by KT Morrison
Sharing Maggie
KT Morrison
Contents
1. Birdcage
2. Oxbow
3. Narragansett
4. Rooms
5. Final Symphony
6. Trinity
7. Black Beach
8. Music
9. Secret Society
10. Acoustics
11. Kill Switch
Easter Egg
Afterword
Other Books by KT Morrison
This work of fiction is intended for mature audiences.
Individuals pictured on the covers are models and used for illustrative purposes only.
Copyright © 2017 KT Morrison
All rights reserved.
1
Birdcage
Friday, September 29th
It was ridiculous but it didn’t stop Maggie from contemplating its purchase. An antique Chinese bamboo bird cage, three feet tall, chipped, aging, over a century old. It spoke to her. It was bold and impressive yet made of all these small and fine intricate details. The architectural structure of it was built in tiers, then capped with a hexagonal wire dome. The base was carved and had heavy wooden feet. Tarnished brass bells hung from some of the corners. The top was a finial with the hand-carved face of a woman. The cage had lost its door some time ago.
She tested its weight, lifted it from the wooden floor, pulling up on the cage by the curved rim of the hexagonal roof. It was lighter than she thought. They could fit it in Cole’s Jeep, but it would have to take the passenger seat in the back next to Max.
They’d stopped for a break just inside the state border, coming into Rhode Island through Massachusetts on the North Smithfield Expressway. Three bouncy hours in Cole’s Jeep, and when she saw the rusted old panel truck out front of a dilapidated Colonial schoolhouse with the words antique market painted on the side, she knew this was where they would stretch their legs and take a pee.
The last week with Max had been interesting. They were closer, she thought, in the hours after her fling with Jay. They still were, but there was a wedge easing its way between them, something intangible. They'd been very handsy and loving but there was something. She attributed it to Max. Latent jealousy over what he witnessed. He was fighting it. She thought he was fighting it because he was worried if he complained she wouldn't do it again. And that was the strange part. She did want to do it again. She wanted to have sex with Jay. They both wanted it but were afraid to admit it to each other, she thought. She may even want something else.
But Max convinced her to take a break with Jay. It was a busy week, getting ready for this trip home, catching up on all the work she’d missed because of the obsessive thought over her sexy figure model. Having sex had broken the tension. She’d been able to get her schoolwork back on track. She agreed with Max. Felt bad for him in a way. So she’d texted Jay and said she couldn't do it this week. Then he called. Max was in the room and she felt so guilty, slinking out so she could talk to him. Like she was cheating. But she wasn't. She just felt strangely uncomfortable talking to Jay with Max next to her. She had managed to get naked and suck his cock, have him go down on her and make love to her. That was okay, but somehow a phone call seemed too intimate. She quelled Jay’s concerns that he’d done something wrong or that she was mad at him. That felt good. She told him she’d see him the following Thursday.
After her secretive phone call with Jay she’d returned to Max and she could see him squirming. He suspected it was Jay on the phone. Was worried to ask, once again, she figured, worried that seeming jealous would cause problems. So he suffered. She liked it. She liked that his heart rate was through the roof and that he was biting his tongue and suffering. It was because of her. She did that to him. She felt sexually powerful. It was a strange swirling orb in her and it felt good. She’d never felt like that before.
It would be an incr—
A strong hand clamped her shoulder. The way it landed on her felt like doom. Like she’d been caught. Her mind had been read and now the authorities were taking her. She whipped around. Looming above her was terror. Eight feet tall. A monster. Her mouth opened. It had the head of a raven, black bird eyes like a demon’s peered down on her, light danced on its impossibly black feathers...its pointed beak bowed to her. She yelped. Knew it was Cole but her fingers tingled in horror, her heart leaped and she went lightheaded.
“Asshole,” she laughed and she kicked him in the side of the thigh.
He laughed from inside the raven head oddity he'd placed over his own.
“God, what the hell...” she said, holding on to her heart.
