by Payne, C. D.
AUGUST
MONDAY, August 1 – Middle of the night sometime. No sleep on the menu with Veeva on the prowl. She said we had to tackle Nick’s computer before he got back from work. It booted fine with no password required. Lots and lots of files, but Veeva suggested we search for any containing the name Sheeni in the text. Easy and quick with Nick’s stallion of a processor. It found only one file though, an e-mail message earlier this year from Trent Preston.
“Trent Preston the actor?” asked Veeva.
“Probably. My brother hobnobs with all the greats.”
Here is the text of the message:
“Hi, Nick. Back in Paris after a few days in Barcelona, one of our favorite cities. I saw Sheeni for lunch yesterday. They were here on wine business. She sends her regards. She was looking extraordinarily beautiful. Not to be sexist, but I think these may be her peak years. She’s well, but her spirits seemed a little down. I think she may be feeling discouraged that her career has not progressed as well as she would have liked. Of course, she dotes on her children, though she would never admit it. Frankly, I’m surprised that she turned out to be such a devoted mother. She is taking them all over the city on her usual missions of cultural enrichment. I’ve accepted a challenging role in a Franco-German-Norwegian production, so must get back to the darn script. Many pages to learn, since I like to go into rehearsals well prepared. We leave for Oslo on Friday. Sorry, no possibility of getting back to the States until perhaps the fall. Violet has an idea for a new routine for you. She will be calling you one of these days. She sends her love. Talk to you soon.
Trent”
“Damn, that’s not very enlightening,” said Veeva. “Well, perhaps Nick didn’t use my aunt’s name in his diaries. He might have used a pet name.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Like Snookums or Twinkle Toes.”
“I could call Uma that. She polishes her toenails and sprinkles them with glitter. It’s amazing.”
“Enough about that small town hick, Noel. Jesus!”
“Uma is not a hick. She’s lived most of her life in Mississippi.”
“One of our great cosmopolitan centers. OK, search for Saunders instead.”
That effort turned up two e-mails from Connie Saunders, both complaining in the bitterest terms about her difficult daughter. Veeva read them with interest, then snarled, “Yeah, well you ain’t seen nothing yet, lady. OK, what other words would you find in the diary of a teenage boy? Search for wanking.”
“You’re the boss,” I sighed.
All the standard terms for self-abuse turned up nothing. Nick’s elusive diary was not on that computer. It might have been on his laptop, but that machine, we discovered, required a password to access.
“Fuck and double fuck,” said Veeva. “Well, we’ll just have to give this house a thorough search. Leave no stone unturned!”
We finished in Nick’s bedroom just as we heard his BMW pull into the driveway. No diary, but we now knew a great deal about my brother’s personal tastes in underwear, ties, cufflinks, cologne, condoms, bedside reading material (mostly Amusement Business and Billboard magazines), sex lubes, shampoo, men’s cosmetics, and shaving apparatus (why does one guy need six electric razors?). And why does he have one white anklet sock matted in a silver frame above his dresser? Oh, and he also takes Rogaine to battle the dreaded Twispian curse of scalp-baring baldness. I’d never heard of the stuff, but Veeva says they sell it by the trainload in L.A.
She kissed me in the hallway, said we’d do the rest of the house tomorrow, and scampered off toward her bedroom. It’s 2:08, blog readers. Time for this dude to turn in. Oh, one last note: today is my brother’s 30th birthday. The guy’s youth is now behind him.
1:15 p.m. Another scorching day. Veeva says Las Vegas is the waiting room to Hell in more ways than one. She roused me from bed at the ungodly hour of 8:30. Didn’t even knock. Just barged in and surprised me with my usual morning boner. I was embarrassed, but she says having younger brothers has destroyed any fascination she might have had for the ups and downs of male anatomy. She dragged me out of bed to finish searching the house before Nick woke up. Only the FBI could have given the place a more thorough going-over. No luck at all. I was beginning to think the Journals of Nick Twisp were all a myth.
