Chapter Eight

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Chapter Eight:


TPOV

So… she pretty much just told me that—at some point—when, I didn’t know, but an indefinite point in the future, she was totally gonna give me the blowjob of a lifetime.  And I had no doubt that it would probably be the best thing that had happened in my life thus far, at that time.  She was worth waiting for. 

This was going far better than I could have imagined.  She was into me, and I think I’d pretty much fallen for her from the get-go.  The simple fact that we were actually dating—like, real dating and not just an excuse for fucking—was surprisingly pleasant.  The slow pace of the whole thing was a switch, but it sure as hell made the anticipation great.  And I wanted her to be ready when it happened.  I didn’t want the easiness of this, of what we built, the way it was always comfortable—even if it was awkward—to change.  I’d fucked up a lot of relationships with sex.  Hell, I’d fucked up a lot of potential relationships with sex and the morning after.  I didn’t want that with her, so I’d wait as long as it took. 

My list of information continued to widen, and sometimes it seemed like she was an iceberg that’d only just peaked the surface—only showing me the essentials with an endless supply of shit I didn’t know under the surface of the water.  It was fascinating how deep the iceberg went, and how much she could keep concealed, because every time I thought I’d gotten a larger section of information, it became apparent how much more there was. 

It was addicting—interesting choice of words given some of the information—the little bits, because the puzzle was never fully assembled.  It was glaringly obvious to me that I wasn’t even sure I had the four sides of the frame completely assembled.  In a way, the more that I had left to compile, that meant there was more about her to learn, and that was exciting in its own right.  It may not have been traditional, or the normal way people got to know each other, but it was us and I liked that we had enough of that to call it an ‘us.’

The movie and dinner nights became my favorite activity.  I wasn’t sure at which point the dinners became a regular thing, but it sort of just fell into both of our routines that way.  We dorkily even sat down and hashed out our schedules and figured out which nights I had free that matched with ones she had free, then those all became some form of date or dinner night.  And because I knew it drove her absolutely fucking nuts, on nights when she’d cook dinner, I’d make a point to call her when I was on my way and ask, “What’s for dinner?” 

I liked the dinners more than the movies because movies were an assurance of two solid hours of only watching.  I couldn’t learn as much from watching, but that also didn’t stop me, and she didn’t seem at all bothered by my scrutiny.  She’d just stare right back at me, intent and challenging, until her attention was pulled back to the screen.  I liked that it made her smile without making her self-conscious.  I had absent thoughts wondering about her looking that challenging and intent in my bed, but I pushed those aside because I was being a good boy, and I begged my dick to do the same. 

The best thing to come out of the movies wasn’t really anything to do with finding her favorite genre.  It was watching her face light up when the screen came on and the levity that she always seemed to leave the theatre with, no matter what movie we’d seen.  I think she liked the distraction, the escapism that it provided.  That wasn’t even the best part, though.  That came after our last movie date when we were walking back to her apartment and she randomly just grabbed my hand.  Just out of nowhere, all of a sudden, this tiny, little hand wormed its way into mine.  It felt like it should have been there all the time.  And it was so… minor. It was such an insignificant thing with most people, but with her, for her to get to even that stage—when it was like wrangling a frightened animal to start with—it was so fucking huge.  It felt like this huge barrier had been crossed even though there was a colossal ocean of uncertainty still in front of us.  

That was nothing then compared to our last dinner.  

Our first dinner had been more discoveries—what she’d told me, and the fact that she was a fucking awesome cook.  I wasn’t sure what to expect when I’d suggested the dinner thing, but something told me I wouldn’t be disappointed, and when it became routine, I wasn’t sure how I ever lived without it.  She was much more creative and imaginative with her cooking than she was normally, and I figured that was probably why she liked it.  It was also why I praised and encouraged the shit out of her for it then, too.  Her face always got the same smile on it when I said anything positive about the meal.  Pride.  I liked it on her.  

She was better about letting information slip—she no longer debated as long with herself before telling me something, but she still only gave me little snippets at a time.  I hadn’t expected the answer about the drugs really, I hadn’t been asking that, but I was grateful she was honest with me.  Her past didn’t matter to me—we all had one—but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to know and understand where she came from and how she came to be the person I knew.  I suspended all judgment because the last time I hadn’t, I wound up nearly losing it all before it began.  And I didn’t judge her for it, I couldn’t, there was too much else to the story that I didn’t have.  But even when I had it, I didn’t think I’d judge her then, either.  

