by KT Morrison
Cole stirred. His hand moved to his stiff cock and gripped it. He pushed it down gripped it tighter, squeezed it, groaned and yawned. Let it go, turned to Max, saw he was awake, and said, “That was fucking wild.”
He nodded but his expression didn't change.
“You okay?”
“I am,” he said, but he didn't commit emotion to the words.
Cole went to his back now, and his arms went out, flexed and twisted while he stretched. “Fuck...that Maggie...she is something,” he said.
Max agreed, reminded him that they had to go early and that they were going to take Ken to T. F. Green. Worried about the ride in the Jeep. Would he say something? Max imagined he would keep it to himself. How could he say something? What would he say? Imagined if he saw his own sister with two of her friends—knew he'd carry it to the grave. He would shudder every time he thought of it, would never forget it, but it would not be uttered. Still, he wasn't sure if Ken knew that Max had seen him watching. That would be uncomfortable. Something that awful, and the two of them shared the knowledge.
They skipped their showers. Brushed their teeth together, looking at each other's reflections in the mirror and both of them coming close to smiling but not actually doing it.
They packed quickly, hoping to get out of the house unaccounted. Moving silently, stuffing dirty clothes on top of clean. When they made their beds and got to the door Maggie was in the hall waiting for them.
“How long have you been standing here?” Max asked.
She looked worried. Cole put his arms round her and let his bag fall. She let herself be hugged, but her eyes were on Max. She said, “Ken’s not here.”
Max said, “Oh? What do you mean?”
“I mean he left already...”
“Without us?” Cole asked.
“Yeah, his room is empty, his bags are gone...”
“He was going with us—I got that right?” Cole asked, holding her face away from him so he could look in her eyes.
“Yes...”
Max asked, “He leave a note?”
“Nothing,” she shrugged, a restrained look of horror on her face. “You don't suppose...”
Cole said, “What?”
She said, “That he...” she let it hang, afraid to even suggest what she was afraid of.
“No,” Cole said, “no way. He would have said something.”
Max kept his mouth shut.
Cole held Maggie and she stared blankly into Max’s eyes. He looked supportive for her. Showed her strength.
Cole said, “Hey,” and he hooked a bent finger under her chin and tilted her mouth to his kiss. She let him kiss her but she was reluctant. Max was aroused by it. Felt pleasure from seeing her kiss his handsome friend, but not commit. He watched their lips press against each other, the plump shapes mash, then pout, come away.
He said, “Let's get out of here before your parents are up.”
“They're up,” she said.
“Shit,” he said.
Cole said, “Fuck.”
“They're not downstairs yet,” she said.
None of them said a word, they picked up their bags and things and they ran down the stairs to the darkened kitchen and out the door, onto the gravel. Crunched across the drive and into the Jeep. They put their bags in the back and Cole put the raven head in the back seat next to Max. Max asked Maggie. “There’s room for your bird cage. You want me to go back and get it?”
She shook her head with a sad expression. “I want to leave it behind,” she said. Her hands were folded over the center console of the Jeep and Max reached out and he held one of them, softly ran his thumb over it.
“I think that’s a good idea.” He kissed her and she kissed him back with enough gentle passion that her eyes closed. When she pulled away she looked in his eyes and they held that contact for a good long quiet moment. He couldn't say for sure what was in those eyes but he knew it was good and he knew he liked it.
As they made their way down the driveway and paused for the metal gate to open and let them out of the Becker compound Max asked, “You don’t think your dad has security cameras do you?”
It just came to him. Sitting alone in the back while Maggie scrolled her phone and Cole drove it hit him. The gate, the security it provided, the value of some of his art. He had real Pollocks.
Maggie’s head turned and regarded Cole. Max watched her eyebrows raise as she considered what he’d said. It was real.
“Oh shit,” Cole said.
“No,” Maggie groaned.
“Did he have cameras before?” Cole asked.
“No. Not when I was growing up. Not in the house,” she said. She tossed her phone in her purse so she could concentrate. She put her head in her hands. “Oh fuck,” she said into them, her voice muffled.
