“Up you go,” I said softly, using my strength to place her on the desk. She smiled nervously at me as I pulled off her denim shorts. Once they were on the floor, I gently ran my hand over her black cotton panties, reveling in how wet I had already made her.
I pulled my chair forward and continued rubbing my hand gently over her panties. I wanted to taste her more than anything, but I always believed that teasing was just as sensual as the act itself.
It took everything I had not to slip my fingers inside of her. I didn’t want to pluck her flower that way. I wanted her to feel me inside of her, I wanted it to be so intimate that she would beg me for more, and by God I would give it to her whenever she wanted.
But first ...
I moved her panties to the side exposing the small tuft of hair on her already glistening opening and smiled. I hated that Josie shaved everything off; it made me feel weird when we had sex. Zaydee, probably because she was so young, hadn’t shaved anything and it only served to make me more excited.
I leaned forward and used the tip of my tongue to gently part her pussy lips. She groaned softly and grabbed the back of my hair. I chuckled slightly as I slid my tongue up and down a few times, intensifying the moment before I moved to her clit. Zaydee took a deep breath and formed a fist around my hair as I licked at her.
I could almost swear that she tasted like the sweetest honey in the world; freshly harvested from a bee’s nest and made especially for me. I dug my hands into her hips as I continued moving my tongue against her until she came. It didn’t take long for that to happen and again, I found myself feeling pleased.
I got to my feet and unzipped my pants. I let them fall around my ankles and my boxers followed as I guided the head of my cock toward her soaking wet hole.
“I’ll go slow. It hurts the first time,” I promised in heavy breaths as I pulled her ass down toward the edge of the desk. “Are you ready?”
She nodded, her eyes clouded over with a look that told me that she was just as lost in our moment as I was. A look that told me that I wasn’t doing anything wrong because she wanted it just as badly as I did.
As gently as I could, I started to push my length inside of her. She closed her eyes tightly and gripped my wrists as I continued my movements until I felt a warm rush go over my cock. It was done; the hardest part, the part I honestly didn’t know if I would follow through with was over. Zaydee wasn’t a virgin anymore and that meant she was mine now, just as much as I was hers.
I kept my rhythm gentle and slow, moving in and out of her as gracefully as I could, when what I really wanted was to fuck viciously. But I told myself that there would be time for that. This wouldn’t be the last time that I had this beautiful fucking creature on my cock and I would fuck her the way I wanted to next time.
“Fuck” I groaned through grit teeth, shooting my cum onto the bathroom wall across from me. I took a few steadying deep breaths and grabbed some tissue to clean myself off. before washing my hands. I grabbed more and let some warm water run over it before I cleaned the wall chuckling at what I had just done.
Maybe Zaydee didn’t love me the way I loved her anymore, but I would always have the memories of when she did.
I flushed the used tissues down the toilet and went back to my chair. Stretching my legs out in front of me, I leaned the chair back as far as I could and decided to sleep the rest of the way to Phoenix.
Sixteen
I quickly realized the flaw in my plan when I landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I didn’t know what Bill or Rose looked like, so finding them here was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
The only thing I had to go on was what Greta had told me. They were related to Zaydee on her father’s side and she looked a little bit like her Uncle Bill.
I skipped baggage claim, because the only bag I had was carried onto the plane. I didn't plan on staying long enough to need luggage. I just wanted to meet him and go back home to Zaydee. I went over to the escalator and nervously gripped the sliding railing.
Scott was more than just my son; he was a miracle born of a damaged lust. Josie had never been able to have kids, having had some kind of condition that left her with a one percent chance of ever conceiving. I wanted desperately to be a father, but no matter how hard we tried, it just never happened.
When Zaydee told me that she was pregnant, I was ecstatic. I held it inside because she looked absolutely terrified, but I had every intention of being a father to our child. Her parents took fourteen years of a dream I had for so long and shattered it. Now I had a chance to make up for lost time and I would do my best to make him understand that we both loved him. I hoped that Bill and Rose had explained the situation to him and if they hadn't, then I would. I didn't want him to think that he had been abandoned by his parents.
After I got to the bottom, I stepped off and took a deep breath. I glanced around the large airport lobby to see if anyone around me resembled Zaydee. I didn't have to look for long though, because a tall, middle-aged man with a thick black mustache with a tiny woman by his side walked over to me and held his hand out.
"You're Garrett, aren't you?" he asked, with a kind smile.
"Bill?" I asked, shaking his hand firmly.
"Oh my God. He looked just like him," the woman who I assumed to be Rose, said quietly, nudging Bill.
"This is Rose, my wife," he said, confirming my thoughts and nodding at her. I smiled as she stepped forward and gave me a friendly hug, which I returned.
"Come on, our car is in the parking garage. Did you have a good flight?" Bill asked, leading the way down the large hallway.
I confirmed that I did and we made small talk all the way to his car. I kept a smile on my face and interest in my eyes, but I was honestly disappointed that they hadn't brought Scott with them. I kind of wanted to have one of those airport scenes that you see in the movies; the kind when you see someone you love and you run and embrace each other, while everyone around you starts to cheer.
