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FICTION
This is an excerpt from Counting Down the Storm by Calgary's D. Ryan Leask.
The Break-up
“So, that's it then?”
She just lay there and didn't respond. He didn't expect her to; she’d said enough. He lay there quietly too,
not wanting her to know he was crying; he hadn't expected this. Well, he had, actually… fuck, he didn't
know what he expected, she was never an open book. He reached down to the side of the bed and fished
his cigarettes from his jeans, knocked one out and lit it, took a long drag and set the pack on the
nightstand. She leaned over him, her soft breasts pressed against his chest as she reached for his
smokes. “When did you start again?” he asked.
She moved back and tucked the sheets under her arm, contemplating her cigarette. “Today,” she said, a
small cloud of smoke escaping her lips. She looked at him, his tears obvious on his face. “You okay?” It
was his turn to be quiet.
He pushed the sheets back, stood up and wandered over to the balcony doors. There was a chill in the
room, or was it just her? He wrapped his goose-fleshed arms around himself and stared at the night
lights of the city shimmering through the random streams of water running down the glass.
A flash of lightning illuminated the horizon. He counted in his head, “one-one thousand, two-one
thousand, three-one thousand, four-one...” a clap of thunder. It was an old habit, calculating the distance
of the storm. He took a long drag from his Marlboro and opened the doors. The wind blew a spattering of
rain onto his naked body as he stepped out. It felt good, every drop washing her smell from him.
“What is it called,” he pondered, “vertigo?” The pull came from below, a sudden urge to step off the edge,
to fly. He could feel it tugging at his soul. “Come to me, just jump and it will all go away.” He stood
hypnotized, looking longingly at the sidewalk below. A few cars splashed through the streets and a siren
off in the distance raced to an unlikely fire in a rain-soaked city.
“What are you doing?” she asked, “You're going to catch a cold. Come in, I'll bring you a towel.” He didn't
see her standing at the doors, the comforter wrapped around her shoulders––he couldn't, she was
outside his vortex, the black hole surrounding him from the moment she had told him.
They had just finished making love. It wasn't really making love; they never made love. They fucked. There
had never been any love to make, he realized that now. Was that all he had been to her? A surrogate
penis, a cock to fill her emptiness? He flicked his cigarette over the edge and watched it drift down, like he
wanted to do, little red specks −of blood? − dotted the sidewalk and then were quickly extinguished. His
mind was wandering, his thoughts darting. What had she said? “I've met someone else.” Was that all?
Who was he? Had she said that much? He couldn't recall. Every time he tried to, this voice kept saying,
“Come to me, just jump and it will all go away.” He pressed his waist against the cold metal and leaned
over.
“Christian.” She broke his hypnosis. He stepped back, startled. She stood there at the door, holding a
towel. He could see her now. He could see everything.
He took it from her and went inside. “I'm sorry, it's just...” but she couldn't finish. There was no apology, no
explanation that could make things better. Is that why she had allowed him to come to her?
*****
“Christian, can you come over?” Her soft voice asked on the phone longingly. “I need you.” He looked over
at his clock: 11:37. He'd been asleep for an hour.
“What is it?” he asked. He always asked but knew what these late night calls were. She never seemed to
need him except then. Three years… three years and it had always been him that pursued her. The
daylight meetings, the walks in the park, concerts, old movies on rainy Sunday afternoons… it was him,
but late at night, she chased him. Maybe this time he wouldn't go. But he knew he would, and so did she.
He let himself in with his key and found her sleeping in her bed, her form gently rising and falling. He
quietly walked in and undressed, careful not to wake her, then walked barefoot over the cold floor to the
end of the bed, watching her sleep. He slid his hand under the covers; she stirred as he massaged her
feet, working her warm toes with his fingers. He slid his head under and kissed the soft pad of her foot,
the faint scent of baby powder tickling his senses.
A soft moan escaped her lips when his hand found the inside of her leg and gently pushed it aside so his
mouth could feel the soft skin of her inner thigh. She tensed as he kissed and caressed, gently
awakening her passion. She exhaled when the stubble on his cheek tickled the silky smooth skin. Her
hands found his hair and wove their way through the light curls, then ran down the side of his head,
pulling him into her, hands cupping his ears so that he was deaf, her soft moans unheard.
She was on the brink. He could feel it: the sweat on her palm against his head, the short breaths and
slight quiver erupting through her body. “I need you,” she whispered. She took his head in her hands once
again and forcefully pulled him up. His tongue ran up her stomach, and through the valley of her breasts,
tasting the salty beads of sweat as they began to form on her body in anticipation.
