Fulfillment

by Golland, K. M.

  “The feeling is mutual, my love.” He kept his eyes locked on mine. “Now have a great night. Relax, drink, drool over Patrick Swayze, but just this once though,” he smirked.

  “Don’t you worry, he’s got nothing on you. I’ve seen you dance...in next to nothing, remember?” I raised my eyebrow seductively at him.

  “What. The. Fuck!” Steph screeched, “He dances...too? Alexis, I officially hate you. H.A.T.E you.”

  Bryce kept his eyes on mine, love pouring out of them. It literally made me weak at the knees. “I’ll see you later.” He kissed me again then left the apartment, this time his kiss leaving my lips tingling, swollen, confused, and sad at his departure.

  “Come on, you. Its’ party time,” said Jen encouragingly, as she threaded her arm in mine and led me to the lounge.

  ***

  We sat down and watched Dirty Dancing while eating the delicious tapas that Bryce had arranged one of the complex’s restaurants to deliver to us. He amazed me with his attention to detail, and I pined for his return even more, so that I could show him my appreciation.

  “Alexis Elizabeth Summers, get your head out of Cloud-Clark and pay attention,” Tash snapped.

  “What? Sorry.” I adjusted my Celebrity Head headband and took another swig of my gin. “Is it my turn?” I asked.

  They all barked. “Yes!”

  “Okay, geez! Um, am I male?”

  “Sometimes I think you are,” Tash added sarcastically.

  I launched my cushion at her.

  “Yes, Lex, you are a male,” Lil clarified.

  “Am I fucking hot?”

  “Yes,” Steph said bluntly.

  “Are you serious?” Lil was wide eyed. “No, Lex, he is not.”

  “Yes, he is,” Steph corrected her. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want that between your legs.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “You’re a lesbian aren’t you? Admit it, I’m totally fine with it, Lil. I love lesbians.”

  I laughed at Steph’s ability to deliberately bait Lil. Lil picked up her beer bottle and wrapped her lips around it suggestively then took a drink.

  “So am I fucking hot or not?” I shouted, over the top of the two of them.

  Jade blew at her toes, which she’d just painted with polish. “Debateable. Ask another question.”

  “Am I an actor?”

  “Yes. A very fucking good actor, in more ways than one,” Jen said, a hint of anger on her face. Hmmm interesting.

  “Do I have a big cock?” I asked as I tried to swallow my gin, the swallowing not working too well.

  “Yes,” Steph said, in a manner that suggested she was picturing said big cock.

  Lil gagged. “Bet you it’s tiny.”

  Steph scowled at Lil. “His hands are huge. Enough said.”

  “That’s a fucking myth,” Lil bit back.

  I automatically found myself thinking of Bryce’s large, luscious hands and his equally large luscious cock. Myth or not, my Mr. Huge-Hands-Clark is not an exception.

  “Alexis! Stop thinking about wrapping your lips around Bryce’s man-rod,” Tash said with her hands on her hips.

  “Why? It’s a pretty good man-rod.” I giggled.

  “How good is it?” Steph asked eagerly.

  “Oh...real good.” I raised my eyebrows and opened my mouth suggestively. Alexis, how many gins have you had?

  “I knew it. I knew you swallowed,” Carls piped in, concentrating really hard on painting her toes.

  “So do you. And again, for the record, you can stop telling me all about it,” I reminded Carls.

  “Pfft! Well yeah, of course I do. It’s full of protein you know!”

  Jen shivered, “Na, yuck. I’d rather eat fucking egg.”

  We all looked at Jen and burst into laughter.

  “What?” she said defensively. “Do you all swallow?”

  We all searched each other’s eyes with sly smiles on our faces, no one else giving anything away except for Tash, her lips beginning to purse.

  I pointed at her. “Tash, you little whore-a-saurus, you swallow too.”

  “Alexis, how old are you?”

  “About as old as you,” I drunk-giggled.

  “Lexi, can you please pull yourself together and ask another fucking question or I’m quitting this stupid game,” Lil threatened.

  “Alright, alright. Have I been in a lot of blockbusters?”

