Alice

Alice picked desultorily at her salad, moving pieces of shrimp under the romaine as if they embarrassed her. She only ordered it because having  already had one date with Ron, she knew she would need a distraction, something to fiddle with while he droned on.. She also, not yet in a comfort zone with Ron or Ronnie-Carole referred to him both ways, she had gone with the Arnold Palmer instead of her desired and probably necessary double Blue Sapphire Martini with  three olives.  

He had surprised her, she’d give him that. She said nothing right off, just kept that quizzical smile that she thought was equal parts cute and perturbed. She cut her eyes left and right to assure he hadn’t been overheard. And that she had heard correctly. Her thoughts were split between, “What the actual fuck?” and “Was Carole pranking her with this guy?”

She used to think it was her, but not anymore. She had learned from a tender age to assume that men were broken beings. She imagined that there were all manner of maladies and catastrophes that befell men and assumed that it was inevitable-the nature of things-and happened at an early age. More than that she was unhappily certain she would find out on her life’s journey.

She had just turned fourteen when her friend Chrissie’s step dad was driving her home after she’d had dinner with them. It was not uncommon as that was the year of the sleepover when it seemed nobody could spend a whole week at home without breaking it up with a night or two at a friend’s house. There to read magazines, listen to music, sometimes sneak liquor and play spin the bottle which she wasn’t sure she would have enjoyed as much had there been boys. Kissing games had led to other games that had winnowed the numbers of girls who would come to the sleepovers.  

But this one time, when Jim, which is what Chrissie’s step dad insisted all the kids call him-”Mr. Cooper was my father”-he’d say, had pulled off into the parking lot of Beto’s Lounge which had burned to the ground years before and only existed in memories and as a weathered sign on a rusty pole in a broken asphalt parking lot. It was dark back here and people would swing in  to pee in the tall grass if they couldn’t make it home. Alice had assumed that was why they stopped. But Jim didn’t get out, didn’t even move, just stared straight ahead so intently that Alice followed his gaze to see if there was anything in the scrub woods that had overtaken the collapsed foundation. Then Alice noticed how he was squeezing and rubbing his hands on the steering wheel. Not exactly nervous, but something. 

She knew that older kids with cars would also pull in here to neck. Suddenly she had a thought that he might kiss her. She wouldn’t have minded that probably. He was cool and she’d kissed boys of course, but not men. That would be new. Then, just when she was getting ready to feel his arm across the back of her shoulders to pull her close he said, “I’d like you to do me a favor.” 

“Sure.” she said. She had spent enough time with him and his family to have no qualms. 

“Don’t do it if you don’t want to and-this is important-it has to be a secret, just between us.”

Only then did she feel a little flutter in her stomach. A tightening in her chest. “Sure,” she repeated. “What should I do?” He told her to get in the back seat. She’d been in the back seat with a boy before and hadn’t liked it much but she trusted Jim.  She  got out and opened the back door and slid in. He stayed in the front seat behind the wheel. He was looking at her in the rear view mirror. “Lay on the seat”, he told her. She did. “On your belly”, he said. She flipped over. 

When she looked back over her shoulder he was adjusting the mirror downward. 

“Now Alice”, he said slowly, as though he was having trouble speaking. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“I’m not”, she said, not lying.

“And don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

 “OK”, she said. “What do you want me to do?”she asked, already knowing. 

“Push down your jeans” By the time he said it she already had her hands at work, unsnapping and unzipping. He was watching in the mirror. Maybe she would have felt more uncomfortable if she hadn’t done this once already this evening. 

Those are cute panties”, he said as if talking to a child. “Are those hearts?” he asked.

“Roses”, she answered. 

“Oh. I couldn’t make them out in the mirror.”

“You can turn around and look. I don’t mind.” She certainly wouldn’t tell him that she wore these panties tonight because Chrissie liked them. “Would you push them down for me?” She hesitated for a moment as if considering, but could not imagine why she would not. Though the air in the car was thick and seemed to press, it was calm. There was no movement, no sound except the stray car hissing by out of sight, the only illumination from the rear dome light shining directly down on her. There was no way she wasn’t going to do what he asked. So he wanted to see her butt. So what? She lifted and wriggled until her panties were down her thighs with her jeans. 

It must have gotten very quiet then, because she could hear Jim’s breathing. “Roll up on your side,” he said, “facing the back.” She took a moment to translate for herself what he was wanting. Simple enough. She rolled her face into the backseat, her bottom facing the front. Again,  silence filled the car, broken only by his breathing. Alice brought her arm up under her head, making herself a little more comfortable. Then she heard a quickening and a rustling as if mice were running loose up front. Then a cough and moan and the air filled with the spunky smell of warm bread dough. Which is the only way she could describe it-but she knew what it was. He groaned a bit more, then there was more rustling and Alice remembered the wadded paper bag on the front seat, left over from a burger and fries. 

“You can pull your pants up.” His voice was thick and phlegmy. He had started to weep as she pulled her panties up. By the time she was sitting and snapping her jeans, he was full on sobbing. Jesus, Alice thought. Not this. Her own father was a crier and she found it highly disturbing. As she saw it, it was her job, as a young woman, to cry her way through things she didn’t like or understand. She didn’t, of course but it was her prerogative. He should be the steady one, hand on the wheel, helping her to navigate. That was the only fair division of labor in adult-child relationships. And he wasn’t stopping, nor even slowing. He apologized again and again and tried to explain himself. There was something about his wife in there and sleeping in different rooms. Jesus! Enough, already. Alice would have happily gotten naked and sat in his lap if he would stop blubbering.

Finally, he ebbed, then subsided altogether as this time she was the one watching in the rear view. He said, “Well”, matter of factly then wiped his eyes roughly with the heels of his hands in a way she thought manly. Then he rolled the window part way down and killed the dome light. “You want a cigarette?” He asked.

“I don’t smoke”, she said.

“Good”, he answered. “I think Chrissie is starting.”

She was, but Alice said nothing.

She heard the scratch and pop of a match then saw the flare as he inhaled deeply and blew a stream of smoke out of the window.

“You can come back up front”, he said.

Thinking of the sad stained burger bag wadded somewhere up there, she said she was fine where she was. “That’s cool, too”, he said and started the car. He adjusted the mirror yet again and she saw his red wet eyes in the glow of the dash. “Our secret, right?”

“Our secret”, she repeated.”

“Seriously,” he said, “this is my life, we’re talking about.”

“Mine too Mr. Cooper.. You think I would want to tell anyone about this?”

“Right”, he said. “Sorry, I just…”

“Enough”, she said, suddenly tired and opting to get angry instead of sad. “Just take me home.”

They drove in silence for the fifteen minutes it took to pull up in front of Alice’s house. Before he could say anything, she yelped a quick “g’night” and was out the door and up the walk. Like a responsible Dad he waited there until she opened the door then, like a good girl, waved before stepping through and closing it behind her.

