Nine Minutes

by Beth Flynn

  This was the first time I found myself wanting to do something nice for someone at the motel. Up until this point I’d made small meals for myself, sometimes Grizz. He never asked me to cook for him and he lived mostly on take-out from one of the many bars he owned. I’d give Moe a small grocery list and she provided the basics every week. I’d been living off of cereal, grilled cheese and BLT’s. I was ready to cook again.

  So here I was at the motel, whipping up spaghetti and meatballs from scratch. I made everything except my own pasta. I hadn’t thoroughly surveyed Grizz’s kitchen, so I realized too late that I didn’t have a strainer for the pasta. I found Chowder and he quickly made me a homemade strainer with some leftover screening. It was crude, but it worked. I thanked him and told him dinner would be at seven.

  That’s how Grizz found the three of us. Moe and I were sitting on the couch. Chowder was in the recliner. We were holding our plates and eating and laughing at something Chowder had said.

  “What smells so good?” Grizz asked as he laid some paperwork on his desk.

  “Best damn spaghetti and meatballs I ever ate is what smells so good,” Chowder replied.

  “From where?” Grizz asked.

  Chowder now had a mouthful of food and motioned toward me with his empty fork.

  Grizz looked at me. “You had somebody take you for take-out? Hope you saved me some.”

  “I made it. Moe took me grocery shopping. There’s plenty. Help yourself.”

  “Good, cause I’m half starved,” he said as he headed into the kitchen.

  Chowder started to get up to let Grizz sit down, but Grizz motioned him back and indicated for me and Moe to scoot over. We made room for him on the couch. The four of us sat there in companionable silence and enjoyed the homemade meal.

  Chowder and Moe eventually went back to their rooms, and I started to do the dishes. I thought I heard Grizz fiddling with the stereo. I was right. Before I knew it, Barry White’s sexy voice was belting out a tune. Grizz wanted to listen to Barry White? I stiffened for just a second then let myself relax. I had my hands in the hot, soapy water and was really enjoying the music when I felt Grizz come up behind me. He slipped his arms around my waist and softly kissed the side of my temple.

  “Kit, I don’t know how much longer I can wait for you, honey. I’ve tried to be patient. To give you space. Just so you know, that’s not like me.”

  My hands stilled. “I’m a little scared, Grizz. Actually, more nervous than scared.” I tilted my head up to him, hands damp. “I know you have experience. I have none. I’m afraid you’ve built me up in your head to an ideal I can’t live up to. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  Until that very moment I didn’t even know the extent of my feelings. But I recognized there was truth in what I said.

  I was falling for Grizz.

  I still can’t explain the Grunt thing. Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was all in my head because of the dream. I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

  Because while I was talking, Grizz was kissing my neck and I was letting myself enjoy it. I closed my eyes and leaned into him.

  “You could never disappoint me, baby and I don’t want you to have experience. Everything you need to know you’ll learn from me,” he said as he turned me around and kissed me. “Only me.”

  I wasn’t a very practiced kisser, either, but I was able to take his lead and kiss him back the way he wanted. I was leaning into him now, and if what was pressed against my stomach was any indication of his feelings for me, then I must have been doing something right.

  “I’ll go real slow with you, baby. I promise.”

  I was heady with emotion. I didn’t think about Grunt. I didn’t think about Sarah Jo. I didn’t think about the kidnapping, Johnny Tillman, fence guy, Moe. I was lost in the man that was holding me and kissing me.

  I stopped him, took him by the hand and led him back to the bedroom. He was right.

  It was time.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My experience with Grizz was better than I ever expected. He was gentle, he was caring, he was patient. So different from the man I watched lead a notorious motorcycle gang.

  The rest of the summer passed uneventfully. I signed up for the same high school correspondence course Grunt took. I fell into a domestic routine of cooking and cleaning. I spoiled the animals. Every evening after dinner, Grizz and I played chess on a little set that I bought on one of my shopping trips. Afterwards, he’d go to the pit while I read, did homework or practiced my guitar.

  I never asked Grizz about his business and he never offered up any information, either. I rarely, if ever, went to the pit at night, but I knew he had to. In addition to just hanging out there, a lot of business was conducted around the fire. There were always people coming and going.

  Two or three times I went with Moe to get the mail in Davie, and we made the same stop under the ficus tree each time.

  I think I was happy, but restless. Something was bothering me. I struggled with my faith. There was serious guilt about having sex out of wedlock. I didn’t realize how much it bothered me until one evening in August.

  Grizz and I were in bed and we were getting ready to make love. He was on top of me and kissing me. He slowly started to make his way down my body teasing me with his tongue and light kisses. Every time he went lower, I scooted lower, causing him to have to inch his body lower. Just as he was making his way below my belly button, he stopped what he was doing and looked up at me.

  I was leaning up on my elbows, eyes wide. I’d been watching him.

  “Damn it, Kit, what are you trying to do?”

  “What do you mean? I’m not doing anything. What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to get to your pus—”

  “Eh, stop it! Don’t say it. I hate that word. It’s so vulgar. Just don’t, please.”