  “Yep,” they all answered.

  “Well if they are blockbusters, I’m guessing they are action movies.”

  “Yep,” they all answered again.

  I stewed on it for a second then put two and two together “Will he ‘be back?” I said in my best Austrian accent.

  Steph rolled her eyes. “Yes,” she groaned.

  “Does he say ‘It’s not a tumour’ really well?” I asked, again in my horrible Austrian accent.

  Jen cracked up laughing, “You suck.”

  I happy-danced a bum wiggle in my seat. “Am I Arnold Swarzaschnitzel?”

  Tash laughed and gave me a knowing smile.

  “Don’t you mean Schwarzenegger?” Jade asked.

  Tash giggled, “She can’t say Schwarzenegger, so she says Swarzaschnitzel.”

  “She can’t say parallelogram, either,” Carls chimed in, now finished with painting her toes.”

  “Say it,” Steph prompted.

  “No!”

  “Say it!” they all begged.

  “Urgh! Fine,” I sighed frustratingly. “pallarellogram,” I mumbled truthfully, struggling to say the stupid word mixed with the usual inability due to liquor consumption.

  They all pissed themselves laughing.

  “That’s gold, Lex. Say it again, please,” Jade pleaded.

  “Fuck off,” I giggled.

  Tash jumped up. “Okay this game sucks. Let’s dance.” She grabbed Jen’s Michael Jackson CD and turned herself in a 360 degree spin. “Where’s the CD player?”

  “Ooo in here.” I excitedly pushed myself up, limping to the man-cave without my walking stick. Stupid thing. I turned around just before opening the door to see the girls all lined up behind me in single file, excitement plastered across their faces. It was hilarious.

  “This room is known as the man-cave,” I slurred and sniggered. “It’s where men do manly things.”

  I opened the door and we all filtered in. “Don’t touch the instruments,” I ordered.

  Steph pouted, “Aw, you’re no fun.”

  “Awesome, a pool table! Rack em up, bitches,” Tash said as she frizbee’d the CD to Jen.

  I grabbed a pool cue, knowing that I was in no position to play, let alone wield a long pointy object, but when you are powered by alcohol, anything goes. “I’ll break,” I confidently decided.

  “You’ll break something if you don’t stop twirling that pool cue around,” Jade pointed out.

  Just as I was about to attempt a twirl of the cue around my head, the howl of a wolf sounded through the speakers around the room, followed by the beats of Thriller. Lil whistled, and Tash and I started jerking our shoulders like we had an involuntary twitch, both of us taking slow steps toward each other, my limp fitting in perfectly with the act.

  One minute we were casually standing around the man-cave, the next we were all possessed by Michael Jackson’s zombies. Jen let out an MJ holler and threw her hands up in the air, dangling them like claws. Jade and Lil then proceeded to stomp around the room, Tash and Carls joined in, and Steph attempted a Moonwalk, failing and falling backwards onto the sofa. It seemed we all had our own ‘Thriller’ dance moves.

  I’m not sure if I resembled the best zombie due to already hobbling around like one, or because I was slightly intoxicated. Either way, I was in full blown Thriller mode, zombie-dancing all over the room. Squatting down with my back to the door, I then proceeded to pivot my body around slowly to the music when my eyes met four pairs of the male variety, one pair of those belonging to Bryce. Oh for the love of God, not again. Ho
w many freakin’ times is he going to bust me dancing or singing like an idiot?

  I did what any half-cut 36 year old woman would do. I waved then pivoted back around and continued acting like a zombie with my friends.

  As the music started to fade out, Bryce, Will, Derek, and Matt entered the room, amused grins on their faces. Derek smiled at me then moved his sight toward Carly, who was still twitching her shoulders like a zombie not having noticed his arrival. When she did look up her face was stark with mortification. She gave him a sheepish grin and spun around, allowing him a view of the back of her head. I thought it extremely funny knowing Derek would think the same.

  Picking up the pool cue while eye-fucking Bryce, I ordered Tash to get our game underway. “Trashy Tashy, break those balls,” I commanded

  “Consider them broken, Sexy Lexi,” she fired back.