There Were No Lights in Ft. Rox Anymore

Not bothering to look around for prying eyes because he didn’t give a shit, Junior Garland twisted the top off a tiny whiskey bottle with a small cracking sound and emptied it into his black coffee. He sat across from his only friend (stretching the definition) Bob Lincoln in the back booth of Rita’s Diner, the last stop on Bender Street before it turned into State Route 51 and headed out of what was left of town. They were two of the eight people in the joint, about average for the morning rush since the Bob Evans had opened next to Micky D’s less than four miles down 51.  He had parked his pickup in the back next to the dumpster and as out of sight as it could be. He had tied two tarps over the bed covering the cargo in the back which was adequate as long as no one was looking for it. And someone would certainly be soon. 

Mary Lou, the long time waitress and, with her husband Gary, owner of the Diner (There was no Rita) came by with the coffee pot. 

“Jesus Junior”, she said, seeing the empty beside his cup. “At least don’t advertise..” 

Without looking up, Junior covered the bottle with his wide paw and scooped it into his side pocket. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out another. He tipped it toward Mary Lou, “You want a pick me up? I have more.”

“No thanks”, she said, nodding toward the kitchen where Gary worked  “Enough booze in the family with that one. I’ll stay out of it.”

“Take him one, then,” said Junior, offering.

“You think he don’t have a bottle in there?”

Junior grinned humorlessly across the table, “See? I can’t even do a good deed.” He snapped the screw top  and dumped the liquor into his newly refilled cup. 

Bob watched her walk away, especially her slim calves and snugly fit skit. She had kept her figure, he’d give her that. He and “Lou” didn’t interact much though they’d known each other since grade school. There seemed to be a mutual concern that the hunger for each other that had driven their fling so many years before had not been completely sated. It was the summer after graduation when it seemed that everybody was going into the mill down in Brownsville or to Nam. Bob had done both. Two tours, then to the mill where he was a shift foreman. He and Lou’s thing  hadn’t lasted long, just a couple of weeks when Gary, her unofficial fiancee even then, was up in Pittsburgh training for a steel mill job that would have been sweet but he ultimately didn’t keep.

With his flat expression, Junior reached for and poured a third shot into his cup. 

“Did you sleep at all?”Bob asked him.

“Who has time?” the big guy grumbled, lighting a cigarette with hands that trembled slightly. 

“My question is how did you get those tanks into your truck?”

Junior shrugged, staring blankly into the black of his coffee where a tiny gray ash floated. “Just picked them up and pushed”, he said as if they weighed thirty pounds and not 300. 

All that Bobby knew for sure was that sometime overnight, Junior had stolen two welders and three acetylene tanks from the railroad. He didn’t need them; couldn’t use them, but they were there to be had. You’d have to be a mook not to take something that was there for you. At least that was the thought process of an over muscled hopped-up sometime thief. Thing was, Junior had a good job in Brownsville, but he also had a need to stay ahead of “them”. All them that were waiting for him to go broke, lose his job, be weak in any way. He had had enough weakness when one season of college ball ensured he’d never follow so many of his friends and teammates to the jungle. Months in a walker, then on crutches left him gimpy, angry, and vengeful.  Maybe overseas he could have proven himself to himself and wouldn’ have to pull off dangerous hair-brained schemes that always were just short of blowing up and taking him and everybody around him down. 

The central concern at the moment was that Junior’s latest haul had come from the railroad. How he’d managed to break into the storage car was a story that Bob didn’t even want to know. And most of the remaining populace of dwindling Fort Rocaceau-an over named coal patch town roughly twenty miles upstream from Pittsburgh-worked for or had some connection to the railroad. They had already had the uncomfortable conversation about why Bob couldn’t store them for him. 

Sometime during the caper, Junior had gotten it in his mind that since Bob wasn’t a townie, had fifty acres and a couple of outbuildings down Hanging Rock Parkway he could stash them there till the heat died down. Who would ever know? But Bob knew, once that stuff settled onto a spot at his place-his wife’s family’s actually-Junior, once down off his larcenous high, would forget about it. And once he was straight he’d never be able to move them.  Plus, Bob’s pain-in-the dick brother in law was retired railroad and could not be counted on not to be snooping around looking for old shit of his old man’s which was still in the outbuildings. 

So no, this stuff had to go and go quick and given all the prying eyes around town, it was best to get rid of it a county or two away. So after a couple of calls from the pay phone outside of Rita’s,  the plan was to haul them as they set in Junior’s pickup down to Uniontown where an Army buddy of Bob’s would take them off their hands for a decent price. But now, the plan in motion, the big man seemed hesitant. 

“What?” asked Bob who was familiar with the ebbs and flows of Junior’s moods ranging as they did from gravel gray to asphalt black. 

“How well you know this guy?”, he asked his coffee.

“He’s solid”, Bob replied, trying to will his partner to meet his eyes.

“We get all the way down there and he tries to fuck me, I’ll burn him down”,  he rumbled, finally looking up. 

Bob made a show of sighing, demonstrating that there was no issue. Junior’s taste for violence was legendary but not many people had, like Bob, been close to it. Had seen it bloom from a small seed, like this short sentence silently nursed by constant brooding, into a conflagration that left people broken and questioning their decisions.

“Did you talk to him?” Bob asked, trying to pull him out of his darkness.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did he give you a price?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you like the price?”

Junior shrugged, finding logic bothersome in his current mindset. 

“Did you like the price?” Bob repeated

“It’s OK”, he mumbled.

“Cause if you don’t like it, get back on the horn and save us the fucking drive. But you gotta figure out something. You hold onto that shit, the Staties will be knocking at your door within a week.”

“Fuck them too.”

“OK, good. Fuck the Staties.” Sometimes when he used his old Sergeant’s voice he could penetrate Junior’s black fogs. One day he was going to find out who sold this guy crank and would kick his ass. “What do you think, Sheila’s going to come back from Florida and take care of Denise when you go to prison?”

“Fuck her”, he grumbled.

“Who? Denise or Sheila”, asked Bob, confused but not.

“Sheila!”

“OK, but you go away, something’s gotta happen with Denise. You think about that?”

“Figured she’d live with you and Rose”, he said, back to staring into his cup. 

Bob looked at the man’s hands, scarred and broken, healed and rebroken, from a life of hard labor and fighting. Christ, he thought. He’s thought this out. He reached over and popped the big man on his beefy bicep with the side of his fist.

“You better leave behind a good wad of cash, cause two girls in the house will double Rose’s gin budget.”

Junior grinned at that. Bob never liked to talk about his wife’s drinking, something Junior used when he needed to needle a bit. “Girls coming?” he asked. 

Since they were toddlers Denise and Janie had been  tag-alongs on most of their father’s escapades. That was Bob’s word. What he had liked in the early days was the cover that little girls provided from the suspicions of cops or anyone else. What could these guys be doing with their daughters in tow?