  “Kit, I’m laying here with my ass hanging off the end of the bed. Would you mind telling me why you won’t let me down there?”

  “It’s just too personal.”

  He looked at me strangely and started to crawl up to face me. “What do you mean too personal?”

  “Look, I just think that you having your face in my…my—” I could tell he was getting ready to finish my sentence. “Don’t say it!”

  With my right hand I absently played with the earring in his left ear and continued. “Having your face there is the most personal thing I can think of between a man and a woman. Even intercourse doesn’t seem as intimate compared to that.”

  There, I finally said it.

  I had avoided oral sex with him ever since that first night, after the spaghetti dinner. It was never an issue. He was true to his word about taking things slowly with me, and he never pushed me. When I thought he might try something like this, I purposely distracted him. When I had my period and thought he might want oral sex, I avoided him. I guess it was a miracle I’d held him off this long. I was very good at providing distractions. I didn’t fully understand myself the reason why until this moment. I did my best to explain.

  “Look, Grizz. Thanks to Grunt, I will never be a virgin on my wedding night.”

  He interrupted me before I could continue. “Kit, I’ve never told you how sorry I am about that. I never should’ve had Grunt do that to you. I wasn’t thinking straight. You know, I’m bigger than that damn stick. I thought it would hurt you less and I didn’t want to hurt you even a little. That’s why I let Grunt take care of it. I never cared about a woman before.”

  He looked away from me then, and I realized how much it cost him to say that. That was the first and last time I heard Grizz express regret for anything.

  “That’s not what I’m trying to get at here,” I said, cheeks flushing. “What I’m trying to say is I need to save something of myself for when I do finally get married one day. There has to be something I can give my future husband that is his alone. Does that make sense?”

  I looked at him pleadingly and he didn’t say anything. A
n emotion showed on his face I had not seen yet. I was unable to read him. He dropped his forehead so it rested on mine. I wrapped my arms around his back and started to kiss him.

  We made love that night and I fell asleep grateful he didn’t press the issue.

  I thought the matter was dropped until two days later. He told me he was taking me somewhere special and to dress nicely.

  I didn’t have any dress clothes, so I wore a nice sundress and sandals. He wore new jeans and a dress shirt. We got in his Corvette and headed for the beach. I pestered him the whole way. What were we doing? Why the surprise?

  I was a little disappointed when we pulled up in front of Eddie’s tattoo parlor. I told him I didn’t mind waiting in the car, but he said to come inside. His business here had to do with me.

  It had to do with me, all right. Apparently, Eddie was also an ordained minister.

  That day I became Mrs. Richard David O’Connell. I was six months shy of my sixteenth birthday.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There were two customers in the shop who served as witnesses. Ann Marie Morgan was eighteen and didn’t need parental permission to get married. I was in too much shock to even remember the ceremony.

  I remember telling him I didn’t have a ring for him, and he told me not to worry, it was being handled. I watched nervously as Eddie used his tattoo gun to create a beautiful ink wedding band on Grizz’s left ring finger. It was my name, Kit, and it had vines weaving in and out of it. Then it was my turn.

  “I can’t, Grizz,” was all I could say.

  “What do you mean you can’t?”

  “I can’t.” My voice shook. “I hate needles. I fainted when I got my ears pierced. Twice! Delia did each one with an ice cube and a sewing needle, and I fainted after each one.”

  Eddie interrupted. “It’s not that bad, Kit. How about I draw it on first and let’s see if you like it? Huh? How about that?” he asked as he held up an ink pen. “Your finger is so small it’s not gonna take a lot of ink.”

  I reluctantly sat down. Grizz held my right hand and kept telling me it wouldn’t be that bad.

  True to his word, Eddie used an ink pen with a really fine point to start drawing Grizz’s name on my finger. He was talking to me as he was doing it, trying to ease my anxiety.

  “Then we’ll go right here and make the bottom of this ‘z’ like a vine, to match Grizz’s finger, and then we’ll—”

  I didn’t hear the rest. I fainted. When I woke up, Grizz was standing over me with a big grin.

  “Didn’t feel a thing, did you?”

  I was so humiliated. I’d fainted before they even used a needle. That had to be a first. I stayed passed out during the whole tattoo process. I know I was beet red and just wanted to crawl into a hole.

  “C’mon, Mrs. O’Connell, let’s go home.”

  We stopped at a really nice Italian restaurant on the way home. He teased me the whole time about fainting. I finally saw the humor in it and laughed at myself.

  “I just don’t get it,” I said to him while waiting for our dinner.

  “What, baby? What don’t you get?” he asked me as he buttered a roll.

  “Why me? It’s obvious you can have any woman you want. Why do you want me, Grizz? Truthfully. Why?”

  He got very quiet and placed the now-buttered roll back on the plate. I didn’t think he was going to answer me. I couldn’t fathom the depth of his feelings for me. I’d done nothing to call attention to myself when I lived next to Guido. It just didn’t make sense.

  I asked again, “Why me? I mean, I tell you I’m uncomfortable having oral sex and you marry me. Who does that?”