“Does he have cameras?” Cole asked, his voice urgent, his octave a little higher now.
Maggie looked back to Max. He shrugged his shoulders.
Cole had calmed down, brought himself under control. He said coolly, “Even if he did, he’d only check them if something was stolen, right? Why would he look at dumb old videos of nothing every morning?”
“You think?” Maggie asked. She’d gone pale.
Cole said, “Yeah, he’d only check if something was out of the ordinary. Right, Max?”
Maggie looked to him.
He frowned. Considered it. It was true. If he had cameras at all there wound be no reason to check them. Unless a suspicion was raised. He said, “Yeah, it’ll...if there was a recording...record over itself in a week or two.”
Maggie said, “Oh shit... why didn’t I think of that? ...”
The gate opened and they exited, headed out to the narrow country road that would takes then to Jamestown.
They crested a gravelly hill in the wobbling Jeep and Cole gasped, tugged the wheel hard. They were enclosed on both sides on the narrow treacherous road by towering pine trees and as they topped a short hill, their guts tingling at the sudden rise, they all saw a lone figure walking the road with a bag over his shoulder, slumped low like a Depression-era hobo.
“Fuck,” Cole hissed as he wrenched the wheel hard and brought the Jeep to a tearing halt in the rough surface, drawing it sideways across the road.
It was Ken. Walking the road, a backpack over his shoulder, head hung over his iPhone as he walked.
“What the hell...” Maggie whispered aloud in the quiet Jeep, not expecting an answer.
Dust settled around their windows, churning, falling below the height of the high Jeep doors. Ken had turned to them, he was startled. Max detected a weak artificial smile on his face. Maggie wound her window down, using the manual lever, her head bobbing with the effort.
“Ken, what are you doing out here?” she said out the window.
He made his way to her, said, “I called an Uber.”
“We were taking you,” she said, folding her arm out the open window and leaning on the door.
“I know,” he said, looked to Max, looked away quickly, down the road and up to the hill they’d just crested. He said, “I didn’t want to wreck...your schedule.”
“Our schedule? ...Ken, we want to take you—it’s no problem...”
“Yeah,” he said, hoisting his bag higher on his shoulder, still having trouble looking in her eyes.
Cole said, “You called an Uber out to the middle of nowhere? ...”
“Uh-huh,” he said looking the screen of his phone.
Maggie said, “Cancel it, Ken. You idiot. We’ll take you.” She opened her door and got right out of the Jeep, set her feet down on the gravel.
Ken looked back the way they came and said, “We should get off the road, there’s a hill right there...”
Maggie said, “Just get in the Jeep already.”
He climbed in and he sat himself next to Max. He made eye contact. There was nothing there. Nothing blatant, but there was a guardedness that wasn't there before. Ken knew things had changed. And Max knew too.
Ken looked to Max’s lap, at the raven head he’d placed there to make room for him. The one he saw over his sister’s head as she fucked two guys at once. Her groom and the Best Man. Max took the raven head and passed it to the front seat. Maggie climbed back in the front, took it from him and she put it in her lap, did her belt up.
Max looked to Ken and smiled. Ken looked away. He was forlorn. Max didn’t press it. Looked out his own window and stayed quiet.
Cole said, “Dude, it’s no problem to take you to the airport. We left at the same time. No hassle at all.” He got the Jeep in gear and they were under way again.
Ken said, “Okay,” very quietly.
They drove half an hour to Warwick in relative silence. The Jeep was noisy and conversation between front and back was difficult. Cole tried to engage Ken, and he was responsive, but he kept his answers short—flipped through his phone and had one earbud in. When they got to the airport, Maggie hopped out and flipped her seat forward so he could climb down. Max watched them in the V between the door frame and the forward angled passenger seat. It was bright and crisp out but their two figures stood in blue shade under the canopy at the drop-off.
Maggie cocked her head, said to Ken, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Overworked. Not looking forward to getting back to it right now.”