“I brought them with me.” Bob answered. 

Where they at?, asked Junior. 

“Over the paper store playing the machine.”

“Best get ‘em, then,” said Junior, getting up. 

Bob tossed a few dollars on the table and waited to make sure Junior didn’t pocket them, then headed out. He crossed the street and opened the screen door at the paper store. 

He looked past the empty soda fountain and rows of comic books toward the back waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim inside. He heard the clack and bong of the machine before he was able to focus and see Denise leaning into the pinball machine. She was as lean and rangy as her old man was thick and stocky. 

“Time to go, girls!” he called. Denise spun away from the machine without a second thought about the game in play. She was wearing black jeans, cuffed over black boots and a flannel shirt open over a black jersey. She wore her black hair feathered over her ears and above her collar. Her face hadn’t yet grown into her overbite so she kept her mouth mostly shut giving her the look of the typical sullen teen, at least five years older than she was. Janie, Bob’s daughter was a full head shorter, looked more like a kid, honey colored and freckled like a dust storm with a thick mop of sandy brown hair parted in the middle that cascaded down to her shoulders. She wore bib jeans as so many kids did, and sneakers and bounced rather than walked.  

The problem with this caper was that Junior’s truck was a single cab with only a bench seat and a small storage area behind which even if the girls could squeeze into it the sideways sitting would result in double car sickness. It was Denise-the older of the two-who  suggested they ride in the bed with the “the goods” she called them. 

Bob realized immediately that the camouflage he hoped to gain with the girls would be offset by the riding in the bed of a pickup an hour down the highway. Junior even saw that. He opened the tailgate revealing the half of the bed not full of stolen equipment. 

“Crawl in here. There’s another tarp folded for yinz to lay on.”

With an audible sigh, Denise lifted a knee onto the open tailgate and crawled into the void under the tarp wanting to put the grownups literally behind her.  By the time Janie followed, she was already on her back, hands intertwined behind her head staring at the canvas. Janie lay beside her, mirroring. 

“Who thought this was a good idea?” said Denise.

“It’s fun. Gets me out of the house. I bet we can get them to buy us burgers in Uniontown.”

“Fries?”

“No doubt.”

They lay in silence while the truck bounced out of the parking lot then tried to guess where they were as they picked up speed then slowed at stop signs. There were no traffic lights in Fort Rox anymore. Dull sunlight leaked in around the edges of the tarp and before long they could see. Once the steady hum of the tires announced they were on the highway, Denise flipped onto her side, her hand braced by her elbow holding her head. Like her little shadow, Janie did the same, facing her. 

“You know this stuff’s all stolen right?” asked Denise. 

“No.” 

“Well, yes-he’s such a fucking asshole. When he didn’t come home last night I knew he was up to no good.” 

“Where’d he steal it?”

“Who knows, who cares?”

“Why?”

Same, same.

“Isn’t he afraid he’ll get caught?”

“He’s too dumb to be afraid.”

Dennie!” Janie had never heard a discouraging word from Denise about her father. 

“He is! He’s too dumb to be a criminal too. Just fearless and mean. What happens when he gets caught? He’ll be fine-a blockhead like him-but what will happen to me?”

Janie could see tears glinting in her friend’s eyes. She scooched a little closer. “I’ll take care of you,” she said quietly. 

Denise smiled down at her. “You’re a midget”, she said, an old taunt. “You can’t take care of yourself”.

With a huff, Janie pushed herself up and then, sitting as straight as the tarp cover would allow, slapped Denise hard on the butt.

“Ow!” the older girl barked. “What was that for?”

“I’m not a midget! You’re just a stringbean.” 

Denise was rubbing her backside. “That hurt!.

“Cause you got a skinny butt. A little slap like that wouldn’t  hurt my ass”. They were close enough that they could feel each other’s breath. Janie was watching Denise’s mouth closely and smelling the light whiff of the spearmint gum she chewed at the paper store. Then without warning and without even knowing she was going to do it though she’d often thought about the how and when of it, she stretched her neck and pressed her lips to Denise’s first lightly then harder so their teeth clicked. She pulled away testing the waters.

“Why’d you do that?” Asked Denise.

Janie shrugged, which didn’t translate laying down, “Wanted to. You mad?”

“No”, said Denise, which Janie took as permission to do it again. This time the older girl kissed back lightly and opened her mouth slightly to accommodate Janie’s prodding tongue. Denise then felt her friend’s hand trying to jam itself down the back of her jeans blocked by her wide belt. 

“What are you doing back there?”

“Just feeling around.”

Without a word, Denise flopped onto her back, undid her belt, and unsnapped her jeans. Then she came back up onto her side facing Janie. “Only my butt”, she directed “Nothing else.” The girl thrust her hand down inside her jeans and panties exploring the angles and contours of Denise’s slim backside. With her hand cupping the bottom of her bottom, Janie kissed her again, hard with an open mouth the way she’d seen in the movies. By the way Denise kissed back, she was pretty sure this wasn’t her first time. 

“You get enough?” Denise asked after the long kiss. 

“I got some, I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough.”

“Well, I like boys, you know.”

“Who?”

“Just in general.”

“Name one.” 

“James”

“Bracey? He’s a senior-you’re a child. Like me. Plus, He’s stuck up., Only dates cheerleaders.. “

“He’ll date me.”

“Only if you put out-and don’t waste yourself on him.”

“How do you know?”

We little people have our ways, she said squeezing her butt for the last time. .“You giants just wander around,  heads in the clouds having no clue” Janie said, slipping her hand out of Denise’s pants. 

“But boys, in general. 

“Name someone in our class.” 

“Paul Riley. He’s cute.”

“Peed his pants on the bus last week.”

“He did not!”

“Did. Pissy Paulie. He’s your beau now? Charming.” 

Denise flipped onto her back. “I give up!” she said laughing. 

Again, Janie mirrored and flipped onto her back. “Come over tonight?”

“So you can suck my face off?”

“We’ll listen to records too.”

I gotta see what the master criminal is up to. If he crashes for the night, maybe.”

In later years, after the after, given that they were schoolmates and playmates since preschool it might seem that they were paragons of restraint. But no, it just hadn’t occurred to them-the time wasn’t right. Later they would laugh about all their chaste childhood sleepovers as time wasted.

