Falling In

by Stark, Avery

  “We lasted like 3 years and put out a couple of albums that did quite well. Unfortunately, young people and money don’t mix. Our drummer overdosed on smack while we were recording our third album and things were never really the same after that. So I took my money and eventually ended up here. Honestly,” he said with a melancholy look in his eyes, “I don’t even know what happened to the other guys. It’s been such a long time.”

  By then, Audrey was already done with her breakfast and sat with her elbows on the table. She was entranced by him and his story. It was the first time that he opened up to her.

  “I had no idea you’ve seen so much shit.”

  “It’s not something that I like to put out there for everyone to see, you know?”

  She suddenly felt guilty.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Liam shook his head and reached over the table, brushing a chunk of golden hair off of her shoulder.

  “I said everyone. I’m more than happy to talk about it with you.”

  Audrey’s cheeks and forehead blushed under his caring touch. She was flattered by his willingness to open up, but it also made her even more crushed by the guilt of the life that she was hiding from him. Still, the moment was too good to ruin.

  “You can talk to me anytime you want,” she said and finished her juice, making sure to maintain eye contact over the rim of her glass. When she lowered it back down, she asked, “You want some help with the dishes?”

  “From you? Always.”

  A familiar kind of excitement tickled the back of her tongue as she got up, took both plates and eventually started toward the kitchen. Just she turned her back to Liam, she caught sight of him as he got up to follow. Audrey could hear the thumping of their bare feet against the wood deck. Their differing speeds sent distinct vibrations through the boards that she could feel with her naked soles.

  He was getting closer and Audrey could sense him. She struggled to force her shaking hands to keep the plates steady. On top of each, their empty juice glasses started to slip and slide to one side and then the other. It took everything that she had to just face forward and walk. She knew what was coming and though she realized that she should resist, there was no more fight left in her. She needed him, probably more than he needed her.

  As she passed the threshold back into the kitchen, Liam grabbed her from behind and jerked her body against his. It forced her to stop in her tracks.

  “Liam,” Audrey said and tried to sound surprised.

  He didn’t respond; not with words. Instead, he pushed aside her loose, golden locks with his nose and started to kiss the side of her neck. With both hands, he ran down her arms, took the plates and heaved them onto the counter. The cups on top slipped off and shattered against the flecked marble, sending sparkling pieces into the air.

  When the dishes were gone, he immediately wrapped his arms around Audrey’s stomach and held her so tight that her toes started to lift off the ground. With his already swollen package pressed against her rear, Liam steered her forward a little ways and then threw her over the side of his dining room table.

  Audrey hit the lacquered wood so hard that she gasped and folded forward with her hands splayed out in front. By that point, she was helpless to him. Every groping touch and caress that she felt as Liam explored her body again was like the first, making her heart pound and her thighs shake. She could feel him with acute detail, even though all she could see was the tall centerpiece as it toppled over. Its steel-gray candles crashed down near her fingers like boulders.

  Liam put both hands down her panties and shoved them to her ankles. Then he quickly pushed up the shirt that she had on--his shirt--and thrust his erection into her delicate area. Even through the shorts that her lover had on, Audrey could feel his girth as it started to spread her open.

  “Oh God,” she moaned between short breaths.

  After quickly shedding his clothes, Liam leaned in again, this time allowing their most private flesh to meet as he easily slipped in and started to thrust into her from behind.

  Audrey’s moans quickly escalated to cries of ecstasy as their bodies rocked against the smooth, rounded lip of the table with every powerful movement that Liam made. Before long, it pushed her over the edge. Her mouth fell open against the cool wood and sent fleeting puffs of fog over its shining surface as a powerful orgasm forced out a scream. In it, she let everything out at once.

  It wasn’t just a cry for the wonderful throbs of pleasure that she was gripped by, but also for all of the pain and hurt that led up to that moment; for all of the bullshit that, for a brief period in time, she was able to exchange for pure bliss.

  A few seconds later, Liam jerked his cock out of her with hardly any time to spare. Audrey felt him spill his hot seed onto her skin as his hand ran up and down to squeeze out every last drop.

  When he was done, he slid both hands up her back and tried to catch his breath.

  “I guess I can’t say I never use this table anymore, huh?”

  Chapter 9

  The less than 1000 residents in Cedar Key never did appreciate a big storm, so there was an understandable tension in the air on the calm Saturday morning when the local weather man stepped up his warnings over Hurricane Margaret, which had shifted overnight. After dancing around the tip of Cuba, it continued into the Gulf of Mexico, where the endless supply of warm, Caribbean waters fueled an unprecedented explosion in her size. Along with that came a surprising hook to the right, which left Cedar Key and the surrounding, low-lying marshlands around it right in her sights.

  It was a path that had been taken by a storm once before, which is precisely why everyone in town started to get so nervous. There was such a tension in the air that people didn’t dare to even speak of the previous storm for fear of jinxing it. But superstition is--and always was--no match for Mother Nature.