  He stalked toward me and slid his hands around my back, settling them on my arse. “Sexy Lexi, I like it,” he said, with a charmed expression.

  “I like you,” I said with a stupid smile and snort outburst to match. Oh fuck! I just snorted like a pig. Was that me? Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was Tash. I looked at Tash. Yes, it was her. I looked at Bryce, who was on the brink of uncontrollable laughter. Shit! No, it was definitely me.

  “I like you too, especially when you make animal noises,” he grinned before pulling me to his mouth.

  I could have given him a cluck, or a bleat, or even a donkey eeyore, but I held myself together and just kissed him back. You will thank yourself for that decision in the morning, Alexis.

  ***

  The rest of the evening went well, with unskilled games of pool, more crazy dance moves, a couple of impromptu jam sessions and Derek and Carly hitting it off. I even spotted some playful flirting and light bodily touching, which surprised me, because Carly was not normally shy or bashful when it came to letting a guy know she was interested. I sensed she really liked Derek—really liked him.

  Bryce had arranged hotel rooms for all my friends. I loved living in a hotel—with the hotel owner. It was really convenient.

  As all the girls were leaving I pulled Carls aside. “So, Carly Josephine Henkley, is your fiery hole about to be put out?”

  “Lex, he is so putting a scorching heat in between my legs, it is not funny.”

  “Well, need I remind you that he is a firefighter...let the guy put it out, apparently that’s what he’s good at.”

  “I’m terrified,” she whispered.

  I whispered back. “What the fuck? Carly does not get terrified. Why is Carly terrified?”

  She continued the whispered conversation, now referring to herself in the third person, “Because Carly really fucking likes Derek.”

  I dropped my hand to hold hers by our sides conspicuously. “Oh Carls, that’s great. Do you want to know a secret?”

  “What?”

  “He likes you too,” I whispered with an impish grin.

  “How the...,” she blurted out, then looked around sheepishly and continued in a more quieter tone “... fuck do you know?”

  I kissed her forehead, “Because he told me.” I then turned her shoulders around and playfully smacked her on the butt, ushering her out the door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I’ve always considered myself a quietly confident type of person. Not cocky or arrogant, but grounded and self-reliant. My parents had brought me up to be assertive in all that I did, instilling me with the mindset that you should always attempt what is attemptable. If you succeed in your attempts, you will have experienced something profound, but if you fail, try again. And if you fail once more, learn from your failure, but appreciate why you failed in the first place.

  I think it was that piece of advice that gave me the confidence to agree to do a lot of things in life. It was either that or my lack of willpower against peer pressure that had me doing things I would not normally do, like performing at a local pub in front of...let’s say...an easy one hundred or so people.

  This day was a perfect example of that, being the day where I was to perform “The Only Exception” for Bryce at an inner city bar. I’d been learning the basics of guitar for the past couple of months with the intention to surprise Bryce and give something personal back to him after our devastating loss. I’d told myself that I wasn’t doing it because I felt responsible for that loss, but I guess if I was going to be completely honest with myself, there was a small part of me that was doing it for that reason. I also wanted to give him something back; something only I could give him.

  Derek had been wonderful, not only with his instructions but with our last minute secret get togethers in order to practice behind Bryce’s back. I think he also enjoyed the one on one time so that he could get information out of me about Carly. They had been on two dates already and I assumed were taking things slowly as Carly had not yet mentioned anything about his physique or stamina or his cock’s look, feel, taste and ability—things she often filled me in on right away.

  Nate, Charlotte, Carly and I were all waiting patiently while Live Trepidation set up for their gig on the rooftop at Bar 22. Carls had come along to see Derek perform, and I wasn’t sure whether I appreciated that or not. If my performance for Bryce was acceptable, then great, she was there to witness that, but if it was a complete flop, then fuck, she was also there to witness that and have the ammunition to never let me live it down.