“I’m sorry I was rude last night. I didn’t mean to be.”
“It’s okay,” he said. He hugged her, held her a good long while. When he let her go he said, “I love you. I want you to be happy. I want you to be careful.”
“Careful?”
He held her wrists, she had her arms at her sides. He said, “You can come visit me anytime. You’ve never seen my place.”
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe I’ll come see you. You can come to Vermont too.”
“Maybe I will,” said Ken. He hugged her again, let her go, waved to Cole and Max, said, “Thanks for the ride.”
They watched him disappear behind the sliding glass doors. They closed and all they saw was their own reflection. Maggie got back in the Jeep.
“What do you think?” she said, looking to Cole with worried brows then between the seats to Max.
Max said, “I think Stanford is killing him.”
She bit her lip, looked to Cole, said, “You think?”
Cole took her hand and said, “I think it’s okay.”
Maggie let her head fall against the seat, whispered, “I hope so.”
Max looked at their two hands combined. His Maggie’s familiar little graceful hand held in another man’s. He hated it but still felt a spark of excitement. He leaned forward, let his hand curve over theirs and he held them warmly. He looked to Maggie and he said, “Secret Society.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes.
Cole said, “We’ll take care of you.”
Max agreed, said, “We will.”
He squeezed their hands. They would do this a little longer. Do it until he didn’t want to anymore. There was more he wanted to see but he felt like it was in his control again. He felt like he was riding up top, if he held the wheel tight enough he could steer this machine, make it go where he wanted.
Easter Egg
This is a hidden fantasy short involving my most beloved characters. It’s an epilogue, or perhaps a prologue of sorts, featuring Pete and Jess Mapplethorpe from the first Losing His Wife series. It may be real or it may not. I’d love to hear your opinion at my website. Let me know what you think!
Wednesday, April 8th
Pete ran across Conway Street where it met Water, and then did a loop around the brass statue of Ellie Callou, the town of Peavey Falls’ noted suffragette. 5 A.M. and fifty-five degrees out, and while it was spring, the time and temperature and his own body heat were enough to send roiling clouds of frosty breath from him. But his feet tapped away. Not afraid of the cold. He ran every day, even the sunny ones.
The Peavey 10K Run for Charity was two weeks away. Raising money for the St. Joan of Arc Hospital’s pediatric unit. He’d logged more than fifty 10Ks over the winter, one day at a time. Pretty much got himself over-prepared but these morning runs were for therapy more than fitness anyway. And most of his best ideas were born on these runs. The idea to integrate scaleable inventory management services controlled by Save-Mart but accessible by key vendors. Check. The sudden sale of their first Cleveland home, upscaling themselves into a nicer neighborhood (where prices had remained fixed) with their gains. Check. The hire of three young unpaid interns from the college, forming a vendor outreach program with them and giving them accreditation. Check. Even simple things like planning a Christmas get-together with Patty and Russ, a rapprochement in the midway point between Cleveland and Columbus, and even trading in the Oldsmobile and getting the Tahoe. Well, that wasn’t a good idea. That was kind of stupid. A waste of money. The smile though on Jess’s face was worth it. And the boys? ...They thought old pop was real swell when they pulled up to the rink on Saturday mornings for hockey practice in that luxury truck. But he bought it two years old, depreciation hit already gone, and they scaled down to one vehicle.
He hated giving in to the lure of extravagances but living in a nicer neighborhood came with its responsibilities. He didn’t want people talking about Andy and Petey’s cheap old weird dad. They’d been through enough. The more the appearance of stability the better.