He lifted it off and shook his blonde hair out, said, “Isn't it awesome? I gotta get it. I could start a Secret Society with this. Skull and Bones shit,” he said, admiringly, turning the raven’s head to look in its eyes.
When he came out of the can, drying his hands with a wad of rough brown paper, he’d turned right and saw Cole with a raven head over his own, scare the crap out of Maggie. Max stood there feeling warm for her, smiling, throwing the balled paper into a green metal barrel with a garbage bag hooped into it.
They were at a roadside antique market, inside an old one-room schoolhouse packed with furniture and oddities like totem poles and huge defunct restaurant signs, gas pumps and, apparently, a costume raven head. A tall black-feathered helm one would wear at a carnival, or Mardi Gras, or perhaps a Satanic sacrifice. Maggie kicked Cole in the leg, clutched her heart and Max laughed out loud from across the bustling market. Cole popped the raven head off and shook out his hair and Maggie watched him, smiling and laughing.
Rooming with Cole in his Freshman year at Farmingham had been an incredible boon. Max was an easy friend and Cole was the best hang. That random room pairing—arranged in some stuffy closet in the Oren House—had changed his life. Two young ambitious guys coming together and seeing eye-to-eye on everything, spending every night together, then the weekends too. Fast friends. Best friends. Better than the guys he’d grown up with in Michigan. It was funny how something so beyond his control could have been so fortuitous and everlasting.
He headed to meet them, weaving through the shoppers. Cole flipped the raven around now and he slipped it over Maggie’s head. Her legs buckled and she put her hands out blindly. She grabbed at Cole’s face, her fingers tucking into his smiling mouth. Her hands went down his body and she punched him in the stomach with good humor.
“How much for the bird?” Max asked Cole when he reached them.
“Take her,” he said, “she’s too feisty.”
Maggie bent over and let the raven head fall off and into her hands. She came up and her face was red, her hair wispy.
“I probably have lice now,” she said, looking at the raven head.
“Lice?” Cole balked, “No. Fleas, yes. Probably fleas.”
She tossed the raven head to Cole and he caught it against his chest.
“Max!” she said, spying him, “Check this out...”
She showed him a huge and elaborate bird cage sitting on the floor amongst a clever display with old ladders and strings of lights and hanging sheets of linen.
“A bird cage?”
“I’m going to buy it,” she said, standing next to him, admiring it.
Cole came between them, said, “She’s worried about lice, has no fear about bird flu from a rotten old bird cage.”
Maggie frowned with scrunched incertitude, said, “There hasn’t been a bird in that cage for a decade, how—”
Cole poked her in the waist and made her flinch, said, “Zombie bird flu.”
She rolled her eyes and said to Max, “What do you think?”
“It’s huge.”
“Haggle for me, Max,” she said, putting a hand on his
stomach and looking into his eyes.
“Haggle?” he laughed.
“Be a man for me,” she said.
He laughed. “Men haggle?”
Cole said, “I’ll do it,” stepped forward and looked at the bird cage. Raven head under his arm, he got down on his knees and peered at the details of the cage. He said, “Besides, Max looks like a fucking nerd right now. Owner will eat him alive...”
“What?” Max said, looking down at his outfit. He had pressed chinos and loafers, a chambray shirt tucked in and a birds eye sweater.
“Nerd,” Cole repeated.
Maggie said, “He’s afraid of my parents.”
“I am not,” he said, “I respect them, they mean—”
“Holy fuck, Maggie, it's, like, three-grand,” Cole burst, holding the tag flipped over and reading the price.
“Throw in your raven head, see if we can get a deal.”
“Don’t buy me... You’d buy me a raven head?” he said as he stood.
“You’re our Best Man...”
Cole posed for her, stood masculine and tall in front of her and said, “I’m a man. I always buy my own raven heads.”
She laughed and pet his chest, said, “Whatever. Make a deal for me, Cole.”