The picture that was forming was sort of cliché, I suppose: A foster kid on the run most likely, or running with someone, who fell into drugs to escape the past or the present—a present that had included creepy Norman Bates dudes and life experiences that every illegal drug on the market could not erase.  I knew it wouldn’t have been received well, but sometimes when she’d tell me something, the loss and fear, and just, emptiness, in her eyes made me want to wrap her in my arms and never let her go.  The pain that flashed there was almost too much for me, and I didn’t even know what the fuck was in her mind.  

The last dinner we’d had was, quite possibly, the most epic thing to happen thus far.  

She didn’t seem to have many people who she was in contact with other than Jordan and me.  And no one from the places she’d lived before.  So, it was odd that night when there was a postcard under the cat magnet on the fridge.  Their fridge had the most random selection of magnets—obviously collected in their travels from state to state.  One advertised some auto shop in North Carolina, another the No-Name Ranch in Austin, TX.  Another one was the ugliest shade of yellow and was from Nebraska.  One advertised a beer I shockingly was not familiar with, and an evil, beady-eyed owl watched over the kitchen.  The cat was one of the only relatively normal ones, and as I was frequently in the kitchen, the postcard kind of leaped out at me.  

I wasn’t trying to be nosy, it sort of just intrigued me because I’d never seen a postcard on the fridge like that before, and it had to be important enough for one of them to pin it there.  I was on my second beer and she was finishing the dishes, and I was just drawn over to the fridge and was turning it over before I’d really even asked if that was cool or not.  

The front had four pictures; all vividly colored, and sprawled over them was Italia.  I suppose the colors had drawn me in, because they were so vibrant and bright, gleaming off the paper of the postcard.  The beauty in the pictures was astounding, and the color names couldn’t be reduced to the ordinary and normal—there were no yellows, pinks, greens, or blues.  

The scenery on the four pictures started with a truly amazing azure blue sea with stark white flowers from a shrub hanging over the water.  If possible, the austerity of the flowers made the sea seem an even more lurid shade of blue.  The second picture was of the countryside through the frame of an arched doorway.  The doorway led through a field of moss green and sepia, and a city loomed in the far distance.  The third picture was of a street, cobbled pavement wet from a rain, and each building front a different color: one brick, one canary, one salmon, one jade, on and on down the street.  Baskets of flowers hung from balconies hanging over the building fronts.  The sky was the masterpiece of the last picture, although the Tuscan town below it was quite impressive in its own right.  Buildings crowded together with a domed center, all the same burnt orange roofs and ochre brick.  The sky, though, was a mixture of various shades of carnation pink and cadet blue mixed with an ashy gray—it reminded me of cotton candy—with a layer of hazy fog in the distance rolling toward the town.  The framing of the picture was stunning, too.   

Someone had sent her this carefully selected postcard all the way from Italy.  I flipped it over and scanned the address.  It was sent to Allison—no Mallory here—so they obviously knew her, the real her.  

“Who are Doug and Lois?”  I asked.  Her head jerked in my direction and I put the postcard back immediately.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean… I should have asked first.”

She shook her head.  “No, it’s ok.  It was just weird for someone else to say their name.  No one else really knows about them.”  She came over to the fridge and moved the magnet again, turning over the postcard.  

“I didn’t read it,” I assured her.  “I just saw the name and was curious.  You don’t talk about them, so…”

She smiled, but her brows pulled down like it was odd that I hadn’t read it.  “You can read it.”  She handed it to me.  

Allison,
The colors here remind me of New Orleans, especially on some of the streets—sometimes it looks like Bourbon Street.  Who’d have thought we’d get to Italy?  Hope things are good with you.  Wish you could see this place.  I think you’d like it.  Lois says hi.  
–Doug

Doug had sort of a hurried scrawl, but I could tell he was trying to be legible.  His name was the least legible part of the writing, probably more like his penmanship normally was.  I couldn’t claim mine was any better, but I could sense that he’d made the effort here.  

“How do you know them?” I asked.

“Long story.”

I nodded.  Road block.  Back up, Tyler.  

I put the postcard back under the magnet.  She looked at it… warmly, and it was obviously special enough to her to be on the fridge, which was exactly why I wanted to know who they were and what they meant to her.  If I sent her a postcard, would I have made it on the fridge?

“They seem like nice people,” I settled for.

She nodded, putting away the last few dishes.  “Yeah, they are.”

“I’m glad.”  I smiled and she leaned against the counter for a minute, arms out.  

“You wanna watch TV or something for a while?”

“Sure.”  

We retreated to the couch and she turned on whatever random channel they’d left the TV on.  It was static-y, like usual, like a blizzard that kept playing on the screen.  Half the time I couldn’t make out what the hell was on the fucking thing, but I wasn’t concentrating on the TV or thinking about asking if she wanted to watch a movie.  The blizzard was fine with me, because it was just background noise, and her mind seemed to be elsewhere.  