Why Bud’s a Boob Man

In this one, Bud tells how he became a boob man. He wasn’t telling it to me; I’d heard the story countless times already, usually like now, a couple of drinks in. I was watching the Three Stooges with the sound down at the end of the bar. The boys were plumbers and I was waiting for the part when Larry, digging under the yard sticks his head up through the sod, looks around in that haggard Larry way, and seeing where he is, pulls it back down like a startled turtle. The way his hat got stuck above ground and he reaches up and pulls it down always cracks me up. So I was waiting for it when Bud says something to Dot on the other side of him that I missed but then he goes, “…like the time I got hit in the head by that mannequin tit.” Shit, I hadn’t heard it coming.  Had to turn away from the set. “Tell the story”, Dot says leaning back to open the story way to the woman on her right.  “Tell, it. You and Prichard…” She’d heard this story a few times too.  “Jim Prichard and I were shoppin’…” he starts right in. “I was what? Twelve? Waiting for Sheryll to get her picture taken at Murphy’s…with Santa Claus. And Prichard, you remember Prichard?” It was a nice touch, but nobody ever did. I mean ever. Poor Prichard had to be the most forgettable fucker you’d ever not meet. “Anyway, Prichard and I, we were over around the counter and Prichard says, “Hey, think we can lift this up? It was a mannequin. Not the whole body thing…just from here” puts his hand to the top of Dot’s thigh like a freeze-frame karate chop, “to the top of the head.  A pretty redhead, as I recall. So me and Prichard we went over and lift it-it wasn’t that heavy-but when we set it back down…the damn mannequin was sittin’ on one of these pedestals-not too stable- and the damn thing went….Whoooop! It falls over and the tit hit me right on top of the head.” “DOINK!” Dot laughed. “Doink, my ass”, says Bud. “It knocked me flat, until I saw that floor manager runnin’ my way and I got up and took off. Dizzier n’ hell with a goozle on top of my head for days.” “He goes crazy over boobs now”, Dot says to the woman to her right. I honestly doubted the cause and effect of the whole deal, but it wasn’t my story.

One Ridge Over – Part 2

(Continued from One Ridge Over)

This time he opened the gate careful to rattle the chain and make as much noise as he could. Halfway across the yard he saw a curtain peek open then close again, so he knew somebody saw him. “C’min”, came Emily’s voice from inside before he knocked.

He stepped into the dim light of the living room. Even if he hadn’t been there earlier and seen what he’d seen, he’d a known something was off in there. There was a damp thickness to the air-a musty whorl of tears, sweat, cigarette smoke and something rotten-sweet that he couldn’t place.

Emily sat on the couch, the curtains behind leaking just enough light to see.

“Your mom here?” he asked.

“Still at church…doin’ whatever.”

“Susan?”

“Stairs”, she said with a slight nod to the narrow staircase at the end of the room.

She had taken off the sweater that had completed the skirt as her regular Sunday outfit. Her titties showed almost clear through the undershirt that had gone a size too small for her over the summer. She wore a lot of sweaters and overshirts even in summer as Missy didn’t think she was old enough for a bra yet.

He stood frozen, eyes averted, the homework he had brought to share, forgotten. Her eyes too were elsewhere, settled on the low table with the full ashtray, two crushed beer cans and empty whisky pint. As he adjusted to the dim light he glanced and saw that her eyes were swollen and red, but the tears well gone. Without actually planning to, or even meaning to, he said “I seen….”

“Seen what?”

“I’s…here earlier. Come through the yard. Seen you and Susan…and Jimmy.”

“Oh”, was all she said. He dropped his eyes further looking directly at the toes of his ripped sneakers, one held on by baling twine.

“Where were you at?”

“Behind the big bush.”

The words were coming as singles-not as whole sentences.

“What did you think?”

“I wanted to kill him…I was gonna jump him and make him stop.”

“Good thing you didn’t. Onliest one woulda gotten killed is you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you wanted to help”, she said. “Come to my rescue.” Her voice was scratchy and heavy.

“Yeah, it’s dumb. I’m sorry.”

“Quit apologizin’. It’s sweet”, she said. “I’m glad you dint, but it’s sweet.”

He looked up to see a tiny smile cross her tear-swole face. He had seen her whipped bare ass over a bench, seen her hard nipples practically pushing through her undershirt. But only now, based on a single crooked smile and her white teeth, did his pecker tighten and push against his pants. It was the damndest thing!

His burgeoning firmness was interrupted by the sound of a door and soft tread on the stairs.

“Oh, it’s you”, Susan said her face heavy too, but more flushed than blotchy.

“Where are you going?” Emily asked.

“Out. For a walk.”

She gave nothing else as she headed for the door. He watched her, suddenly nervous at the electricity that come off of Susan that Emily had none of. He found he was holding his breath.

“He was here”, Emily said flat. “He saw.”

“Saw what?”

“He was behind the bush.”

She stopped and turned burning eyes on him. “What are you?”, she growled her face almost frantic with anger. “Some kinda perv?”

“No, it was an accident!”

“Did you git a good show?”

“Come on Suze, he didn’t know what was goin’ on…he was comin’ here for schoolwork.”

“Is that schoolwork?” She hissed pointing at his erection that hadn’t altogether subsided. “Is that for you? Here! You want a better show?” She commenced to yanking at her pants.

“Susan, you stop that! He saw our backsides, not our fronts. Don’t do that to him.”

But Susan was bound and determined even if trying her best to mind her sister a little bit. She turned and pushed her pants down. “There! You like that?” Susan was comely enough. Truth be told she was the prettier of the Brant sisters but no, seein’ her butt all purple and lashed and knowin’ that her face was flushed from crying didn’t please him at all. “You like that?” she croaked over her shoulder.

“No”, he said quietly. “I don’t.”

She pulled her pants up as quickly as she dropped them and faced him again. She nodded toward his crotch. “Is that for you then?” she asked her sister.

“He came here for homework”, Emily said evenly through gritted teeth.

“Why don’t you. Go ahead and do it. Put a baby in her you perv so in a few years you’ll have someone you can…”

“STOP IT RIGHT NOW SUSAN!”

The younger shut up and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes which had started to leak. To stop from saying anymore she spun and pushed her way out the door. He watched her cross the yard.

“Where’s she goin’?” he asked.

“Prolly up the walnut grove. That’s her happy place. Good place for her right now.”

“She’s pissed.”

“There’s more what goes on between her and Jimmy than jist takin’ a whippin’ now an’ then.”

“What you mean?” he asked.

She gifted him with another smile; this one sly, with her head puppy-tilted to the side. “You sweet little dummy. You don’t know, do you?” That smile again. This time she watched his pants push out toward her. “Come on…” She got up from the couch and led him by the hand, back through the kitchen and out the back door.

He felt strange being in the back yard again so soon after what had happened there. Even stranger to go and set on the bench. His Ma believed that everthing that happened in the world was still happenin’…or was still goin’ on in some kind of time wrinkles…he never could get it straight when she explained it, cause it was always late at night, but he was pretty sure she would say the whippin’ he saw was still happenin’ over and over if he jist had the gift of bein’ able to see it. He didn’t know about that, but he did feel weird settin’ there in the middle of it.