It seemed on purpose. It stuck Max good. He’d imagined Maggie with Cole before but it was taboo. That would never happen. But given this display and their recent discoveries maybe Maggie was tuning in to his frequency and playing with him. That's what it amounted to. At least he hoped that’s what it was.
Cole walked off to the counter with his raven head and holding the big cage at his side by its finial.
When Cole was gone Max said to Maggie, “Be careful.”
Maggie turned to him, her brow lowered, said, “Careful?”
“You’re playing?”
“Playing what, Max?” she said, her face open now, like she didn’t know what he meant.
Cole drove a lifted Jeep. Manual transmission, two door, lifted up and sitting on huge tires. It was a bumpy ride and even though they were cresting the smoothly paved Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge, the knobby tires made the small brass bells on Maggie’s bird cage softly chime. It was becoming maddening.
Max looked out over Narragansett Bay, smooth calm water out there, ahead of them the still-colorful fall hump of Conanicut Island. Maggie flipped through her phone, a thin white cord twirling up into the buds placed in her little ears. She sat in the passenger seat, up front with Cole. Cole’s stereo was broken. They rode in silence.
Maggie had her hair pulled back, neatly tucked in a ponytail. She hadn’t dressed up to see her parents, though her appearance was neat. Her long lashes blinked as she watched her screen and listened to her music.
She’d been raised by a strict mother. From what she’d told him, Mrs. Becker had been woefully restrictive. Mean, sometimes too. It had dwindled. He’d seen it dwindle. As she got older, Carol Becker seemed to let it go. Like she’d done her part. Her work was done—she’d raised an over-achiever. She did too. Maggie was smart and driven, creative, and astoundingly responsible. She'd suffered though, and for that he was sorry. In the time that he’d dated her, the last four years, Carol had let those reins slacken and now Maggie barely mentioned her harsh childhood. Carol didn’t hound her anymore, just kept on top of her grades. Maggie had straight As. But her mom had scoffed recently at her graduating at magna rather than summa. Max had seen it himself that day and it surprised him. He witnessed it. He'd thought sometimes she'd exaggerated her tiger mother, but he didn't think that anymore. No, Carol Becker was intimidating. Hong Kong born, Ivy-educated, cut-throat corporate lawyer. Martin Becker was also frightening, but somehow when set next to his wife he seemed like your friend.
Visiting the Beckers always twisted him in knots. Today he was clean-shaven, all stubble carefully removed. Swiped clean like he’d swiped their daughter’s pussy clean last week so she could fuck another guy. Hair groomed, combed to the side like a good boy. Like a good boy who would start a paid internship next summer at Kohl-Kravitz. A job on Wall Street that he found on his own, without the help of Martin Becker. He was proud of that. Proud that, despite his future father-in-law’s powerful connections, he didn't ask for any help.
Maggie pulled her ear buds out as they made it through Jamestown and into the quiet wooded comfort of the southern point of the island. She pointed out the streets to Cole, showing him which way to turn as he negotiated the narrow wooded hills, making his way to the southern coast.
“This is it here,” she said finally as they wound up a steep knoll, felt themselves slump back in the Jeep’s stiff seats. “On the left,” she said.
The Becker’s home was down a wooded colonnade, pausing at a blank and modern iron gate that stretched across from a sleek stone column, then disappearing into the fiery brush on the other side. She had her key chain in her hand, both hands poised over her open purse set in her lap. Her thumb pressed a button and the gate swung open as they approached. Through the trees they could see the Becker’s home.
“Holy shit, Maggie,” Cole said. “This is where you grew up?”
“Yup,” she said, with little interest.
Maggie grew up in this Manhattan architect designed contemporary masterpiece. Steel and glass and metal railings. The odd support beam in polished vintage sailing ship masts. It won an award when it was built in 2005, the year she moved here from Holland. Featured in multiple magazines for its design and for the interior decorating that was also Manhattan-hired. Eight-thousand square feet set on a short cliff that fell down to a breathtaking view of Narraganset Bay.
