Mending
#3 of He Was My Friend
The strange thing about surviving any cataclysmic experience in your life, even one so strange and heinous as the one Laila had gone through, is that life, with all of its routine and necessity and completely mundane happenstance, goes on. No matter how much it feels like it should, the world around you does not grind to a halt to grant you the silence and space to grieve, or rage, or flounder in the depth and crushing uncertainty of your emotions--no, instead, schoolwork waits to be done, parents assign chores, and futures wait to be planned. When you are struck still by a grave misfortune, you can feel the momentum as life flows around you, and Laila knew that if she stood against the flow too long, life would leave her behind.
So she did her homework, she did her chores, and as clouded as her future seemed from where she was standing, she was a senior in high school so she continued to plan. It was not even a week ago that her closest, dearest friend had attacked her, chained her to his own bed, and brutally raped her, but in that week Laila had discovered some unexpected things about herself. For one, she was a much stronger person than she thought she was. And she was a very, very talented actress.
Not knowing how she herself felt about what had happened to her, she had decided to tell no one about her ordeal but Sayeh, who had rushed to meet her that very night and who therefore knew every detail of the event, which had been sobbed hysterically into his chest as he held her close. For everyone else, Laila acted as though nothing had changed, and she was so good at appearing natural and easy despite her internal turmoil that no one at all suspected anything could be wrong.
Now she sat on the edge of Sayeh's bed, as pensive as Argent had been the day she had walked out of his room not a week ago. Sitting beside her was the golden jackal Sayeh, and the only person in the world besides her attacker who knew what had happened to her. There was a strange tension in the air between them, and Laila glanced furtively at the jackal's emotion-twisted face before choosing her next words.
"Sayeh... I didn't tell you everything about... that night. There was something more to it." She paused and bit her lip slightly, trying to read how he felt about what she was saying, but his face was inscrutable. Very nervous about how he might react, she nevertheless felt he had the right to know. Sayeh and she had been together for almost four years now, and in all that time they had been devoted and faithful to one another... it would be unfair, she thought, to keep a secret so troubling from him, even if it hurt him to hear it. "Well when Argent..." She saw Sayeh flinch at his name. "When he... well..." I liked it, Laila thought, but the words didn't come out. She felt dirty, shameful, but worst of all she felt as though somehow, she had betrayed the man she loved more than anyone in the world. Of all of the emotions she was finding herself wrestling with, those were the ones she struggled with most. So she took it a step at a time. "Um well... he was so cruel, Sayeh. I've never seen him like that before, I was so frightened, and he... it really hurt me."
"I know," Sayeh finally said, gently, looking up to meet the bunny's pleading eyes. "I know he hurt you. I am so, so sorry. I should have been there... I should have called you... something. I don't know. He hurt you and I'm supposed to protect you, and I didn't. I couldn't do anything, and you were all by yourself, and... Laila I am so, so sorry." His voice cracked towards the end, and he pulled the gray bunny close, tightly, desperately, and as she folded her arms around him she could feel him begin to sob.
Her heart ached for him and she clung to him, trying to comfort him when she longed for comfort herself. "No Sayeh, it wasn't your fault , there was no way you could have known. If I had suspected anything at all I would never have gone home with him, but I didn't, neither of us did, we couldn't have. I know you would have protected me if you were there, but what matters is that you came for me when I called you, when I needed you. You're here now." She held his shoulders and pushed him away far enough so she could look into his dark brown eyes, and saw they were wet with tears. It was the first time he had confessed his guilt to her, and she could tell that the tangled emotions he had been holding in this whole time were now crashing over him. He tore his eyes from hers and looked down in shame, and another sob wracked him, twisting Laila's heart again. "No honey... No Sayeh... No..." She took his face into her hands, forcing him to look at her, and kissed his mouth emphatically. "It wasn't your fault," she said firmly, holding his gaze, kissing him again, lovingly, meaningfully, forgetting what she had been trying to say before, focused on nothing but her beloved jackal. He took a few breaths, but gradually he regained control of himself and calmed.
"It's just... I wish I could have been there for you...I wish..." He began again, but Laila interrupted him with another gentle "No," another loving kiss, and several more, until she felt herself naturally pulling him back on the bed with her, their kisses growing longer and more insistent. All of their emotion was now being directed at one another, all of the pain and sadness became need, and their tender, raw vulnerability had all of their senses on edge. Past words, she slid her arms under Sayeh's shirt, caressing him, arching her back slightly as he gently nibbled her neck, but fiercely, needfully, only pausing in their sudden hurry to undress one another to meet eyes, the only communication they needed to confirm their want for one another.
Laila unbuttoned Sayeh's shirt as he slid his hands under hers, sliding his fingers up through her silky fur while taking great care not to graze her sensitive skin with his claws. They had not had a moment to touch like this over the past week, and because of it his touch was electric to her; she arched her back against him and he slid his hands around her slender torso, unhooking her bra deftly. She gasped and he withdrew his hands to grasp her shirt, sliding it up underneath her and over her head, its movement between her and the bed ruffling her fur slightly, tempting his hands to smooth it while he came in for another kiss. Moaning slightly, Laila threw his unbuttoned shirt over his shoulders, and he removed his hands from her reluctantly to allow her to pull it off of him. Now she sat up, gently pushing her jackal back to sit over her on his knees, and unbuttoned his jeans, breathing in his sweetly familiar musk as she dragged his zipper slowly down. Tugging his jeans out of the way as much as possible, she freed his growing member from its confines, his moan of response music to her ears.