My mind was floating somewhere between asking again, because I was just too fucking curious, and abandoning it altogether because she had pressed herself right against me, her legs folded under her and her body sort of sideways on the couch.  Her knees were resting on my thigh, and it was the most of her body that was ever in contact with mine, ever.  I struggled to maintain composure and not giggle in my exultation, or do something really stupid like point it out and make her move.  

My hand sort of landed on top of her knees of its own volition, and then two things that were completely marvelous happened all at once—she started telling me about Doug, and her hand landed on top of mine.  Focusing became extremely difficult because I really wanted to listen, but she kept running just one finger up and down over each of my knuckles and following the veins until they reached my wrist.  

“Doug came into the strip joint I was working at.  I don’t think he was really looking for anything in particular; he just wanted to get away or something.  He’d been there for some meeting, and then these guys he knew walked in and I offered to help him get away from them with a private lap dance.”

That stopped me short for a second, and I tried not to say anything, because now she had me wondering if private lap dances still happened, and I kind of asked it before I could stop myself.  I blame it on her distracting fingers.

She smiled and looked up at me for a second.  “No.  It doesn’t.”

I nodded, relieved.  I had a hard enough time trying to block out what she did.  I wasn’t sure how I’d handle knowing she was not only stripping on a stage, but rubbing all over some dude on top of that in a back room.  

“He kind of… I dunno, adopted me.  As his thing to save or something.  Tried to set me straight or whatever.  They’d lost a daughter in a car accident and I think I filled the void, gave him something to focus on.  He basically moved in with me, cleaned up the shithole that I lived in, got shit working, and forced me to get out of bed.  It wasn’t like… it was weird because he was sort of like a dad-figure, but just a friend, too.  He was the first person who made me really stop to think about what I was doing.  Then, his wife suddenly shows up, and she hasn’t left the house in, like, years, and she kinda moved in, too.  I think they wanted to take me home and adopt me for real.  I relied on them, and they were really nice to me, but I just... I bailed.  I couldn’t be their daughter, and I wasn’t open to a happily-ever-after ending.”

She’d gotten quieter toward the end, and she’d flipped my hand over, her finger tracing the lines back and forth, a feathery touch that made my whole hand tingle and goosebumps break out over my arm.  If she noticed she didn’t say anything, she just traced up and down my fingers and then back to the lines.  

I swallowed thickly because the light touching was starting to make me think of other things with her this close, so I forced myself to get back to her story.  

“When was this?”

“When I left NOLA, so around ’08, I guess.  When I bailed on them, I left for Texas.  But I know they care about me, so I try to drop a line, tell them I’m all right every once in a while.”

’08 meant that she was seventeen then, or near there.  If she’d been in New Orleans for any length of time, leaving home had been an early venture.  

I didn’t ask anything else—I thought she’d given me enough for one night—so we just sat there for a while, and eventually her body slowly slumped and her head landed on my shoulder.  I’d seen the movement and made sure I stayed completely still so she wouldn’t stop.  Elation was so fucking high.  If that hadn’t been enough, right after I strategically managed to rest my cheek gently against the top of her head, she said, so quietly I almost missed it, “You remind me of him sometimes.  Of Doug.”

Was that a compliment or not?  

“Is that a good thing?” I breathed over her hair.  It smelled like… honestly, it just smelled like shampoo.  And that just made so much sense that I smiled right into her hair, nuzzling gently.  She wouldn’t have been a fruity or flowery smell kind of girl for shampoo, nothing fancy and extravagant, just clean and fresh.  It fit her perfectly.  

She nodded against my shoulder, her fingers curling around mine, stopping the tracing.  “Yeah.”  I closed my fingers around hers, too, and basked in the warmth of her near me.  “Doug’s a good man.”

I think there was another compliment there, but she didn’t say it, and I was too wrapped in the moment to tease her about it.  I think we kinda dozed for a while, and I really wanted to just stay right there, so of course I had to force myself to go.  I wasn’t sure how much longer the forcing was going to last, though.  A few more nights with her cuddled next to me and I was going to be permanently sleeping on her couch or something.  

I kept her hand in mine as she walked me to the door and then I pulled our joined hands up to press a kiss into the back of her hand.  Her smile was sleepy and warm, and laced with a slight blush.  

“Goodnight,” I said quietly.  

“’Night, Tyler.”

I’d felt high myself when I left, the kind that required no substance other than her company.  

It was just too bad I hadn’t thought to look at the date.




One (Part One) (Part Two) (Part Three) |   Two   |  Three  |  Four  |  Five  |  Six  |  Seven  |  Eight  |  Nine