Loneliness

Like a heartbeat drives you mad

in the stillness of remembering

what you had and what you lost

-Fleetwood Mac, Dreams

Rick lay in his cell and stared up at the ceiling. Beth had very kindly taken over for him with Judith. She’d seen the dark circles under his eyes and knew he wasn’t up for a two a.m. feeding. He should have been resting but his mind wouldn’t shut down.

The full moon hung high in the clear night sky. It was bright enough to illuminate the gray walls of the cell block. He’d spent much of his career dealing with jails, with bars that kept lawbreakers inside, away from law-abiding citizens. He’d always cringed at the idea of calling a place like this home, but now he was glad to have it. What had once kept the bad inside, away from good people, was now used to keep the bad out, and the good people safe inside.

As usual, when he couldn’t sleep, Rick’s thoughts turned to Lori. He’d lost his sanity for a while. He’d seen her everywhere around the prison grounds and that was all he’d needed to know he’d lost his mind. Then he’d brought the Woodbury survivors into the prison and she’d disappeared. He supposed that meant his sanity had returned. Without the hope of seeing her, even the illusion of her, had brought crushing loneliness that nothing could dispel. He’d cried, cursed God and walkers alike, but nothing soothed that terrible, aching knot in the pit of his stomach.

He hated the silence. The only sounds were the occasional snore or, at times, the sighs of a couple making love quietly in their cell. He wished it would rain if for no other reason than to give him something to listen to besides the memory of every fight he'd ever had with Lori, and the sound of his own heart thudding in his ears.

A shadow crossed the privacy curtain that was only half pulled closed over his cell. He recognized Carol’s silhouette at once. It was the middle of the night, so it wasn’t odd that she would be dressed only in a nightshirt. What was odd was that she’d come to his cell.

“What happened?” Rick demanded to know. “Is it Carl? Judith? Is there a breach?”

She held up her hand and shook her head. “The kids are fine. Everything is fine,” Carol whispered. “I’m here about you. Or, I should say, I’m here for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Without asking, Carol came fully into Rick’s cell and knelt beside his bunk. He tensed. He could see a lot of smooth skin high up on her thigh. The shirt she wore was as thin as tissue paper. He could see the darker circles of her nipples through the material. He’d never seen so much of Carol’s flesh. He’d never even tried to look, honestly, when he considered she had something going on with Daryl that neither he nor anyone else seemed to understand.

“I know what you’re feeling right now,” she said. “I’ve been watching you and I see the weariness. I see your sadness. It’s more than just sadness, though. You’re feeling bone deep loneliness.”

That was true. He supposed Carol would understand considering she was a widow.

“I felt the same way about two years into my marriage. That’s when the real Ed started to surface. The illusion of the good man I thought I’d married was dead. Rather than get out I mourned the death of the lie and stayed with the monster. I was pregnant and scared and I realized I’d married a man just like my stepfather.”

She fell silent. Rick lay there, watching her face. He thought she was probably ten years older than him but she had such a youthful, kind face. She actually looked younger now than she had when Ed had been alive, when he first met her in the camp. She was growing her hair out and she was wearing the clothes not of a housewife, as she had been, but of the warrior she was becoming.

“I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I had no one to comfort me. I don’t want you to suffer this grief alone, Rick. Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” he answered at once.

Carol smiled. “Then trust me when I say I know what you need. I can give that to you.”

He was trying to figure out what she meant when she reached out and unbuckled his belt. She undid it with swift, efficient movements and then started on the button of his jeans. She unzipped him and then looked up at him as she slipped her fingers into the material of his jeans and boxers, ready to pull them down.

“Trust me,” she whispered.

“Daryl--”

“We’re not,” she said, putting that question to rest.

His mind was screaming at him to stop her, that this was wrong, that sex wasn’t what he needed, but he couldn’t quite get an objection to pass his lips. His traitorous hips lifted from the bed and she pulled his pants down. Then she unbuttoned his shirt and exposed his chest before standing up and pulling the thin nightshirt she wore off.

Carol was a mature woman, older than him, but she was very fit and healthy. Her hips had a more pronounced curve than Lori’s had. Her breasts were heavier, as well. He felt like a spectator in his own body as he lay there and watched her kneel over him. She dipped her head and began to stroke his cock with her tongue in long, slow, warm licks. His body responded at once. He hardened, almost painfully so, and gripped the rough blanket beneath him as she took him into her mouth.

Quiet sex was something Rick and Lori had mastered over their years together. He instinctively knew how to sigh rather than moan his pleasure. His eyes fluttered closed as Carol expertly licked, suckled, and teased him with her mouth. She proved she was very good at oral sex. She also proved she was very good at sex, period, when he felt her roll a condom over him.

His eyes opened. Carol ran her hands up his chest and then flattened them for balance before lowering herself onto him with a long, slow sigh of her own. All thoughts of Lori, of the prison, of the hardships of life and the problems he was having with his son, and his own shattered mind, were suddenly gone at the feel of her moving over him. She rolled her hips, she squeezed him inside, using her body and years of experience as a lover, to please him. He slowly ran his hands up her strong thighs. They were every bit as smooth and soft as they looked.

A slight whimper escaped Rick when he came. Otherwise the entire event happened without much sound. Without word, Carol stood and grabbed her shirt, pulling it on. She leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips.

“Get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

She left, pulling his curtain fully closed, and Rick disposed of the condom, pulled up his jeans and zipped up, and then turned onto his side. He was exhausted but that tension deep in is gut was gone. Weeks of sleepless nights since losing Lori were suddenly gone, and sleep crashed over him with the power of a tsunami.

*****

When Rick woke it was almost noon. The sun was bright but his privacy curtain blocked most of it out. He got up and stretched, feeling relaxed and rested for the first time since leaving Hershel’s farm. He thought back on last night and would have assumed it was a dream without the used condom as evidence. He wrapped it up in some tissue paper and then tossed it in the wastebasket. His stomach was growling and he could smell something cooking downstairs, but first he was going to indulge in a shower.

“There you are,” Carl said, when Rick came to the cafeteria. “You okay, Dad? I was gonna wake you but Carol said let you sleep.”

Rick’s eyes went to Carol. She stood stirring a pot of soup over the gas cooker. She smiled at him, looking relaxed with no hint of what they’d done in the early morning hours betrayed on her face.

“I’m glad you listened to her. Carol has a way of knowing just what I need.”

She winked once and he came over to get a taste of the soup she was cooking.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Anything for a friend,” she said, and continued stirring the soup.

“Come on, Carl,” Rick said, nodding at the door and motioning for his son to join him. “We’ve got a garden to tend to.”