The river was shallow here and if not for the algae blooms he’d be able to count the rocks from one side to the other. He saw a couple of carp-big shadows cruising upstream-and watched the willows across the way standing straight in the weak current. Emily set close beside him. His nervous river-watchin’ was interrupted by her hand roughly rubbing over his lap. “You can’t keep it loaded and not shoot. You’ll get blood poisoning.”

“No I won’t!”

“It’s true”, she said, her hand work not helping at all.

He’d had boners before and knew how to deal with them. But he’d never had one with a girl. He sat rigid and straight-backed breathing in quick little bites as she rubbed her hand back and forth. She paused and flipped the tab of his zipper. “You know how to work this?” she asked.

He unzipped and made to reach in, but it jumped out of its own accord like a dog after a rabbit. “See now?” Emily said grabbing it like a corn stalk. “This is no good. I’ll take care a’ this.” She spit in her hand and rubbed down over the top of it. He saw it swell and felt a tickle deep below in his balls. She wrapped her fist around it and stroked clumsily.

“I like how it grows”, she said from a distance, as if talking about a flower. It wasn’t quite determination that showed on her face as much as wanting to get it right. He didn’t know whether to watch her or the carp so he looked out at the river and stole peeks down at his lap as if he was ashamed of his own pecker. It wasn’t a concern he had for long though. He slammed his eyes shut when he felt the rustling bubbles deep inside and grunted, hearing his juice spatter on the leaves between his feet.

“There”, she said. “Don’t that feel better?”

“It does.”

“You’ve done this before, right?”

“Sure. Never with a girl, though.”

“Here then. Let me show you something…” Before he could imagine what, she pushed her hair behind her ear and bobbed into his lap. She took him into her mouth and whirled her tongue about the top of him sucking gently at the same time. He rose off the bench slightly crying…”Whoa, whoa…” then settled as she slid her mouth down over the full of it. Then she pulled her lips back over it and sat back up leaving him hard and shiny. “Whoo…” he whispered.

“How’s that?”

“That was somethin’…” he said, then froze as the world tilted a bit. He caught the seat of the bench with his hands as it felt to be collapsing under him.  Where had she learnt that?

“There’s more what goes on between her and Jimmy than jist takin’ a whippin’ now an then.”

“Put that thing away”, she said. “You only get one shot today.”

He stuffed his rigid self back into his pants with difficulty and sat still while everything gathered back under him. She took his hand in hers without looking. “I don’t want to do no homework today”, he said feeling a little sick in his belly.

“Naw”, she said. “Me neither. I need to go up into the woods and gather Susan. Make sure she’s fine…”

As he followed her through the dim house to pick up his book bag he kept his eyes over everything but her walking right in front.

“We won’t be in school tomorrow”, she told him at the gate.

OK, was all he said. He didn’t want to get into the detail of it or know why. His mind spun with the possibilities that they neither could sit on the hard seats all day, they were too upset, whatever. He thought nothing of it, just suddenly wanted to head up the road.

“You have to give me a kiss now”, she said, her thick little fingers gripping his handlebar tightly. “We’re lovers now. You have to kiss me when you leave”. He kissed her, chastely on the lips–mouth closed and dry. “Bye”, was all he said.

The ride home was even more painful than he thought it would be as the thick heat settled, filling the hollow. It was fine though. He took his time.

—–

He didn’t mind Mondays. He was an early riser anyways and liked goin’ to school probably more than school liked him being there. Ma was at the sink pushing herself up taller to better see though the window. “It’s your uncle” was all she said.

He heard the boots clop on the porch. Uncle Mike, big enough that it seemed he should duck through the door wore the same checked shirt he’d had on since his wife died. The kitchen filled with the sweet, sour smell of the twenty head of straggly Angus he ran on the rented knob over opposite the church.

“You hear about the Brant’s last night?”

“How would I?”

“There were a fire.”

“A fire.“

‘We won’t be in school tomorrow’ echoed so clearly in his head he was afraid the adults would hear.

“Everbody OK?”

“Girls and Missy fine. Damn fool Jimmy Logan burned himself up. Musta been smokin’ on the couch and fell asleep.”

“Naw!”

“Good riddance to a waste of skin and bone is all I say.”

“Hush Mike. Stop that. He’s in school with the girls…”

He stared down at the cold, rubbery dollar-store waffles. He wished there was syrup instead of jist brown sugar.

‘We won’t be in school tomorrow.’

 

©TDR – 2017

One Ridge Over

 

He pushed his way in through the door that was held shut more by wild grapes and morning glory vines than any lock. Halfway open the top hinge silently pulled out of the punky frame and the door hung all cattywampus, never to be closed again. The inside was dim, the windows, broke or not, obscured by the thick honeysuckle vines that had already reclaimed the outhouse in back.

The forgotten rose pattern wallpaper hung in sheets dripping to the floor exposing the rotten watermarked drywall. Every shuffling step he took was answered by skittering in the walls that was either mice or chippies. In the middle of the floor, right where that rickety coffee table woulda been, was a hole down to the dirt-easy access for whatever groundhogs or racoons lived here.

Emily and ‘em had tried to remodel after the fire but money bein’ what it was back then-mostly lacking- left soon after. If she were dead, she would haunt this place, he was sure. But she wasn’t dead as far as he knew. Jist gone. Never to return in life and he wondered if he’d still be around to come and check after.

It had been a four-mile bike ride that Sunday morning, up over his ridge then down the rocks of dry Rooker crick, across the old logging trail then finally the red-dog flat of the river road. The dump-rescued Schwinn with the mismatched tires made the time quick, even with the book bag strapped across his back. Goin’ back would be tougher, but he’d worry about that later. Pretty much that way with everthing; later would take care a’ itself.

The Brant girls, living as they did just one ridge over, were as close to neighbors as any he had in school. They were the first ones for the school bus, huddled in the shelter at the head of the paved road, and the last ones off. Emily was his age-or in his grade at least-Susan a year younger though she didn’t seem it. Them, him and Emily, settin’ together on the bus now and again, wasn’t much a’ anything. He wasn’t much of a talker and neither was she. They’d set.

The river road turned to rutted dirt about a mile from the Brant’s house. He, and everbody else, still thought of it as the Brant’s cause that was the girl’s names. And their mother Missy-who Emily favored with her round cheeks and crinkly brown hair. Jimmy Logan, the girl’s stepdad, or more likely Missy’s live-in, had no part in any of their names.

Off the bike he felt the heaviness in the air-still as the inside of a bottle. Rather than open the whole gate for just him and his bike, he leaned it against a post and ducked between the two lower strands of bob wire. Had he opened the gate they might have heard him. It might’ve changed things. But he doubted it. As it was, he stopped halfway to the house, to this day not sure if he heard something in back. But he must have.

He snuck around the upstream side, because the closer he got and the more he heard, sneakin’ seemed the best course. At the corner of the place, he stuck his face through the branches of the big rhododendron, there it all was.