Once in the parking lot, we took the elevator to the third floor in silence. I leaned against the back wall and stared up at the numbers as they ticked by, Bill cleared his throat a couple of times, and I felt Rose's eyes on me when she stole the occasional glance.
"Over here," Bill said once we were on the third floor of the parking garage. I followed as he and Rose led the way to an old beige colored Volvo with a couple of dents in the side. He used a remote control attached to his key chain to unlock all of the doors and I slid into the backseat.
"Is your home very far from here?" I asked.
Bill shook his head slightly, "About half an hour, depending on traffic."
"Oh; and um Scott? Is he there?" I asked nervously.
Rose put a hand on Bill's arm before she turned and looked at me with an emotion I couldn't quite read. She realized I couldn't understand what her face was trying to tell me, so she nodded before turning back around in her seat again. I decided it was better not to ask any more questions about him, so Bill and I bantered a bit about what there was to do in Phoenix, our favorite sports teams, and how long I had been in the education profession.
Thirty painful minutes later he was pulling into the driveway of a split level home with a tire swing hanging from a tree in the front. I was starting to believe that was a family trait and wondered if Zaydee would have insisted on one, had we had the chance to keep him.
Probably, I thought with a smile.
Bill and Rose quietly got out of their respective sides of the car with me following close behind them. I walked up the splintered wooden steps behind them and waited while Bill unlocked the front door and stepped back to let Rose in. I waited until he went in, then followed closing the door behind me. My hands were starting to sweat and my legs were a bit shaky; I was honest to God terrified of meeting my son. What if I wasn't what he expected? What if he hated me for being absent for the first fourteen years of his life? What if he wanted Zaydee instead of me?
Maybe
I should have waited until she was willing to come, I thought nervously as they led me into a den.
"I thought you'd like to look around in here first," Bill said, sliding his hands into his pockets. "This is where we keep most of the family pictures and he's in almost all of them."
I cleared my throat and nervously started looking at the pictures. They seemed to be in chronological order, from when he was a small baby up until what age he would be now; around fourteen. I understood the haunted look on Rose's face when I first met them in the airport lobby. Looking at Scott really was like looking at a younger version of myself. The only traces of Zaydee I could see, was the progressive sadness in his eyes the older he grew.
The sudden thud of a glass being set on the wooden desk behind me got my attention. I turned slightly and saw that Bill had set down two square glasses and was currently filling them halfway with Scotch Whiskey.
"He was a great kid," he said, coming over and handing me one of the glasses. He took a drink of his as he looked at the pictures mounted on the wall. "He may have looked like you, but he was just like Zaydee. He loved Frances most of all and that tire swing out in the front yard," he said with a sigh.
"Was? Isn't he still?" I asked, in confusion.
Bill chuckled softly. "Scott was a manic depressive like Zaydee. It's hereditary, you know? Getting him to take his medication was always a hellacious fight. Garrett, I think it would be best if you took a seat."
I gave him a sidelong glance. Something about the way he said that told me that the rest of this visit wasn't going to be what I was expecting. I went over to the small leather two seated couch and sat down. I leaned forward and held my glass of liquor tightly in my hands waiting for him to speak. Bill lingered in front of the pictures for a moment longer before he went and sat down in the recliner almost directly across from me.
"Did Zaydee take it hard when Frances died?" Bill asked curiously.
"I couldn't tell you, honestly. She moved to Florida a long time ago and I didn't really see her until she came back for the services. I'm sure it hurt her, but she played the part of the rock for her family," I replied thoughtfully.
"Scott begged us to take him to see Frances when we found out he was terminal. It took me a little while to scrape the money together, but we got him out there. I thought it would have been good for him, you know? To be able to see the man that he loved the most one more time before he died," Bill said shaking his head.
"Bill. I'm starting to get a little worried here," I said, rubbing my forehead. "Where exactly is my son?"
He got to his feet and retrieved the bottle, topped off his glass, then came over and topped off mine. He sat down again with a heavy sigh and looked at me before he nodded.
"Rose! Can you bring Scott in please?" he called out.
I drank down the rest of the glass in one gulp and got to my feet. I faced the door waiting for Rose to walk in Scott, but I wasn't expecting her to walk in with him like this. I wavered on my feet slightly and landed on my ass in the chair. The glass fell from my hand and bounced on the carpeted floor as Rose came over and handed what looked like a small, decorative vase to me.
"I'm so sorry," she said quietly as she handed it to me. "He couldn't take it when he finally realized that Frances was going to die. When we got back, he went into his bedroom and hung himself."
Seventeen
Zaydee
It was late Monday morning and I was sitting on the freshly restored green grass at Saint Raphael’s Cemetery. Grandpa didn’t have a headstone yet, but I managed to find him again after some driving around.
I figured by this point Garrett was most likely sitting around with Scott, so I wanted to be near someone I loved too.
