nipples were hard against her bra, which she unhooked. She felt goosebumps spread like an electric shock from her collarbone outwards towards her arms, then legs. She gripped the ends of his fingers and stepped back.
“Follow me,” she told him, entering the cool water. She kept her gaze on him and gasped when the water hit her. It felt like Jonas's hands were all over her already.
She turned away before he removed his underwear, not wanting to temp herself too soon. The sound of his feet towards her made her step back, make space.
Jonas yelped, groaned and stamped a foot as water gushed over him. She could see why. Some gashes were along his back and chest, with raw patches underneath. Martha touched his shoulder. “We have enough time. You’re safe.”
She said what seemed right in her heart, her mind quieting. Jonas groaned again, as the water running down his body slowly changed from mud to cloudy. She gently ran her palms over his arms, chest, shoulders and back. “It's ok.”
Slowly, her hands encouraged the gunk to shift. After two or three strokes, his skin became smooth and his body hair shifted to the direction of her palms, rivulets of brown, green and yellow spiralling down to the drain.
The smell was subdued now, tolerable. Not soon enough, she wrapped her arms around him, breasts pressing in as he breathed heavily. She closed her eyes, relieved to have this moment without hindrance.
They were so close, she felt his need to be close against her.
“The pain… it's not as bad like this,” he said. His voice sounded calmer, softer, like hers.
Martha breathed in deeply, as though that would soothe him too. She held onto some unscarred parts of his back, watching half fascinated, half incredulous as the water running over him changed colour, revealing pale skin underneath. Pale pink patches remained, maybe where she had applied too much pressure. It didn't appear to hurt him anymore.
Jonas' fingers wrapped around her neck, his thumb touching her cheek. Even now, it felt like they knew each other - though not in a dream anymore. It felt warming, comforting, everything she needed. Everything she wanted.
They kissed, and held each other's faces. Able to breathe, able to feel. His lips were slightly cracked, but soft, gentle. An image crossed her mind. A memory and dream of her, a man who felt like Jonas, his legs, arms and torso intertwined with hers. The man didn't look like Jonas, except for a haunted kindness in his eyes and touch. He was older, more tan, covered in much thicker body hair. The stranger was strong, needing their connection. How come it made her want to be closer?
Jonas's rapid breathing slowed and his groans of pain turned into moans of pleasure as he gently pressed his hardened length against her. She kissed him, pressing her body as close to him as possible, as though she could dissolve into him. She grabbed some shower wash from a pump and enjoyed sensually running her hands over him. Jonas kissed her harder and bent his knees slightly.
“Want to face me?” He asked.
Martha knew what he meant and didn't need telling twice. She widened her stance, stuck her hips out slightly. Her hands shook as Jonas maneuvered her hips with one hand and his erection with the other. He slipped his fingers in first, and she curled her hips to meet him. Martha moaned and rocked against him as his fingers became slippery, fast and needing. She tried to kiss him but couldn't quite reach, so she pushed harder until she felt his knuckles holding her up. A warmth pooled inside her and she almost lost her breath when he removed his fingers. Her legs shook, and she struggled to keep her eyes open.
She gasped his name, begging for more. His fingers wrapped around her hips and she felt hints of his other hand as he guided himself inside. Martha began rocking her hips again and almost lost balance. It took a few tries and they sighed in unison as their hips fully connected. Jonas's eyes, filled with passion, were striking. No more fear, no more pain. A near burning rage of wanting her, a dizzying madness. It made him look like a completely different person. And she felt what he showed her.
With him inside all the panic vanished, the uncertainty and shock. Her mind turned silent, a loud silence that drowned all her anguish. Everything was right so long as they were together like this. If it didn't last, she didn't care. She would cherish every moment. Their bodies moved frantically, the gush of water partially blocking the sound, making it whir in and out of perception, just as the warmth from their soaked dance did. Water pooled between their bellies, a growing pond, and it splashed and bounced around the shower as their bodies raced. Her breath quickened with his, deepened. Part of her questioned her sanity, her choices. If this was any other boy, she would tap him on the shoulder. She should push him back, stop him from finishing inside her, but it felt like the world would turn to darkness if she did. They needed the light.
Martha threw her head back and closed her eyes, closing a hand into a fist. She pushed back harder, faster, until they lost their sense of connection to the world.
“I love you,” Jonas mumbled as his body shuddered. He kissed her. “Don't think… anything else.”
His arms wrapped around hers, palms resting on the sides of her belly. They slowed, stopped, the water pattering on them like rain. Those three words didn’t scare or shock her. They were exactly what she needed to hear, and what she needed to say. She regained her breath as her mind sought to hold onto the moment forever. “I love you too.”