It was Susan closest to him. Emily herself out the further end of the bench. Course he was assuming because as they were-bent over the bench, their bottoms to him-he couldn’t see their faces. Both were bare-assed, Susan’s pants bunched at her feet and Emily’s skirt thrown up over her back. Both backsides showed hard use of Jimmy Logan’s strap. That moment, his attention was focused on Susan, whipping her hard-each slash met with a grunt as if she didn’t want to cry out. And her not crying pissed him off.

He couldn’t tell what Emily said to her sister, but it was something. And maybe Jimmy didn’t like it or maybe it was just her turn, cause he slid down a step or two and whipped the strap hard across Emily’s round backside. Her butt bounced at the force of it and her legs shivered when she tried to stay still. She wasn’t as good at being quiet as her sister and cried out over the river at every wicked stroke. He set himself, crouching by the bush as he was, and leaned on his back leg ready to launch himself forward. But the harsh crack of the belt-the violence of it-and Emily’s pained cries stopped him.

Fuckin’ stopped him dead, he thought looking through a sumac that grew through the back porch toward where the bench had been. He kicked at what looked like a balled-up rag on the ruined floor with the toe of his hunting boot. Turned out to be a dead squirrel-weightless and mummified by the heat of summer. He spit. What if he had…aw, fuck it. What good did it do now…

What he did do then was spin around and head back out the yard careful to stay on the low side of the road looking back over his shoulder to make sure nobody could see. The thick air of the hollow swallowed all sound and he peddled like a thief until he was a good bit down the road. Then he stopped. And listened.

Quickly he dropped his bike and flopped in the ditch with every manner of tick, chigger and spider as Jimmy Logan banged past in his puttied-up old work van going every bit twice as fast as he should have on that sorry road. Gnats whined, diving into his eyes and ears but he waited, unmoving, the grass tickling his nose, the thick air itself ticking, until the dust settled in Jimmy’s wake. Then, he stood up carefully and dusted himself off, chasing a cricket off his pants and a grasshopper off his shoulder. With one more look up the road for good measure he headed back to Emily’s house.

(Continued…)

Nightwinds

He held his ear close to the window. The blasting this spring up the top of the hollow had knocked everything in the house cattywampus and it was near to impossible to open the windows easily in normal times. Now, what with all the rain, everything was swolled so that he’d have to break it to open it.

“I can’t hear you,” he whispered, a tone of desperation creeping into his voice. “Louder! Please louder.”

He squinted through the wavy glass but even with no lights in his room he could see naught but shadows outside where the winds whipped the chestnut tree that towered over their little house. Even from the second floor bedroom-which was really a loft, no more’n a half floor- Jimmer felt he could step right down into the yard. If he could open the window-which he coont. He was feeling that pull down below that allus came with the visitations. First time he thought he had to pee-then found out not. Not that at all.

“Hey! You still there?” he croak-whispered, his breath fogging the chilled glass as he pressed his eye against it.

“Jimmer? That you? Who you talkin’ to?”

“Nobody Maw.”

“You stay off that telephone with the storm comin’. We don’t want to get struck.”

Jesus, he thought. As if I had a phone in here. Then he noticed the strip of yellow light leakin’ in under the door. Quick as that, he tore the cover sheet off’n his bed and jammed it down there and scampered back to the window. Still nothing-except maybe a sharp “tic-tic-tic” on the glass which could just as well have been branches as fingernails.

GODDAMIT! He thought, immediately sorry for thinking the Almighty’s name in vain. He’d been doin’ that a lot and it coont be good. He kicked the sheet away and opened the door at the top of the steep steps up to his room. He felt proud of havin’ thunk to keep the hinges oiled so they made no sound opening.

For only about the hundredth time that day he wished Pap could have hung on awhile longer to help with Maw, but he knew near the end there he coonta helped hisself with his wheelchair and oxygen tank. Better this way, but Hell’s Bells this was a hard pill!

He tiptoed past the front room where she sat in the recliner that wouldn’t recline, her swole feet propped up on her walker. The TV was on to nothing but rolling snow and she listened to an old-timey gospel show on the radio. It was no challenge to sneak past and outside-lifting hard on the door because it too was off cause of the blastin’.

On the porch he whipped his head left and right looking for her. Ignoring the tilted steps, he hopped right down the ground. Was that a light over by the shed? Even in the pitch dark thrown by the blanket of storm clouds he could easily navigate out to the woodshed and around to the other side of it. Nothin!

Wait, though-not nothin’-cause he could see, if he looked off center, his shadow tossed weakly onto the rough plank wall of the shed. Prolly from the house he thought as he turned to look. But no, there she was, balanced on the eave right outside his window. “Goldarnit” he said trying not to cuss at a time like this. “I knowed you was out there.”

His voice became more urgent as did the pull down below. He bent his leg against the discomfort of his broomstick-hard erection pushing against the teeth of his zipper. “On man!” he sputtered as he yanked at his jeans. It was only his intent to let hisself out to breathe but he was so skinny-assed that once his pants were unsnapped they fell to the ground. He didn’t note the chill as he grabbed what was his fearfully engorged cock and commenced to work it while watching her above him. If he could only git that window open.

“Come down here” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Just the oncet!” But she didn’t move from her perch on the eave. Jimmer worked himself in silence, staring hard to get every glimpse he could of what he took to be the shimmering clean lines of her nakedness.

“You could do something here you know!” He was losing the whisper but kept his voice down just below the level of the winds. “I wisht you would!”

He thought she was watching-she was moving though. She was there-she was all there, turning for him, bending for him-right up till the moment when she wasn’t. When that moment came she just disappeared-melted upwards like smoke from a pissed-on fire and was gone into the starless black.

He made no more sounds but a finishing grunt as he spattered over the dry leaves, bending forward, vainly trying to keep the final spurts and spasms offn’ the pile of pants at his feet. Eyes screwed shut he drooled one single string to splash off his fist where his part-twitching-disappeared like a turtle into its shell.

He made no show of bein’ quiet when he yanked the stuck door open to reenter the house. He trudged past the front room where Maw, without looking up, told him “You shount go outside on a night like this Jimmer. I can hear the Nightwinds moving about. They take aholt of you and you’re a goner.”

A goner, thought Jimmer. That sounded fair. He’d buy that if she was sellin’.

Fish Prints

And what would you have me do with these?

I’m thinking of adding color, he answered, shuffling gently through the rice paper portraits. Like on this one. I’d like some green at bottom like grass, it’s dark green, see? Then lighter green tendrils I guess-going from bottom to top.

Like kelp?

Maybe like that. Willow grass. You know? With the yellow flowers on top where they break the surface.

The younger man shrugged. What is this? The fish?

Carp.

Hmmm…aren’t they sacred in China?

This is Pittsburgh. Here they root in the mud. Then, turning his attention back to the print,  Maybe some gold color smearing down from the top like sunlight?