Nick finally hauled his birthday carcass out of bed, and Veeva volunteered to take us all out to breakfast. No sign of Ada. We went to a local place, which turned out not to take American Express, so my brother ended up paying again. I felt bad because we hadn’t even bothered to scrounge up a present for him. I felt worse when he asked us if we were looking for anything in particular in his house or just snooping around. Damn, and I thought we’d been pretty careful to return everything just as we found it.
Veeva smiled and turned on the charm. “We’re looking for your diary, Uncle Nick. We want to know all about your eventful past with my aunt Sheeni.”
“Did she send you to find it? Is that what she’s worried about?”
The guy seemed more than a little paranoid, even if he was turning 30, losing his hair, and breaking up with his girlfriend.
“No way, Uncle Nick. My aunt’s never said boo about your diary. We’re just curious.”
“Well, if she asks, you can tell her I’ve copied my journal files onto two CDs. One is in my safe deposit drawer in my bank; the other is in the safe of my attorney. Those are the only two copies and there they will stay until my death.”
Jesus, his diary must be even spicier and more incriminating than we had supposed. I wonder how hard it is to break into a lawyer’s safe?
“You’re being awfully secretive about your past, Uncle Nick,” Veeva scolded.
“Well, Sheeni also kept a journal during our time together,” he replied, still not smiling. “If you’re so interested, why don’t you bug her to read her account?”
“Thanks for the information,” smiled Veeva. “We’ll do just that!”
On the way back, Veeva made us stop in a shopping center to buy a cake and candles for our host. She says supermarket bakery cakes are inedible, but we bought one anyway. I wanted chocolate, she preferred carrot, so we went with the latter. I paid this time, as not even I could make my brother buy his own birthday cake. We also got him one of those shiny metallic birthday balloons on a stick. Very festive. I sure hope my 30th birthday is cheerier than his was turning out to be.
5:36 p.m. Kind of a boring afternoon, until Ada arrived with the moving van. Veeva said it wasn’t a surprise that all the passable furnishings got carted off by her. Personally, I think it was a little cruel of Ada to move out on her ex-boyfriend’s birthday–even if he was two-timing her with some Czech bimbo. Nick holed up in his office and worked on his computer while the movers were here. After they left, Veeva and I went swimming in Nick’s pool, but it really was too hot to stay outside even in the shade. Winnemucca may suck, but it rarely gets this absurdly hot.
Nick just phoned out for pizza. We’re going to have an early dinner, blow out the candles, then my brother is meeting some friends to “get very drunk.” Nope, we’re not invited, though he said we were free to watch anything on TV from his DVD collection. Perhaps we can find something R-rated starring that sexy beast Brandon De Wilde.
11:47 p.m. A momentous night. We never did get around to watching a movie. Instead Veeva wanted to talk about my brother. We spun a couple of his Frank Sinatra platters (to use the terminology of the era), and I scarfed down two more pieces of birthday cake. Interestingly, although we bought the cake that Veeva preferred, she didn’t actually deign to eat any. Veeva nibbled a celery stick and commented that Nick being such a Frank Sinatra fan proved that he was a romantic at heart.
“Sounds pretty square to me,” I replied. “Are you sure this record is playing at the correct speed?”
“Relax, Noel, it’s a slow tempo ballad. You know in his day Frank was considered very cool and hip–a real trendsetter.”
“When was that? 1812?”<
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“Just shut up and listen. OK, I’ve worked out a possible scenario. Nick and Sheeni fall in love, they have sex but the condom breaks or slips off or something. No birth control method is absolutely reliable. So they decide to run away to France, which Sheeni loved even back then. Of course, they have no money, but they hear about this rich lawyer in Ukiah. Nick robs him, but the gun goes off and the lawyer gets perforated. Now they really have to beat it, so they catch the next plane to France.”
“I guess that makes sense, Veeva. So what happens next? Why did they break up?”
“Well, you notice how hostile Nick is when he talks about Sheeni? Your brother is still very bitter. They must have had a fight and maybe she ditched him. It could be that Nick didn’t want her to get the abortion.”