Their tongues met. They fought a mighty war of excitement, lashing at each other, battling with desire.
Their mouths locked together and the battle continued, tongues chasing each other in and out, pushing
and pulling, undulating and writhing.
A soft whimper escaped her lips as he penetrated her. He stopped, their bodies entwined under the
sheets, as close as two people could become. She held him to her, their heads close enough to hear
each other's thoughts, their hearts beating in unison. The same beat as the pulse from her insides
against him.
The pace of their lovemaking was frantic and forceful, both coming to the edge, then stopping, teasing
each other to step off, neither wanting to, both waiting for it to move off before reaching it again, then
stepping back. She reached the summit first, then went over the edge, pulling him along, out of control,
slowly descending from the rapture they achieved until, exhausted, they lay in a heap, hardly able to breath
and unable to move.
She finally moved off him. He got up and went into the bathroom and rinsed off, and when he went back to
the bed, he found her sitting up with a look of deep concentration on her face. “A penny for your thoughts?”
he asked, sliding into bed beside her.
“I've meet someone else and I can't see you anymore,” she said flatly, not looking at him.
For what felt like an entire minute, his heart stopped. Then the cloud moved in. All he could see was the
room, the brown and white room. Everything was brown and white: brown bed, white sheets, brown
carpet, white walls, brown curtains, white window frames. Brown and white everything and it began to
spin, an emotional tornado ripping through his consciousness. He tried to focus on one thing, one thing
that was not brown and white, the green glow of the bedside clock, but it just spiraled into the vortex.
He fell back onto the pillow. Anxiety and fear were replaced by darkness, complete darkness. He could
see nothing, just the clouds of despair rapidly taking hold of his soul.
*****
The telephone rang. He knew it was ‘him’, betrayed by a quiet one-sided conversation of “yes... uh-huh...
okay.” She hung up the phone and said: “You've got to go.”
“Was that him?” he asked, already knowing.
“Yeah, that was Kevin.” A name now, not just ‘him’, but ‘Kevin’. ‘Him’ was what he already knew; if it was
just a ‘him’ he could handle it, it didn’t seem real. But a name, a real person… it stabbed through his heart
like a lance. Kevin was…
“Kevin Bates?” he exclaimed. A sudden flash of lightning filled the room, “one-one thous-...” the storm was
close, “… as in your boss Kevin Bates?”
She nodded. He hoped she would look ashamed, she should, but she didn’t.
“Jesus Christ, Amy!” he whispered sternly, shaking his head. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
“He loves me, Christian,” she responded, chastised.
“And his wife?” He threw the towel to the floor. “For god's sake, Amy, he has two kids.” His voice was rising.
“He's leaving her, he already...”
“Bullshit!” he cut her off. He knew Kevin. How many had there been before? He knew of at least three
before Amy came along. He was hurt. Couldn't she see? Didn't she care? How could she throw away
three years for something that was going to last for maybe three weeks?
Shame began to fill his heart; shame for coming over tonight, shame for being with her, shame for ever
having let her get to him in the first place. He was naked, and putting his pants on did nothing to clothe
him. He brushed past her, struggling to get his arms into his shirt. He grabbed his boots and yanked the
front door open, slamming it back against the wall, and rushed out, barefoot with his shirt half on.
He threw himself against the wall, exhausted, a wave of emotions flooding over him: anger, pain, shame,
frustration, depression... He shook as he tried to slip his boots over his bare feet. The blood rushed from
his head as he stood up and nothing but emptiness replaced what was left of his fragile mind.
The bottom fell out of the elevator. He was plummeting to hell. The fires met him as the doors opened.
He stepped through onto the concrete floor, cool trapped air chilling his bare chest. He floated to his car.
The dampness of the air in this world turned to steam by his own personal hell-fires. The car started with
a roar as he pushed the pedal down and turned the key. He dialed the volume knob all the way to the right
and queued the CD to track nine.
The sound of violins awakened him, the repetitive piano notes started his heart, and the base beat
against his brain:
“Extreme ways are back again.
Extreme places I didn't know
I broke everything new again
Everything that I'd owned”
He pushed the clutch in and pulled the stick into reverse, letting the tires spin slightly as he backed out.
He cranked the wheel hard right, narrowly missing a post before hitting the brakes and letting the car slide
into position.
