I want a girl with lips like morphine
Blow a kiss that leaves me gasping
I want to feel that lightning strike me
And burn me down.
—Kill Hannah

Lips Like Morphine

Kissing Helga G. Pataki was unlike anything Arnold had ever experienced.

He'd only ever dated girls who were nice, girls who were soft, girls who kissed like they were afraid he might break them. Girls whose hands cradled his face, who giggled when their lips met.

Helga was different. There was nothing nice about the way she pushed him against his bedroom door the instant it was closed behind them. Nothing soft in the way she grasped him, fingertips leaving bruises where they touched, pink lines where nails raked skin. She didn't so much as kiss him as devour him, with harsh lips and impatient teeth and an insistent tongue, taking what she wanted when she wanted until he was left, weak-kneed and breathless, feeling as if there was nothing left inside of him save heat and whatever air they shared.

Arnold was wanted by her in a way he'd never been wanted by anyone else. It was in the marks she left with her mouth, the scratches she etched with her nails. Was in the way she pressed against him as if to mold their bodies into one. Was in the way she looked at him, fire and yearning and need, her eyes tracking his every twitch and shudder as if to brand it all to memory. Words were rarely shared between them in those moments, but they were rarely needed, spoken through touch, by taste, with gaze. Felt as palms on his chest, fingers in his hair, legs tight around his waist. Breaths shared.

It was intoxicating, kissing Helga. Being with her. Being wanted by her. Wanting her in turn. Arnold couldn't get enough. He wondered, sometimes, how he'd ever been content dating nice, soft girls who didn't slam him into vertical surfaces and throw him down onto flat ones, who didn't crawl over him like they were predators and pin him down like he was prey.

He couldn't help but think there was something wrong with him—such as when he caught himself reverently tracing the marks Helga left behind, and when he couldn't sleep because his body felt unmoored without another's to hold it down—but they were fleeting thoughts, easily discarded.

Maybe he was crazy, but at least he wasn't alone in the madness. He wasn't the only one whose eyes lingered on suction marks, who outlined teeth imprints and made patterns from scratches like they were all something to be cherished. And he couldn't count the number of times Helga had snuck into his attic room in the middle of night, skin like ice as she crawled under his covers and wrapped herself around him, kissing the shell of his ear or the nape of his neck before falling dead to the world, as though Arnold's touch, his presence, was everything she needed to sleep.

It wasn't all fire and ferocity. There were tender moments too, interludes where the touches they shared were soft, and looks between them were gentle. Where they did little else but hold hands, kiss leisurely, and murmur into each other's ears heart-felt things seldom spoken with words. Those moments weren't frequent, but they were all the more remarkable for it, like clear skies after days of stunning storms. Not better—just different.

Arnold wasn't under any delusions that their relationship was a conventional one—not like Gerald's and Phoebe's, or like Rhonda's and Nadine's. But it was theirs, something they'd built together with their own hands, fragile at first but reinforced with time and trial and error. And he wouldn't change it for anything, regardless the countless heartaches and arguments, doors slamming shut and bedsheets growing cold, apologetic voicemails and kisses that tasted of salt.

Because he was happy more than he wasn't, and he knew that Helga felt the same, and in the end, wasn't that the only thing that mattered?

Fin.

Author's Note: I hope you liked it! Thanks for reading!