“What do your folks do, again?”
She turned to Cole, eyes still on the bay, said, “My mom is a corporate lawyer. My dad is in real estate and stock speculation.” Then added, “Mom doesn't have to work she just loves breaking opponents.”
Maggie met her mother and her brother in the foyer. Ken was home from Stanford for the weekend. Second year in Stanford Med and doing a graduate program in bioengineering. He looked thin and tired.
“Oh Ken,” she said, overwhelmed with affection. She knew he'd be here today, she was just surprised how much she missed him. They hugged and over her shoulder she heard Max stiffly greet her mother. Max was Carol-approved, but she scared the shit out of Max. That was probably what had made him Carol-approved.
“Maggie, Maggie, I haven't seen you in so long,” Ken said in her ear as he hugged her. “What's with the hair?”
Her mom said, “We don't talk about her hair,” and she leaned to Maggie and put her dispassionate arms around her shoulders and they touched cheeks. She frowned at Maggie, closed her eyes, disgusted, held a hand up between them and shook her head. “The hair,” she said. “She looks like garbage.”
“Mom, Ken,” Maggie said, as though she hadn’t said something so brutal, “this is our Best Man, Cole. He goes to Farmingham with us.”
Cole stood on her cold childhood doorstep with a confident smile. He was a big handsome white preppy kid with long blonde hair and that was Carol's type. Cole did look like a young Martin Becker.
Carol folded her arms and looked Cole over. Said, “Hm. He’s going to look good in the pictures.” That’s what she said. Cole had been approved for the wedding.
“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Becker,” Cole said and held a hand out, charmed her with his blue eyes. Carol took his hand and held it, they gently shook and her mom’s eyes bored into his. Cole’s eyebrows lifted, bemused. Carol was powerless over him. For now, probably, she was scanning for weaknesses.
“You’re at Farmingham,” she said, not as a question. Maggie worried she would grill him about his grades. She hadn’t warned Cole about her mother.
“Yes,” he said, letting her hand go and running his thumb along her fingers as he did. Flashed her a very white and handsome smile. Careful, Cole, don’t put your fingers in her cage. He said, “Government and Policy. With Max.”
Max stood at Cole’s left, proud to introduc
e his Best Man. “We roomed in Freshman year, and we’ve been inseparable since,” he said, throwing an arm around behind him and gripping his shoulder.
“As long as you’re not in Art. I worried about you when I saw the beard. Come in,” she said and she stepped aside, held a hand out, gesturing for them to pass into the kitchen.
Cole grimaced as he stepped past her, his eyes fleeting towards Maggie’s. She looked down.
Carol brought them all into their sleek and sterile kitchen and they congregated around a granite-topped island, the young ones leaning on it on their elbows. Cole looked up and around the ridiculously high ceiling, eyes getting fixed on the towering old ship mast that ran up the center.
“This house is beautiful,” Cole said to her mother. Maggie bristled, worried about potential disastrous routes in an exchange between Cole and her mother.
“Do you know anything about architecture?”
“Not really,” he said.
Carol moved next to him, fixed him with a severe and orgulous gaze. She said, “It was designed by Heinz Mueller—”
Cole interrupted her, making Maggie flinch, “HMA, yeah, they won the ARK prize this year.”
Carol smiled, symmetrical and cold, all mechanical, no warmth in her black eyes. But she put a hand out and she gripped Cole lightly above his elbow, her thumb moving up and down his bicep. She said, “Max, will you take Cole up to the guest room? Margaret, get yourself ready for dinner. We eat in an hour, we have company coming.”
Though Max and Maggie were to be married, Carol and Martin had them staying in their home situated in separate rooms. Maggie was sleeping in her own bedroom and Carol put Max and Cole together in a guest room that looked out over Narragansett Bay.
Max and Cole carried their overnight bags up the steel steps to the second floor, Cole with his raven head tucked under his arm.