He slammed into first and revved the engine. His foot dropped off the clutch and the back end kicked out
slightly before moving forward. Sparks flew as the steel bumper of the old Jaguar ground along the guard
rail after a hard left down the spiral ramp. More flew from the right as the car pin-balled down. He jammed
the brakes hard and slid into line for the exit. Then he pinned the gas again.
The passenger mirror shattered as it hit the post on the exit and the car bottomed hard as it flew out of the
garage. He threw the shifter down a gear and cranked hard left, the tires spinning on the rain-soaked
asphalt. The car slid sideways across both lanes as the tires fought to get grip. At last they did and the
green Jag shot forward into the rain.
The wipers had trouble keeping up with the steady downpour as he splashed through the streets. The
light ahead turned yellow. He shifted down to third and matted the accelerator, almost hydroplaning
through the red light before gaining control on the other side. He watched the speedo climb past sixty,
then sixty-five, seventy. The twelve-cylinder motor barely audible over Moby:
“Oh baby, oh baby,
then it fell apart, it fell apart.
Oh baby, oh baby
like it always does, always does”
He hit the brakes and downshifted, pulling the car down to fifty-five before turning right at the next
intersection. It proved too fast. His whole life spun out of control. The sports car spun wildly over the wet
street, lights flashed across every window like a thousand photographers capturing the last moments of
his life. Then it jarred as it hopped the curb and came to rest on the grass.
He sat dazed, watching the wipers sweep back and forth, the headlights shining through the rain and
Extreme Ways tearing away at what was left of his heart.
It took three tries to start the car again. When the big engine fired up he sat in near-silence for a moment.
The dullness was excruciating. He reset the CD back to “Extreme Ways” and eased the car off the grass
and back onto the road. He didn't know where he was going. Not home. He drove around in a blur.
The book is now available at McNally Robinson Booksellers or online at ca.geocities.com/d.ryan_leask.
More fiction in this issue:
The Library
Stoners
Back to main page
This is an excerpt from Counting Down the Storm by Calgary's D. Ryan Leask.
The Break-up
“So, that's it then?”
She just lay there and didn't respond. He didn't expect her to; she’d said enough. He lay there quietly too,
not wanting her to know he was crying; he hadn't expected this. Well, he had, actually… fuck, he didn't
know what he expected, she was never an open book. He reached down to the side of the bed and fished
his cigarettes from his jeans, knocked one out and lit it, took a long drag and set the pack on the
nightstand. She leaned over him, her soft breasts pressed against his chest as she reached for his
smokes. “When did you start again?” he asked.
She moved back and tucked the sheets under her arm, contemplating her cigarette. “Today,” she said, a
small cloud of smoke escaping her lips. She looked at him, his tears obvious on his face. “You okay?” It
was his turn to be quiet.
He pushed the sheets back, stood up and wandered over to the balcony doors. There was a chill in the
room, or was it just her? He wrapped his goose-fleshed arms around himself and stared at the night
lights of the city shimmering through the random streams of water running down the glass.
A flash of lightning illuminated the horizon. He counted in his head, “one-one thousand, two-one
thousand, three-one thousand, four-one...” a clap of thunder. It was an old habit, calculating the distance
of the storm. He took a long drag from his Marlboro and opened the doors. The wind blew a spattering of
rain onto his naked body as he stepped out. It felt good, every drop washing her smell from him.
“What is it called,” he pondered, “vertigo?” The pull came from below, a sudden urge to step off the edge,
to fly. He could feel it tugging at his soul. “Come to me, just jump and it will all go away.” He stood
hypnotized, looking longingly at the sidewalk below. A few cars splashed through the streets and a siren
off in the distance raced to an unlikely fire in a rain-soaked city.
“What are you doing?” she asked, “You're going to catch a cold. Come in, I'll bring you a towel.” He didn't
see her standing at the doors, the comforter wrapped around her shoulders––he couldn't, she was
outside his vortex, the black hole surrounding him from the moment she had told him.
They had just finished making love. It wasn't really making love; they never made love. They fucked. There
had never been any love to make, he realized that now. Was that all he had been to her? A surrogate
penis, a cock to fill her emptiness? He flicked his cigarette over the edge and watched it drift down, like he
wanted to do, little red specks −of blood? − dotted the sidewalk and then were quickly extinguished. His
mind was wandering, his thoughts darting. What had she said? “I've met someone else.” Was that all?