I had my legs crossed underneath me and the envelopes that Grandma had given me sitting on my lap. I still hadn’t opened them and even though she told me to wait until I got back home to read them, I wanted to read them with my grandfather nearby. Something told me that I might need his strength and this was the closest I could get to feeling it anymore.
“How’s it going, Grandpa?” I asked softly.
The first envelope held a short note from Grandma.
Dearest Zaydee,
What you are going to discover in these letters may be difficult for you, but I know that you are strong enough to cope with it. Please know that I'm here for you if you need me.
Love,
Grandma Greta
I pursed my lips as I set the note down on one side of me and the envelope on the other. I didn't know what secrets the other envelopes held, but I was going to read them, no matter how bad the feeling was in the pit of my stomach.
I took a deep breath and picked up the second envelope. I smiled as tears brimmed in my eyes. I'd know Grandpa's writing anywhere, the way he wrote the Z in my name was artistic and always stood out to me. I pulled the letter out of the envelope, cleared my throat, and blinked back the tears as I read his letter to me. The way he addressed me in the letter made me laugh softly; he almost always called me Zaydee Gray because of my eyes. No one in my family had eyes the color that I did.
Zaydee Gray,
You're reading this because I'm gone now.
I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I was sick; I didn't want you to worry about me. You always worried too much, even when you were a little girl. Rita took good care of me and so did Greta, but there's something that's been weighing on me heavily. Something I know I should have told you when it happened.
Your son Scott; I and Greta adopted him and gave him to Bill and Rose to raise. I felt it was best to keep him in the family. We all did our best and hope that when you meet him, you'll be as proud of him as I was.
All My Love,
Frances Lettsworth
"Thanks Grandpa," I whispered, putting his note down on top of Grandma's and his envelope to the other side. I sighed and looked down at where he was resting beneath me, a sad smile curving the edges of my lips again. I never did meet a man as great as my grandfather, and I was sure I never would.
I was okay with that. Some people in this world weren't meant for happiness and true love and I didn't mind being one of them.
I took a deep breath and raised my face to the warm sun for a moment. I felt like he was there with me. Standing over me as I read these letters, to make sure that I was okay. With a sniffle, I moved onto the next envelope, only this one didn't house a letter or a note; inside of this one were pictures.
Pictures of a newborn in my grandfather's arms, being held in the hospital nursery. Pictures of an infant learning to stand with a big smile on his face. The more the pictures progressed in age, the more I saw that he looked like Garrett. However, when I started to get to what I assumed to be Scott's teenage years, the more his expression started to look like mine. Stoic, unhappy, and distant.
"It'll be okay," I said softly to the last picture of my son. "It always turns out okay in the end."
I set his pictures down on top of Grandma and Grandpa's letters and looked at the last envelope that was sitting on the grass. I didn't recognize the handwriting or the sentiment scrawled across the front. It wasn't something I had been given the chance to do and I still wasn't sure that I deserved the title. But there it was; the one word that would always remind me of how deeply scars truly run.
Mom
My lower lip trembled and my hands began to shake. Did I really want to read this? Did he really think of me as his mother even though he had never met me and I never had a chance to hold him?
I closed my eyes for a moment and blindly reached for the letter. It was amazing how something as light as a piece of paper could feel like the heaviest stone in the world. Like an anchor that was slowly dragging my heart down to the depths of the ocean, threatening to crush me with the pressure of all of my past misdeeds.
Don't be a pussy; open the letter, Zaydee.
I ripped the back of the sealed envelope away and opened the letter. There it was again; the first word in the letter was
addressed to Mom.
Mom,
Gramps told me everything. He told me how sad you were that you weren't able to keep me and how alone you felt when Dad turned his back on you. I can forgive you for not physically being in my life because you didn't have a choice. What I can't forgive you for is never picking up the phone and calling me. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to hear your voice when I felt like everything was crumbling around me. I can't tell you how hard it is knowing what I'm going to do and never knowing if you honestly loved me.
Gramps is sick. I hated seeing him like that and I don't think I can do this anymore if he's not here.
I'm sorry.
I love you and I hope that you love me too.
Scott
p.s. Don't be sad. You didn't do anything wrong.
***
Hours later and the sun was starting to set over the horizon somewhere behind me. I was still sitting at Grandpa's grave trying to fully understand what I had just read. If it was what I had assumed it to be, then Garrett must have found out by now too. I didn't know if I should cry and I didn't know if it hurt me yet, because I didn't know him. What I did know was that even without being in his life I had failed him; he hadn't stood a chance with me or without me and no matter what he said, it was most definitely my fault.
But the fault wasn't mine alone and I wouldn't bear what should have been the heartbreak of this by myself.
Eighteen
(Tuesday)
I was driving to the airport with all of my bags in the backseat of the rental a week and a half ahead of schedule, because I knew that it was definitely time to go home. I had decided to stop by Rockford High and leave a copy of Scott's letter with Garrett's secretary on my way toward LAX. It cost me a fortune to switch the tickets around, but I didn't want to be in Los Angeles anymore. This really was the one place that seemed to continually break me the longer I stayed.
The Death of Me Page 6