  ---

  Back in her friend’s cozy home after she was dropped off by Liam on the back of his motorcycle late the night before, Audrey laid on the couch with a bowl of cereal in her hands and the TV on some random documentary channel. Blissfully unaware of the rising fears among the Cedar Key locals, she chowed down on the sugary pile of golden squares like an animal. After all, it had been a long night.

  Half way into her ravenous scooping, a phone mounted on the wall near the kitchen rang to life. It was the first time that Audrey ever heard the thing. Hell, she didn’t even know that it existed. She thought about just ignoring it, but her curiosity ultimately got the better of her.

  Still dressed in her pajamas even though it was pushing noon, she slid up to the phone and snatched the handset from the cradle.

  “Uh,” she said, quickly realizing that she didn’t know what to say. “Kim’s house.”

  “Hello? Is this Audrey?”

  It was an older man’s voice. He sounded faintly familiar, but in a way that most grandpas do.

  “It sure is,” she responded. “Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

  “This is Morty down at the general store. My, you’re sounding much more chipper than when we first met.”

  The comment thrust Audrey back to when she arrived and had a passing encounter with the kind old man on the other end of the line. When they crossed paths, she was so star-struck by meeting her new lover for the first time that she couldn’t remember any of the old man’s features.

  “How are you, Morty? I think this Florida sun is finally working its magic.”

  He paused and cleared his throat before he asked, “So I take it you haven’t seen the news?”

  For whatever reason, Audrey’s mind immediately went to Kim. She set her bowl of cereal down onto the counter and gripped the receiver.

  “What? Is something wrong?”

  “Not yet,” he replied, “but trouble’s coming.”

  Feeling a small sense of relief, Audrey relaxed her shoulders and leaned against the wall.

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a stor
m headed this way. You might want to check it out on the television.” The way that he carefully pronounced the whole word harkened back to another era. “I’m sure Kim will call you about it soon, but I thought you would want to know.”

  Audrey was a little more surprised than she should have been. It was September, after all, but with everything that was going on as her life re-shuffled its deck, it wasn’t something that she ever took the time to consider. Now, with another threat bearing down, she didn’t really know what she should do.

  “Well I do appreciate it. I had no idea.”

  “Yup.” He sounded pleased with himself. “That’s what I figured. You can come down if you need any help boarding things up. I have three strapping young grandsons that would be happy to help.”

  His kind enthusiasm made Audrey smile.

  “Thank you Morty. I’ll give you a call if I need anything.”

  “You got it. Stay safe.”

  They said their brief goodbyes and Audrey set the phone back into its holder. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with the information that she was just given, so she shuffled back to the couch--sans cereal--and switched the TV to a local news channel, which she promptly muted. There was something about the way news reporters droned on that irritated her on a personal level. To her, they looked and sounded like robots.

  In a smaller, offset window, the screen showed grainy pictures of small islands that the storm blew through the day before as it tore a path toward Cedar Key. Audrey planted her knees into the tops of her elbows and rested her face in the palms of her hands.

  “Of course there is,” she sighed. “You escape the bullshit weather in Chicago only to run right into the arms of a god damn hurricane.”

  Audrey knew that the weather wasn’t the only thing in her life that followed the same pattern. In reality, her torrid affair with Liam turned into a perfect storm of its own; a storm that threatened to tear her apart. She had so many questions for Max without the nerve to ask them. Maybe even more so, Liam’s motives were a mystery. Why, of all the girls that he surely ran into in his life, did he take a sudden interest in her?

  Why him? Why now?

  She scratched her scalp with short nails and closed her eyes but it was too good to last. Someone at the front door knocked loudly, forcing Audrey from her comfortable seat to answer it.

  Waiting with an envelope of cash, Arthur McBride stood on the porch with his hands clasped in front of him. When Audrey opened the door, he held out the money that she forgot to pick up.

  “Liam said that I could find you here.”

  “Oh wow,” she took the envelope, a little embarrassed that he caught her forgetting a cool thousand in cash. “Thanks. Do you want to come in?”

  “Sure, for a minute. I’ve got Susan pulling out our storm gear.” He walked in and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a while since we’ve needed it, to tell ya the truth.”

  Audrey left the door open and led him back into the living room, which allowed the fresh, warm air outside to flood the house around them. She patted the opposite end of the couch as she passed by.

  “Have a seat.”

  “Thanks,” he said and flopped down. When he looked up to the muted TV, a sigh escaped his lips. “That’s one hell of a storm out there.”

  “So I’ve heard.” She paused to cross her legs in front of her and asked, “What do you think’s going to happen?”

  Arthur propped both of his arms up on the couch’s low back and thought about her question.

  “Well, it’s hard to say. Hurricanes always seem to have their own personalities, some veering one way while others hook around and double back. That thing out there,” he pointed to the news coverage, “could do nothing and it could do everything. Are you going to go home early?”

  Audrey hadn’t thought about that issue yet.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m going to wait until I hear from Kim.”

  Arthur nodded his head in agreement.