Who was he? Had she said that much? He couldn't recall. Every time he tried to, this voice kept saying,
“Come to me, just jump and it will all go away.” He pressed his waist against the cold metal and leaned
over.
“Christian.” She broke his hypnosis. He stepped back, startled. She stood there at the door, holding a
towel. He could see her now. He could see everything.
He took it from her and went inside. “I'm sorry, it's just...” but she couldn't finish. There was no apology, no
explanation that could make things better. Is that why she had allowed him to come to her?
*****
“Christian, can you come over?” Her soft voice asked on the phone longingly. “I need you.” He looked over
at his clock: 11:37. He'd been asleep for an hour.
“What is it?” he asked. He always asked but knew what these late night calls were. She never seemed to
need him except then. Three years… three years and it had always been him that pursued her. The
daylight meetings, the walks in the park, concerts, old movies on rainy Sunday afternoons… it was him,
but late at night, she chased him. Maybe this time he wouldn't go. But he knew he would, and so did she.
He let himself in with his key and found her sleeping in her bed, her form gently rising and falling. He
quietly walked in and undressed, careful not to wake her, then walked barefoot over the cold floor to the
end of the bed, watching her sleep. He slid his hand under the covers; she stirred as he massaged her
feet, working her warm toes with his fingers. He slid his head under and kissed the soft pad of her foot,
the faint scent of baby powder tickling his senses.
A soft moan escaped her lips when his hand found the inside of her leg and gently pushed it aside so his
mouth could feel the soft skin of her inner thigh. She tensed as he kissed and caressed, gently
awakening her passion. She exhaled when the stubble on his cheek tickled the silky smooth skin. Her
hands found his hair and wove their way through the light curls, then ran down the side of his head,
pulling him into her, hands cupping his ears so that he was deaf, her soft moans unheard.
She was on the brink. He could feel it: the sweat on her palm against his head, the short breaths and
slight quiver erupting through her body. “I need you,” she whispered. She took his head in her hands once
again and forcefully pulled him up. His tongue ran up her stomach, and through the valley of her breasts,
tasting the salty beads of sweat as they began to form on her body in anticipation.
Their tongues met. They fought a mighty war of excitement, lashing at each other, battling with desire.
Their mouths locked together and the battle continued, tongues chasing each other in and out, pushing
and pulling, undulating and writhing.
A soft whimper escaped her lips as he penetrated her. He stopped, their bodies entwined under the
sheets, as close as two people could become. She held him to her, their heads close enough to hear
each other's thoughts, their hearts beating in unison. The same beat as the pulse from her insides
against him.
The pace of their lovemaking was frantic and forceful, both coming to the edge, then stopping, teasing
each other to step off, neither wanting to, both waiting for it to move off before reaching it again, then
stepping back. She reached the summit first, then went over the edge, pulling him along, out of control,
slowly descending from the rapture they achieved until, exhausted, they lay in a heap, hardly able to breath
and unable to move.
She finally moved off him. He got up and went into the bathroom and rinsed off, and when he went back to
the bed, he found her sitting up with a look of deep concentration on her face. “A penny for your thoughts?”
he asked, sliding into bed beside her.
“I've meet someone else and I can't see you anymore,” she said flatly, not looking at him.
For what felt like an entire minute, his heart stopped. Then the cloud moved in. All he could see was the
room, the brown and white room. Everything was brown and white: brown bed, white sheets, brown
carpet, white walls, brown curtains, white window frames. Brown and white everything and it began to
spin, an emotional tornado ripping through his consciousness. He tried to focus on one thing, one thing
that was not brown and white, the green glow of the bedside clock, but it just spiraled into the vortex.
He fell back onto the pillow. Anxiety and fear were replaced by darkness, complete darkness. He could
see nothing, just the clouds of despair rapidly taking hold of his soul.
*****
The telephone rang. He knew it was ‘him’, betrayed by a quiet one-sided conversation of “yes... uh-huh...
okay.” She hung up the phone and said: “You've got to go.”
“Was that him?” he asked, already knowing.
“Yeah, that was Kevin.” A name now, not just ‘him’, but ‘Kevin’. ‘Him’ was what he already knew; if it was
just a ‘him’ he could handle it, it didn’t seem real. But a name, a real person… it stabbed through his heart
like a lance. Kevin was…
“Kevin Bates?” he exclaimed. A sudden flash of lightning filled the room, “one-one thous-...” the storm was
close, “… as in your boss Kevin Bates?”