Laila wrapped her hands around the smooth, hot redness of her lover's shaft, stroking it until it was rock hard from tapered tip to slightly-swollen base. She leaned forward and slowly, teasingly, dragged the tip of her tongue up along his full seven inch length, eliciting from him another ragged moan before she wrapped her lips around him and suckled gently, taking more and more of him into her mouth and sweeping her tongue in playful figure-eights on his sensitive skin. Sayeh held still, clearly resisting the urge to thrust into her warm mouth, running his hands through her long, silky honey-brown hair and down her back, his head tilted back in pleasure. Laila stroked his throbbing knot and the final stretch of his member she could not comfortably fit in her mouth, bobbing her head rhythmically and lashing her tongue around him, taking particular care to flick it against his tip each time she came up. He smoothed her hair back from around her face, brushing against her long, velvety ears which she had held delicately over her back.
Laila began to speed her pace, and in his ecstasy her lover began to buck his hips with her movements, gasping and moaning and getting dangerously close to the brink. She found herself incredibly turned on by his lack of restraint, sinking him deeper and deeper into her mouth and then her throat, taking careful breaths so as not to gag and swallowing against him, licking his knot and grabbing him by the hips to steady him some in this delicate position. But this was too much for Sayeh, who was already over stimulated by their heightened emotions and sudden, feverish intimacy. He lay his hands gently on her shoulders and she sat up to look at him questioningly. He cradled a hand behind her and lowered her to the bed; he then stood up and finally shed his jeans, knelt before the beautiful bunny, and slowly began to undo her own jeans, gazing lovingly into her beautiful mahogany eyes.
Laila smiled at him, but as her lover tugged her jeans off and she felt the cool air touch her, a tiny seed of fear and worry planted itself in her heart. She had not been able to think about sex without remembering Argent's betrayal of her since the night she was raped, and now, about to be mounted by her lover for the first time since then, she found her heart racing with sudden, unanticipated fear. But seeing the love in his eyes, and remembering the tenderness of the moment they were sharing, she put on her familiar act and gave the appearance that nothing was wrong. Her sweet jackal, unknowing, joined her on the bed and positioned himself over her, spreading her legs with his knees, stroking her cheek with one hand. She felt the slickened tip of his member probe her, and she herself was quite wet from her previous arousal, but she was as nervous now as she had been their very first time together. She tensed. He sunk himself into her.
Sayeh sighed almost in relief, as though this sacred union was the only way to mend their troubled hearts. Laila moaned with him, but inside she felt conflicted, still fearful, worried that he would discover her in her act, concerned that she was not enjoying their lovemaking as she should, and attempting desperately to stop replaying the horrors of last week in her mind. But then, thrusting slowly, her lover leaned down, nibbled one of her sensitive ears, whispered to her "I love you", and kissed her on the mouth, holding the kiss through a few more thrusts, and her anxiety melted away as quickly as it had begun. Looking into his eyes and seeing the meaning of the words he spoke, she found that her ordeal, her pain, her fear did not matter; all that mattered was this gorgeous jackal and the reality, the depth of his emotion for her and hers for him. Embracing him, she stroked his fur and wrapped her legs around him, letting herself feel for that moment. The jackal filled her in all the right ways, and her familiarity with him meant that all of the sensations she craved, he delivered on. He was so different in every way than Argent had been that after she gave into her pleasure, Argent never entered her mind. She wrapped herself tightly around her jackal and kissed and nibbled his neck, moaning into his ear, grinding her hips against him with lust and urgency; his knot swelled and swelled, but she could still take it, and there was a slight popping sound as he slid it into and out of her. "Sayeh," she gasped as his knot swelled even larger, "Sayeh, careful, you're going to..."
"Aaaaah... I know... aaaaaah!" Despite his large knot, Sayeh buried himself deeply into his lover one more time, then surprised her by reaching down and fondling her clit; the combination sent Laila over the edge and she cried out in sudden ecstasy, arching hard against him. The pleasure was over the top and she tried to struggle away from him as it continued to mount, but he held her tightly and stayed buried in her, stroking her clit until she pushed his hand away when it was too intense.
"Sayeh... Sayeh!" she cried, no restraint in her voice, her eyes glazed over with need, "Sayeh... oh... come on me! Come on me now!" Feeling her clench and squirm around him, hearing the raw urgency in her voice, he finally allowed his own pleasure to overtake him, popping his almost fully swollen knot out of her with difficulty; she wasted no time grabbing his knot with one hand and stroking his shaft with the other, quickly, firmly, as he obeyed her request, shooting several long, thick ropes of cum onto her breasts. Laila couldn't resist and leaned forward, suckling him dry, pleasure coursing through her with his every moan. When she finally got the very last drop, she sat up again, stroked him a few more times, and smiled mischievously at him.
"I'm sorry," he gasped, "I just couldn't help it..." Laila silenced him with a kiss, twitching an ear in amusement. "Honey... you have nothing to be sorry about. That was amazing." He smiled and so did she, and despite her messy state she pulled him back down onto her and kissed him deeply, losing herself in him again. She didn't know what the following days and weeks would bring, but she knew that for these tender, blissful moments, she was happy.