Why don’t you do it?

My son’s an artist, my father’s an artist. I can’t piss in a line.

You did these, he said waving his hand slowly above the prints like clearing suds from a pan of water.

The fish did all the work. I was a bystander.

What is it you do?

I make money.

A lot?

Plenty. But probably not enough.

Enough for what?

All of it…

Then you must try this yourself.

I’m sure I couldn’t.

Your son then?

Pfffft. He’s not my son anymore…he’s a grown man with his own cares…

Your father?

Long dead.

You should definitely give it a shot then. You seem to know what you want.

I’d like to. I just doubt that I can.

They regarded the prints silently.

I’d like to. I just doubt that I can.

You just said that.

I did?

Yes.

Twice?

Word for word.

Fuck!

He hurriedly gathered the prints and rolled them loosely, sticking them gently under his arm. He turned from the work table and approached the open window that looked onto the alley. The artist said nothing until the man had one foot out the window balanced on the dumpster.

The door, sir.

Pfffttt. He paused and looked back. Since we were talking about pissing…

Ah…yes?

The other night I awoke standing at my closet door. My dick was in my right hand ready to shower my shoes and most likely the bottoms of my hanging clothes when something-a passing car, a cloud skirting the moon-something flickered in the window and woke me. I was in the bedroom around to piss in my closet and not across the hall standing in front of the toilet where I had assumed I was. Huh! What do you make of that?

I’m sure I don’t know sir.

I had to stick my thumb over the hole on the end and scuttle into the bathroom where I thought I’d been all the time. Odd, don’t you think?

Odd, sir. Yes.

Welp, he said. Then just before he shifted all of his weight outside be paused and pulled a thick gold coin from his pocket and placed it on the window sill.

That’s too much sir.

For what…

A conversation…

Pfffttt. Watch where you piss then.

With that, he withdrew the second leg and was gone.

The artist could see no one in the alley. Up or down. The coin was heavy and well used-but lustrous just the same.

 

(The idea of the golden sunlight “smearing” was lifted from Jim Harrison’s “Mother Night”. Probably indirectly enough that no one would have noticed but, well shit…you know?)

 

“There’s someone here…”

(Continued from Back to the Hollow)

“Looks like you found me”, she said.

“I think you knew where I was the moment I stepped off my porch.”

“You think I followed you?”

“No-I think you led me here…”

Bent and exposed over the log as he was, he was talking to the leaves and dirt between his hands. Lifting his head high enough to see over his shoulder wasn’t in the cards. He looked for her feet and found them behind him.

“Led you here?” she laughed a young girl’s laugh. “I’ve done everything I could to chase you away. To caution you away…” the log moved as she sat on it facing away from him…”but here you keep winding up.” She slapped him lightly on this upturned rump for emphasis. “What are we going to do with you?”

He felt a presence larger that the girl beside him but he scoured the upside down woods behind himself and could see nothing. But he registered that he usually didn’t see her either.

“What’s your name”, he asked on impulse.

“Tabitha”, she answered easily as if waiting for the query.

“Take me back with you.”

“Back? Where?”

“Where you live. Into the other woods. Through the keyhole.”

“Hah! There is no keyhole anymore.”

“Of course there is, you just moved it is all-or hid it. There’s always a way in.”

She went silent for a moment and he felt her fingers drumming on his butt as she mulled. She shifted into him slightly-he could feel a warmth against his hip.

“Daniel, Daniel….After we whipped you I was sure you wouldn’t be back. I branded you-left my mark” he felt her fingertip touch the tiny handprint on his cheek, “You came back. We came to your house, to whip you and actually do more…” She poked this time at his tight anus which twitched “and you came back….Makes us wonder if you’re coming back for more…”

“It’s not that I’m looking for more of that…”

“Mr. No again.” She slapped him harder on his ass. He yelped in surprise more than pain.  “You’re denying what you want even while chasing it.”

“No. I want something different. This life out here is shot for me. I’ve lived out here for close to thirty years and it’s been no bargain, let me tell you.”

“I bet. You’ve already lived in the dark almost a decade longer than I did…”

“I’ve had enough of it.”

“Everything you’ve gotten before you’ll get more of back there-you realize that.” As if for emphasis she dragged her finger across his asshole again and down between his legs. “That won’t be all, you understand, but there will be that…”

“What do I have to do?” he asked, undeterred.

“Accept it. Accept yourself. Back here you have to say what you mean. What you want, you say. Get it? Back here you have to be who you are.”

They sat in silence her hand resting on the small of his back where he folded over.

“Are you going to whip me now?” he asked.

“I never whipped you…well maybe a few strokes. You wiggled so sweetly…”

“Are you going to fuck me? “

“What would I fuck you with Mr. No? Huh? You doubt that I’m a girl through and through.”

“No.”

“You can get up you know.”

“What?”

“Nothing’s holding you. They’ve all gone off.”

He pushed off the ground and sure enough lifted himself off of the log. Hearing for the first time birds and a soft breeze whispering through the branches he pushed off the log and stood to stretch.

“Now look at this,” Tabitha said from her seat before him. He didn’t need to look; his hard-on stood straight out as if seeking the girl’s face. She took it in hand and pulled him close.

“There is a lot I can give you back here Daniel…as long as you ask for it.”

He asked for nothing right now, just let his head loll back as she gently touched her tongue to the head of his cock…

“You won’t be over quick this time, I hope…”

It had been almost four years since a woman had taken him like this. Even had he remembered it clearly it wouldn’t matter. This was different. Her mouth was beyond warm. Beyond soft. It was melting marshmallow falling off a campfire stick and wrapping itself around him.

He held her head gently and pulled her into him pushing himself deeper into her mouth. Moaning quietly he felt a growing weakness in his legs.

Veronica Palmer had run ahead of her boyfriend. He was a gym athlete-great on the treadmill but the contours of running, or even walking, trails left him in the dust. He had stopped in the clearing below where she had taken off up the hill. He was about to follow when he heard-then saw-her running back down.

“Let’s go!” she said grabbing him by the arm as she passed.

“What? Why?”

“There’s someone here.”

“So?”

“A guy. He’s…masturbating.”

“You sure?”

“Am I….?” She pulled at his arm again. “He’s standing bare-ass, pants at his ankles pulling on his dick. Is that masturbating?”

“Shit. You want me to go say something to him?”

He had finally begun to yield to her pulling when a sound of clicking filled the air. Quietly at first but louder as it seemed to get closer. “Keep moving”, she said. It sounded like sticks or switches clattering together but there was no breeze-nothing was moving.

“Come on”, she hissed as he slowed to listen-to try to get a handle on the noise. Cicadas? As the sound seemed to blanket over them she felt something tingle deep inside of her. As if a seam was rubbing her down there. “Come oooon”, she pulled him by the arm and was just breaking into a jog when-

“Ouch!” She jumped and grabbed the left cheek of her ass.