  “I’ve seen a storm or two in my day. You’re in for quite the show if you don’t get out of here in time.”

  “It’s probably still better than what’s waiting for me in Chicago,” she muttered.

  “The weather’s bad out there, too?”

  “You could say that.”

  Arthur fell silent for a little bit, like there was something that he wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it. As she watched from her side of the couch, Audrey could see the struggle in the look he wore.

  “What?”

  He sighed and answered, “Look, I don’t know what you have waiting for you when you go back, but obviously you’re not too excited about whatever it is. You might not realize it, but you’ve changed since you first got here. I’ve watched it happen.”

  Audrey couldn’t argue. She felt different, maybe even better than before. Even so, she wondered why the Island Hotel’s owner seemed to care so much.

  “It’s beautiful down here. How could I not feel better?”

  “No,” Arthur replied and shook his head. “It’s more than that. Look, I’ve seen people pass up a chance at happiness and I don’t want you to do the same thing.”

  “Is this about Liam?”

  “It’s about more than that. I know you’ve got stuff going on but sooner or later you’re going to have to settle things. You can’t run forever, you know. Nobody really can.”

  Audrey blinked a couple of times at his brutal honesty and tried to find something to justify the way that she was living. But as she scoured her mind for an excuse, she couldn’t find one.

  “I know,” she said softly and glanced over to the TV, where a reporter in a rain jacket was already stationed on a dry beach as he waited for Hurricane Margaret to plow through. “And I appreciate the advice, but I’d rather do that guy’s job naked than be in Chicago right now.”

  “Suit yourself,” Arthur said as he pushed himself up from the couch and patted her on the shoulder. “Call me if you need any help...and I mean it. I’ll let myself out.”

  Audrey looked up as the old man passed and gave him a small smile.

  “Thanks.”

  She listened to him leave and slid down until the length of her body took up most of the couch. Her feet stretched out to where the cushions were still warm and she stared up at the ceiling.

  Every word that Arthur said struck a chord, even if it wasn’t outwardly apparent. Audrey knew that she couldn’t turn her back on Max forever, but hearing it from someone else--someone who knew nothing about her actual situation--cemented a tiny bit of resolve into her thoughts.

  Audrey took her phone out of her pocket and held it over her face. She unlocked the screen and eyed it, trying to carefully decide how to proceed. Whether she liked it or not, the impending storm forced her hand. There was a decision to be made.

  She took a deep breath, held it in, and dialed back the one person that she wanted to talk to the least.

  With every unanswered ring in her ear, Audrey felt her stomach wrench up so tight that she thought she might vomit. The apprehension that she allowed to build since arriving in Florida was more unbearable than she imagined and it made it a struggle to keep the phone up to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  Audrey opened her mouth to speak, but hearing Max’s voice made the words catch in the back of her throat.

  “Audrey? Are you there?”

  “Yes,” she croaked. “I’m here.”

  Right away, he laid into her.

  “What the fuck is your problem?”

  Though she was expecting some nasty words, she wasn’t ready for him to jump down her throat right off the bat.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve been trying to call you all week and you’ve just been blowing me off. I’m your husband, for fuck’s sake.”

  “My, my,” she stammered, “my husband? You asked me for a divorce and now you’re mad because I don’t want to talk to you? What the hell did you expect?”

  “I expec
ted you to at least answer my phone calls.”

  “Sorry,” she quipped, feeling a little more brazen. “I’m pretty sure that I don’t owe you shit.”

  Without saying a word, Max’s anger came through the phone in the short breaths that rattled into Audrey’s ear. She looked down at her wrist. Though most of the wounds were no longer noticeable, his breathing reminded her of the night that all of it happened. It made the larger cuts start to throb with phantom pains.

  Though she didn’t choose to, she could still remember the vacant look in his eyes as he tossed her against the stove and nearly knocked her out before he ran off into the night.

  “Audrey,” he growled. “I did everything that I could.”

  “Everything,” she exclaimed. “You think that you did everything? All you did was spring this on me like a fucking haircut appointment or something. You didn’t even try to make things right.”

  “I’ve been trying to make things right for years,” he said. “You made it impossible.”

  She whispered to herself, “Years?”

  Max still heard her.

  “Yes, years.”

  A blinding rage took hold of Audrey’s petite frame.

  “Is that how long you’ve been fucking her?”

  The irony of the question after what she did with Liam wasn’t lost on her, but she couldn’t help herself. She needed to know the truth after all that happened. There were too many questions.

  “Fucking who?”

  Words that oozed with spite started to flow from Audrey’s shaking lips.

  “You know exactly who, Max: that trainer of yours, Miranda.”

  On the other end, Max faked a laugh.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  Audrey’s heart dropped.

  “Yes.”

  “Two years.”

  The phone nearly fell from her hand.

  “What?!”

  There was a pause as she tried to gather her jaw from the floor. Though things between them seemed pretty bleak going into the conversation, the new wave of betrayal rocked the foundation of just about everything.