  It was then that Grizz told me a story. I sat in stunned silence as he told me about a lonely biker and a little, neglected girl with a sloppy ponytail and two missing front teeth.

  I didn’t completely understand it, but yes. It now made some sense.

  ____________

  When we got back to the motel there was a bigger than usual crowd around the pit. I started to walk to number four, but Grizz told me to come with him for a few minutes.

  As we stood facing the group, he said, “I have an announcement to make.”

  Just then, Grunt came out of his room and walked up to us. He was standing off to Grizz’s right waiting for the announcement.

  “I just made it official. Meet the new Mrs. Grizz.”

  As he said this, Grizz held up my left hand showing my ring tattoo with his name on it. It was so small and hard to see that some people jumped up and came over to take a closer look. I was overwhelmed by the hooting and hollering and looked at Grizz to let him know I was done and going back to number four. He nodded at me to go.

  I turned to walk toward our room when I saw Grunt standing by his door. Now that I thought about it, he wasn’t one of the people who came up to congratulate us. I changed direction and started to walk toward him. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to explain this to him. I was looking down and trying to figure what I was going to say and wondering why I felt I needed to say anything. I had almost reached his door.

  But when I looked up, he was gone.

  ____________

  I knocked on Grunt’s door and went in when he yelled, “It’s open.” He was standing near his stereo flipping through albums.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.” His voice was casual, unreadable.

  I took the plunge, blurting out in a rush, “Grunt, I don’t know why, but I feel like I owe you an explanation about me and Grizz.”

  “No, you don’t, Kit.” Grunt shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Well, then why do I feel like I do?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe because of our secret?”

  “Maybe that’s it. I don’t know. It was a surprise, you know? He didn’t tell me where he was taking me. I don’t know why it bothers me, but are you okay with this?”

  “Yes and no.”

  I gave him a look that pleaded with him to continue.

  “I don’t know why he had to marry you. You’re really young. But, it’s not just that. I’m concerned for your safety.”

  I started to interrupt but he held a hand up to stop me. “Grizz has a lot of enemies, Kit. Yes, he also has a lot of people who are afraid of him, who do what he tells them to do. But there’s always going to be that person out there looking for a way to get to him. By announcing his marriage to you, he opened that up. It’s going to get around, you know? People will hear that he cared enough about a woman to marry her. I’m just surprised he announced it. I’m worried for you, is all.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He didn’t say he was upset because I married Grizz, thereby making me unavailable to him. What in the world was wrong with me? I’d been in Grizz’s bed for months now. I’d told myself Grunt was with Sarah Jo, and if I harbored any feelings at all for him, I needed to squelch them. So where was this coming from?

  “I appreciate the concern. I really do. I don’t know if it makes a difference or not, Grunt, but I feel safe with Grizz.”

  “Just do me a favor, Kit. Stay sharp. Never let your guard down. You just never know with this kind of lifestyle what can come knocking at your door.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  We both moved in for a hug. It seemed like it lasted a little longer than it should have. I looked up and he was looking down at me. We stood there like that for a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. He broke away first and turned back to his stereo. I left and headed back to number four.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Thanksgiving was approaching, and I realized I’d never sat down to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and all the trimmings.

  Grizz was sitting at his desk doing some paperwork, and I was sitting in the recliner repairing a ripped seam on one of my blouses. We must have looked like the poster couple for wedded domestic bliss. Truth be told, I really was happy. I was rattling on about a menu and cooking my first turkey when Grizz said,
“Won’t be here. You can go to Blue’s with Grunt.”

  “What do you mean you won’t be here? Why not?”

  “Nope. Business.” He turned around to look at me and rested his arm on the top of the chair. “Sorry, Kitten, I’ve got to be gone, and I can’t bring you with me. Jan does a big dinner every year. You’ll like it.”

  “Ugh. Really? Dinner with Jan? I don’t think so.” I know my disappointment was evident.

  “Look, she’s been after Blue for months now to bring you back around. I told you how she gets. She’s so full of remorse over how she treated you that she’ll probably roll out the red carpet and be on her best behavior to get back on your good side. You really should go. Moe and Chowder go every year.”

  “No way. I’d rather stay here alone before I go to that house again. Nope. I’m definitely not going.”

  I went. Grunt coaxed me into going by telling me how he needed me for moral support. He hated going to his brother’s, but the truth was he loved the kids, and Jan always was on her best behavior when he was there.

  I was at Moe’s door knocking to see if she was ready. Chowder had already begged out. He was invited to Chicky’s place and said he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I wondered if that was true.

  Moe opened the door and let me in her room. I’d never completely walked inside Moe’s room before. I was stunned. The walls were covered in beautiful drawings of horses. I noticed one particularly recognizable brown horse.

  “Wow. Moe, did you draw these?”

  She mouthed “yes” and smiled at me.

  “I didn’t know you were such a talented artist. These are gorgeous. Can I have one to hang in number four?”

  She smiled even bigger and gestured with her hand for me to pick one out. I settled on one of the brown horse grazing under a familiar tree.

  “Thanks. I’ll leave it in here, though, until we get back from dinner. Ready to go?”