“What?”

“I got stung…or something. Come on!”

He watched her run in panic for a moment then felt a searing burn across his own ass. He yelped and jumped grabbing his behind.

“Bees!” he yelled, for what else could it have been? “Bees!”

She was faster than he but he did his best to catch up. He hated the fucking woods.

 

Back to the Hollow

(Continued from “Venus and Mars Are Alright Tonight…”)

He had been a decent tracker as a boy. Could follow a wounded deer across both hollows and up all the creeks if need be. Wouldn’t even need to be wounded. The old men counted on him for this service as their eyesight went and they got more generally decrepit. It wasn’t hard for someone who knew the signs-who could tell when a leaf was standing on edge because something had trod along its stem and lifted it, rather than just spun that way onto the earth. Or when an old acorn had been kicked on top of a newly fallen leaf. That kind of tracking he could manage.

This kind, following someone that seemed to have no weight that seemed to float along on a cushion of air was something different. Any sign that he saw on the ground was wishful thinking. He let his eyes wander up into the scarlet red branches of the pin oaks for all the good then were doing on the ground. He started to get the feeling that the trail wouldn’t lead him anywhere. Which didn’t matter. He wasn’t following at all. He was being directed. Pulled.

Truth though, for what he was doing, he didn’t need tracking or trails. He knew where he was heading. He cut off the main trail early and crossed a patch that would have been impassable two months before. The winnowing of fall had begun in earnest and new paths appeared where there had been thick brush.

Not far along he noticed the silence that roared in and flooded the valley pushing in on his eardrums like water at the bottom of a deep pool. His breathing slowed and nothing moved but for a single tiny leaf at the top of a stripped maple twitching singularly in a disquieting way. He was about to step over a fallen tree when he felt…something in front of him blocking his way. He had a sense of her-but couldn’t feel anything until his lips pressed against his teeth. He opened his mouth and accepted the unseen kiss.

“I knew you would taste sweet”, she said spectrally coming together slowly before him.

“You could have tried it last night”.

“It wasn’t my place or time…”

Maybe this wasn’t either, because she slipped in and out of focus and substance. She seemed there, then she dissipated and he could see the woods through her, then she was gone-having shifted out of the way. He felt a push between his shoulder blades, gentle at first, then stronger-a pressure that pushed him down toward the log as his belt was loosened. He put his hands out to stop himself or grab at his pants but they were useless-pulled away from him as he was lowered firmly over the fallen tree.

He lay over the log breathing deeply and relaxing as best he could focusing on the blanket of leaves between his hands on the ground. He was conscious of the cool sunshine bathing his exposed ass and dripping between his cheeks and flowing over his balls. He wasn’t going to fight. He would be whipped, he might be fucked, but he wasn’t going to fight it.

“Where are you headed Daniel?”

“How do you know my name?”

She didn’t even acknowledge his question. “Where are you going back here?”

“I was looking for you…”

“Looks like you found me.”

Continuing…“There’s Someone There…”

 

Vodka and Melatonin- III

(Continued from Vodka and Melatonin-Part II)

“Are you up?” came her voice again-from far away.

“Huh? What…?” he asked confused.

He grabbed the hard seat of the chair feeling it beginning to shake beneath him. Or was it him shaking? He couldn’t be sure but was suddenly fearful of toppling over and have the clamps tear at his nut sack in the most gruesome way. He held onto the seat as if on a pitching ship.

“Hey!” she yelled shrilly as she banged the bed with her hip. “Are you not up yet?”

He started awake in his own bedroom, the morning sun bathing the room in a golden glow.

“I’m up for Chrissakes!”

“It’s about time!” his wife Pamela cried exasperated already. She was a blur of multi-colored spandex, nylon and grim determination. Jim rolled quickly onto his side away from her to try to hide his tent pole erection. Nothing pissed Pamela off more than him having a hard-on that she had nothing to do with.

“Remember”, she said “I have a 9 a.m. training with Silvio-but I want to get there early for the treadmill. Get a head start on my steps for the day. Then after the training I’m doing a weight set with Carla and will probably hang around for Michele’s Zumba class. I hate that shit but it will be a good cool-down and I haven’t seen Michele for awhile….”

Jim noted that this was the same word for word itinerary she had ticked off to him the night before. He knew she wasn’t informing him of anything-rather just stating her commitment for the universe to hear. He felt his hard-on deflating during her litany. The more she talked the quicker he deflated.  He could almost hear the high pitched whine of air squeezing out of a pricked balloon.

“…so I won’t be home until noon which will give you enough time to get that goddam motorcycle out of my side of the garage…”

“Indian”, he mumbled into the pillow.

“What?”

“1958 Indian”, he said for probably the hundredth time trying in vain to impress her with the bike’s vintage.

“Not. Giving. A. Shit. It’s a pile of pieces right now and I need to get my car inside. You have enough projects-finish that little car…”

“Karmann Ghia.”

“What?”

“It’s a 72 Kharmen Gia Cabriolet.”

He felt her eyes boring into the back of his head. “You have till noon to get that piece of shit motorcycle gone.”

“Have a nice workout” he mumbled after she had strode off and couldn’t hear him. He lay still until he heard the front door slam. Then her car door. Then the motor started and he heard the crunch on the gravel drive. Not until it went silent and he knew she was out on the road did he throw back the covers and sit up.

Sighing, he stood and looked down to where his once proud cock had swung like a broad sword to see it hanging low in defeat-like a flag with no breeze.

“Coward” he grumbled at it.

He picked his phone off the nightstand and entered the unlock code-which he changed every two days or so just because it drove her nuts.

He tapped a quick text: “U up?”

It quickly bounced back: “Yep. Coffee.”

“Alone?” he tapped?

“Yep.”

He scrolled down his quick dial list to where she was hidden near the bottom and tapped her name. She picked up on the second ring.

“Mornin’ Glory”, she said huskily.

“Hey-where’s Kimmy?”

“Charleston for a couple of days. Left yesterday.”

He was silent for a moment because he couldn’t remember if he’d said “Huh”-which was probably called for right then. Instead he said, “I dreamed about you last night?”

“Was it hot?” she asked.

“It was…complicated”, he said absently rubbing his balls where he still felt the dream-clamp.

“Complicated huh? You can’t manage complicated…”

“You were naked…”

“Getting better…”

“…and you had a little, flat ass.”

“Oh-it was a complete fantasy then!”

“Like I said, complicated.”

She laughed teasingly and he pulled his hand away from his pecker which, hearing her voice, seemed to awaken enough to lift its head and start sniffing around.

“Can you store the Indian for a while? Gotta get it out of here.”

“Told you she wasn’t going to let you keep it”

“Just for awhile.”

“She gone?”

“Till noon.”

“Give me half an hour”, she said and hung up.

He put the phone back and stretched, digging his knuckles into the small of his back.