  It was a perfect early summer Saturday afternoon, the temperature sitting nicely in the mid-twenties. Although I felt rather hot and slightly clammy, guessing it was a result of my intense anxiety. I scanned my surroundings, taking in the modern contemporary styled rooftop bar, with wooden bench style seats running along the boundary walls. Walls, which were also wooden panelled to about half way up, stopping to support an ornamental garden containing lights. The lights nestled in the garden lit up the painted feature walls that spanned the space from the garden top, all the way to the veranda-styled roof. There were also mirrored Art Deco pieces hung on the feature walls which grabbed the garden light’s beam and bounced it back into the room.

  The bar sat opposite the stage which was set up in front of the furthest wall when you walked onto the roof top. The rectangular space in front of the stage and bar was filled with matching square-shaped wooden panelled tables and groovy white and red tub chairs. We were seated in those chairs around a table, the closest to the stage.

  “Alexis?”

  Carly’s raised voice snapped me out of my scrutinizing.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you alright? You’ve been off with the pixies ever since I arrived.”

  “Sorry, I’m just...” I leaned in closer to her. “Nervous.” I sat back and couldn’t help but display a terrified look on my face.

  She screwed up her face then leaned in closer to me. “Why are you nervous?”

  I looked at Charli and Nate who both had their heads down, attention fixed to their iPods. “Derek has been teaching me how to play the guitar, and I’m going to surprise Bryce with a song. I’m freaking out, I’ve only been playing for a few months.”

  “Fuck off!” Carls said out aloud.

  I glared at her then subtly flicked my eyes in the kids’ direction—they didn’t even flinch.

  “Are you for real? Oh, my, God, that’s awesome. So, why are you nervous?”

  “Oh,” I deadpanned for the smallest of seconds, “Let me guess...cause there’s a whole roof top full of freakin’ strangers.”

  “Who cares?” Carls said bluntly as she picked up her glass of wine and sipped it.

  “I do!” I blurted out as I picked up mine, sipping it not as calmly as Carly had.

  “Why? Who are you performing for? Them or Bryce?”

  I tilted my head to the side in frustration. “Bryce.”

  “So just play it for him. Don’t even acknowledge anyone else.” She sipped her drink again then focussed her attention on Derek, having convinced herself that her advice was my solution. “We haven’t had
vanilla yet,” she added.

  “Oh,” I gave the kids another quick glance, checking to see they were still occupied with their handheld devices and not catching on to the fact that their mother and Carly were now talking about sex. “Why not? That’s unlike you. You normally devour vanilla then jump right in to chocolate or even Rocky Road.”

  “I do not,” she scoffed.

  “Yes, you do. There’s not many flavours you haven’t tried.”

  “I like strawberry, Aunty Carls. Do you like strawberry?” Charli asked, not taking her eyes from her iPod. Charli, you eavesdropping little rabbit.

  “Yes, Charli, I love strawberry. It’s my favourite.” Carls pressed her lips together as if to say ‘Mmmm’.

  “Mum, what’s your favourite?”

  I don’t know. Are we talking about sex or ice cream flavours? “I like vanilla with sprinkles and topping and chocolate chips,” I answered quickly. There, I think that about covers everything.

  “Yeah, me too,” she smiled at me. “Can I have some now?” What?

  I looked at Carly, her amused face revelling in the fact I had to somehow dig myself out of this dilemma. “What Charli? What do you want?” I asked flustered.

  “Ice cream.”

  “Um, sure.” I dug out my purse. “Nate?”

  “I’ll have what she’s having,” he replied, unperturbed and like Charli not even removing his eyes from the little screen. This is the weirdest conversation ever.

  Carls was laughing. I shook my head at her.

  “Here, Charli, go up to the bistro desk over there and order two ice cream sundaes.” I handed her the money and pointed her in the right direction. “Nate, go with her please.”

  “Huh?”

  “Go with Charli to order your ice cream or I’ll change my mind,” I threatened in a joking manner.

  “Oh, okay thanks.” He placed his iPod in his pocket and walked off with Charli.

  When they were gone, I turned to Carls. “Why haven’t you fucked Derek yet? Carls, what’s wrong with him?”

  “Nothing. It’s not him. It’s me.”