“I don’t know, my brother doesn’t seem very big on kids.”
“That’s true, and my aunt loves my little cousins to bits. Perhaps it was Nick who was championing the abortion.”
“Yeah, according to my mother, he wasn’t too thrilled to hear she was going to have me. He wanted her to get rid of me too.”
Yup, if Nick had any clout, I’d have been a bit of ectoplasm in the vacuum at Planned Parenthood. A close call for me.
“That’s only natural, Noel. Siblings are very competitive. I might be a much nicer person today if my brothers hadn’t come along.”
“I think you’re pretty nice.”
“Then kiss me, dummy. Why do you suppose we’re listening to this music?”
So we kissed a long time while Frank crooned away about love and loneliness and longing and despair. Somewhat inconvenient for making out, though, because you have to get up every 20 minutes to flip the record over. And by then some of us were impaired by throbbing erections. Still, I suppose it was an improvement over the days when you had to stop every three minutes to wind the Victrola and change the needle.
On the third album Veeva dropped her bombshell.
“I think now is the time,” she announced. “We should do it.”
My heart stopped beating for a nearly a minute.
“You think we should?” I said at last. “I hear it’s not so good when two virgins go at it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Noel. It’s always good for the guy. It’s usually unpleasant for the girl, but fortunately for you I’m a realist and have zero expectations. Now go upstairs and grab a couple of your brother’s condoms.”
“Should I get the lube too?”
“I hardly think that will be necessary. But get a couple of bath towels. We don’t want to mess up his ugly sofa.”
“We could do it in a bed.”
“Nah, I like the ambiance we’ve got going here. Just hurry before I chicken out.”
And so we did it right there on the sofa while Frank sang about being miserable at three o’clock in the morning. Veeva took off all of her clothes. Quite amazing. The first time I had seen a chick stark naked. Very nice breasts and lots of smooth white skin. Blondish pubic hair pruned fashionably short for easy access. Pretty soon I had the condom on and she was guiding me to the spot. A bit of resistance, but suddenly I was sliding all the way inside. Without thinking about it I knew to start gliding in and out. Veeva moaned and said not to stop. Well, even encased in latex, my wang was having a hell of a grand time, but I wasn’t prepared for how great the rest of it felt too–her breasts against my chest, her arms around me, her lips softly kissing mine. No way I could stop that runaway freight train. I gushed several gallons into the condom, withdrew, and suggested we take a brief breather.
“That was a lot easier than I expected, Noel. I think it’s good that you’re not that large.”
Not exactly music to a guy’s ears, but I managed to get hard again soon. I slipped on the other condom and returned to that magical fairyland of silky warmth and delicious friction. This time we went at it for quite a while–the rubber helped. I don’t really see how guys could last for more than two seconds going in there bareback. We got a coordinated rhythm going that didn’t stop when the record ended. The last part we did while the needle went round and round in the groove. I came again in another wrenching explosion, then Veeva showed me how to stroke her clitoris lightly with the tip of my finger until this activity yielded some prolonged seismic shocks. After that we put our clothes back on and indulged in leisurely kisses while Frank sang away. Veeva said we would remember this night for the rest of our lives.
“I’m glad my first time wasn’t horrible and I did it with a Twisp–just like my aunt Sheeni. And in Nick’s house too. That’s special.”
“And even with his own condoms,” I pointed out. “I hope they’re not the same ill-fated brand he was using with Sheeni.”
“Don’t get me paranoid, Noel. I am not getting pregnant.”
“Glad to hear it.”
I wanted to sleep with Veeva in her room, but she said it would be too tempting, and we didn’t dare borrow any more condoms from Nick’s stash. Our having sex was a development she didn’t want getting back to her mother, as she would kill her for sure. So we kissed in the hallway, whispered “I love you,” and retreated to our separate bedrooms.
No sign of my brother yet. Quite the night. He turned 30 and I lost my virginity. Wow, I still can’t believe it. I feel different though. Maybe more mature or something.