She nodded. He hoped she would look ashamed, she should, but she didn’t.
“Jesus Christ, Amy!” he whispered sternly, shaking his head. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
“He loves me, Christian,” she responded, chastised.
“And his wife?” He threw the towel to the floor. “For god's sake, Amy, he has two kids.” His voice was rising.
“He's leaving her, he already...”
“Bullshit!” he cut her off. He knew Kevin. How many had there been before? He knew of at least three
before Amy came along. He was hurt. Couldn't she see? Didn't she care? How could she throw away
three years for something that was going to last for maybe three weeks?
Shame began to fill his heart; shame for coming over tonight, shame for being with her, shame for ever
having let her get to him in the first place. He was naked, and putting his pants on did nothing to clothe
him. He brushed past her, struggling to get his arms into his shirt. He grabbed his boots and yanked the
front door open, slamming it back against the wall, and rushed out, barefoot with his shirt half on.
He threw himself against the wall, exhausted, a wave of emotions flooding over him: anger, pain, shame,
frustration, depression... He shook as he tried to slip his boots over his bare feet. The blood rushed from
his head as he stood up and nothing but emptiness replaced what was left of his fragile mind.
The bottom fell out of the elevator. He was plummeting to hell. The fires met him as the doors opened.
He stepped through onto the concrete floor, cool trapped air chilling his bare chest. He floated to his car.
The dampness of the air in this world turned to steam by his own personal hell-fires. The car started with
a roar as he pushed the pedal down and turned the key. He dialed the volume knob all the way to the right
and queued the CD to track nine.
The sound of violins awakened him, the repetitive piano notes started his heart, and the base beat
against his brain:
“Extreme ways are back again.
Extreme places I didn't know
I broke everything new again
Everything that I'd owned”
He pushed the clutch in and pulled the stick into reverse, letting the tires spin slightly as he backed out.
He cranked the wheel hard right, narrowly missing a post before hitting the brakes and letting the car slide
into position.
He slammed into first and revved the engine. His foot dropped off the clutch and the back end kicked out
slightly before moving forward. Sparks flew as the steel bumper of the old Jaguar ground along the guard
rail after a hard left down the spiral ramp. More flew from the right as the car pin-balled down. He jammed
the brakes hard and slid into line for the exit. Then he pinned the gas again.
The passenger mirror shattered as it hit the post on the exit and the car bottomed hard as it flew out of the
garage. He threw the shifter down a gear and cranked hard left, the tires spinning on the rain-soaked
asphalt. The car slid sideways across both lanes as the tires fought to get grip. At last they did and the
green Jag shot forward into the rain.
The wipers had trouble keeping up with the steady downpour as he splashed through the streets. The
light ahead turned yellow. He shifted down to third and matted the accelerator, almost hydroplaning
through the red light before gaining control on the other side. He watched the speedo climb past sixty,
then sixty-five, seventy. The twelve-cylinder motor barely audible over Moby:
“Oh baby, oh baby,
then it fell apart, it fell apart.
Oh baby, oh baby
like it always does, always does”
He hit the brakes and downshifted, pulling the car down to fifty-five before turning right at the next
intersection. It proved too fast. His whole life spun out of control. The sports car spun wildly over the wet
street, lights flashed across every window like a thousand photographers capturing the last moments of
his life. Then it jarred as it hopped the curb and came to rest on the grass.
He sat dazed, watching the wipers sweep back and forth, the headlights shining through the rain and
Extreme Ways tearing away at what was left of his heart.
It took three tries to start the car again. When the big engine fired up he sat in near-silence for a moment.
The dullness was excruciating. He reset the CD back to “Extreme Ways” and eased the car off the grass
and back onto the road. He didn't know where he was going. Not home. He drove around in a blur.
The book is now available at McNally Robinson Booksellers or online at ca.geocities.com/d.ryan_leask.
More fiction in this issue:
The Library
Stoners
Back to main page
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Feel free to join our Mailing list or our
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our ultimate goal of paying all the artists
who contribute to the magazine, as well
as to improve the website and build the
infrastructure necessary to further unite
art and activism in the Calgary
community. If you like the magazine
and the values it stands for, please feel
welcome to contribute.
Equally important is to get the word out.
Advertising is expensive, and the best
advertising is by word of mouth. If you
like the magazine, or any content in
particular, please take a few moments
to share the link with your friends.
Feel free to join our Mailing list or our
Facebook group.