He came to a red light and jogged in place at the edge of the crosswalk. Traffic was sparse so early in the morning, but there were cars out, headlights on, people embarking on their dim commute on an early Wednesday morning. He unzipped his phone and flipped the screen to see if he had any news. He was Save-Mart’s Divisional Merchandise Manager now. A VP, in charge of maintaining merchandising relationships with Save-Mart’s prime suppliers all over the northeast; Mid-west to Cleveland to the Canadian border to the Atlantic and down to the Mason-Dixon. Today was his presentation to Porter Papers which sold just about every paper product under Save-Mart’s roof, from tissues and toilet paper to plates and packaging. It was a no-brainer, and just a bit of hand-holding. The execs at Porter were just as gushing to Pete at how they were represented in Save-Mart stores. Only, he’d sent an e-mail to Becky last night to get a preview of the changes to the Powerpoint and she hadn’t got back to him. He didn’t need to worry but he did anyway. Becky was new. Pretty and flirty and he hated to have to discipline her. So many of these kids today never got back to you after hours even though he knew they got the messages. They were always on their goddamn phones. The light changed and he headed onto the crosswalk early, slipping his message-less phone into his pocket.
There was a raucous horn that scared the shit out of him. An aggressive pickup truck looming in height and muscle charged him, nose diving, rubber chirping and horn bellowing. He put his hand out, his heart pounding in his chest. The horn continued angrily. All right, already, sorry! His hand rested on the mouth of the lifted truck’s grill. He waved to the driver, it was his fault, avoided eye contact and trotted off again, trying to find his pace. By the time he hit Peavey Street, looking over the railing and down to the white thrashing water of the falls, he’d shaken off the jangled nerves and his thoughts were back on work.
The Mapplethorpe family Tahoe gleamed in the driveway of their Holly Springs white clapboard suburban Colonial. Forty-five hundred square feet with a fully finished lower level that opened onto a hilly green lawn where the boys would play. A large lot on a cul-de-sac, with a gravel trail behind the house, hidden by trees, that wound around a pond and led to the Holly Springs community pool and tennis courts.
He was cooling down, shaking his legs out as he walked the driveway then up the path between two towering lilac shrubs, their buds just starting to blossom. He hid his keys when he left, slipping them on a hook hidden under the backyard deck, on a joist behind the cedar ledger. Trotted up onto the deck on springy new Sauconys, between the two iron patio tables he’d brought out of storage on Sunday but hadn’t got the chairs
around or an umbrella into yet. He’d get to it tonight. Get the furniture out, get it cleaned. Spring was here and company was coming.
Got the smallest key on the ring into the sliding glass door lock and opened it, slipped into the kitchen as quietly as he could. Kicked his shoes off and left them there on the rubber mat next to Sargent’s water bowl. Sargent, the lone woken member of the household—black eyes watching old Pete from his wicker dog bed, too early for anything more enthusiastic than a lazy swishing wag from the feathers at the tip of his tail.
The coffeemaker began to hiss on the counter, programmed to be at the ready for when the family got up. He checked his watch. It was early but he might still have time.
The stairs could creak even though the house wasn’t that old, so he slipped along the edges where they met the wall, making no sounds in his socks. At the top of the stairs he turned right, headed between the boys’ doors and made it to the master bedroom.
Last night Jess had taught her dance class down in the village at the Peavey Falls Little Theater. She taught on Tuesdays and Thursdays, her class had an age range of little girls (and one brave little boy) between eight and twelve years old. Pete had the boys and baby Annabelle last night. Class was out by eight but she went out for a drink with some friends and she didn’t get home until ten.
He slipped in the double doors and locked them behind him. Jess was sleeping where he’d left her when he woke at 4:30 and headed out for his run. Sleeping on her belly, her long blonde hair tangled around her on her pillow. Head turned to the center, looking at his pillow, looking at where he would be if he were still warm in bed with her. Her arms held a deep tan. One week with the boys and Annabelle in Orlando had given her a very sexy color. One wonderful week with the love of his life, (no work!) and his boys, and his baby.
Skated quietly then in his sock across the hard maple floor and into the master bathroom. Brushed his teeth quickly and rinsed with Scope. Peeled the tight running clothes off and threw them in the hamper. So cold outside his penis was just an acorn in his pubic hair, his testicles gone, hiding up in his body. Didn’t tug it, just let it be. Took a bath towel and he dried himself off, his skin cold, but a chilly sweat on the surface. She would complain.