TUESDAY, August 2 – Hurtling north through the Nevada desert. That sounds more interesting than saying I’m on the bus back to Winnemucca. Veeva found temptation hard to resist, and sneaked into my room early this morning. Her robe she left on the rug beside my bed. We necked and fondled to a frenzied pitch, then took turns trying out oral sex. I went first. Rather aromatic, but nice. Her item is easier to feel with your tongue than your finger. Quite a tiny thing to be so packed with nerves. I like for this task you can get very close to your work; the pussy at that distance is quite a marvelous thing to behold. Veeva seemed to be enjoying my efforts and soon was flopping about like one of ol’ Mr. Tuelco’s rainbow trout, fresh from the mountain stream. Then she did me. Amazing to feel someone’s warm mouth engulfing you, and their tongue swirling around your tip and down just a bit into your opening. Veeva seemed a little grossed out when I came, but as they lecture us in school: a person’s actions have consequences. She swallowed most of it, which may have violated her principles. Those little guys never walked, but I imagine they were swimming like mad.
No sign of my brother’s Beemer, but he came wandering out of his bedroom around 10:00 looking much the worse for wear. He was delivered here sometime last night by cab. I made him some breakfast and he gradually revived. He didn’t seem so depressed now that his birthday was over and Ada had moved out. Pretty soon we were yucking it up over family history, such as the time he tried changing my diaper as a baby and I wiggled loose.
“The loudest crack I ever heard,” Nick declared, “was that poor kid’s head hitting the floor.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” said Veeva. “I was wondering about Noel.”
“At least I have an excuse,” I retorted. “Your impairments are purely genetic.”
We also got my brother to divulge that he and Sheeni had tied the knot in a place called Yazoo City, Mississippi. Nick lied about his age and used a fake I.D., which is why (he claims) the marriage didn’t count. Hell, for all he knows, he might still be legally married to Veeva’s aunt, her French spouse notwithstanding. I like that Nick got married in Mississippi, former home of my own dear love. Perhaps we can get hitched there too. I must research Mississippi marriage laws; they seem promisingly lax.
Eventually, Nick phoned his assistant Derek, who arrived to take us to the airport and bus station before going on to locate his boss’s car. I gave my brother an actual hug, and he slipped me a $100 bill. I guess, all in all, it’s a good thing having a brother. Interestingly, Nick never says “good-bye.” That’s considered bad luck in his profession. Instead he said, “See you down the road, kid.”
In Derek’s car Veeva and I didn’t say
much, since little personal assistants can have big ears. She did whisper she had some news which she would tell me about later. God, I hope she hasn’t figured out already that’s she’s pregnant.
Damn! I can’t remember what the hell we did with those used condoms!
4:15 p.m. Still on the road. The foam died long ago in these seats, something most of the lard butts on this bus may not have noticed, but my skinny ass is whimpering in agony. To distract myself I’ve been thinking about Uma. I realize now it’s possible to have wild sex with one chick while remaining loyal in your heart to another. In fact, I feel I love Uma even more now that I’ve had a foretaste of our future lovemaking. Somehow I have to convey to her the good news that I am now experienced sexually (what she seeks in a first-time partner) without giving her the impression that I cheated on her. This will take some finagling. I don’t feel she should mind my practicing with someone else in order to bring improved skills to bear on her.
All this sounded perfectly logical until I asked myself whether I’d mind if Uma practiced similarly on say Scott Chandler. I found this wouldn’t bother me as long as I got to strangle Scott later with my bare hands. There’s a logical explanation for this dichotomy: Guys can have sex impersonally, but it’s always more significant for chicks because they are accepting another person inside them. Therefore that deed can never be shrugged off by the wronged boyfriend (me, for example). Chicks, though, may not perceive the crystalline clarity of this reasoning. For example, I notice Ada wasn’t hanging around long after Nick cheated on her. She also expressed a desire to work in his mouth with sharp instruments–and probably without anesthetics.