“Come on, Grandma, let’s get to the center of the house so we can be safe during the storm,” he said.
“Wilke,” he said, pausing, “I love you, man.”
“I love you too, kiddo,” Wilke replied, swallowing down the emotions as fear snuck up on them while the wind picked up, rattling the windows behind the closed shutters. Michael had storm-proofed the house, but Wilke wasn’t so sure about the damage after the storm.
A different storm was brewing in Las Vegas as Zelda sat patiently waiting for Scott to return from the bathroom after his shower.
THURSDAY NIGHT LAS Vegas
“I want the happily ever after,” Zelda said to Scott as he entered the sitting room in the hotel suite.
“And you shall have it,” he said, taking a seat, his hair still damp, curling and clinging to his forehead.
“That’s not possible with the secrets you are hiding of having tawdry affairs with old women,” she said, looking at him out the corner of her eye.
“I was 13, Zelda, a lifetime ago.”
“True. You were also 13 all over again when you saw her today, so you haven’t truly healed,” she said.
“You are one to talk,” he said.
Zelda opened the diary and read a passage to him from the blue journal with the delicate flowers. He listened in disgust as she read the words aloud to him. Each time she said the word punishment, he cringed.
“Your father was a sick man,” he said.
“At the age of 13, the idea of sex terrified me because I was taught it was punishment for when you do something bad. At that age, the sense of right and wrong is determined by the adults around you,” she told him. “You can’t fully understand how wrong what she did to you was, considering she was your tether, the teacher, and a person your parents hired to care for you. Scott, she abused you.”
Scott burst into laughter.
“This is no laughing matter. Scott, you were sexually abused by that woman!” Zelda said with more emphasis.
“I’m laughing because if you had any idea some of the things I did to ‘that woman’, you would feel sorry for her,” he said, chuckling. “Zelda, trust me, I had years of counseling over Samantha. I’m a grown man. I can handle an encounter with my past. The question is, can you?”
“No, I am not certain how I feel about an encounter with your past,” she said facetiously.
“Okay, okay, let me put this in perspective for you,” Scott, taking her hand into his. “I was thirteen, a multi-millionaire, nearly six feet tall, all of 140 pounds and ugly. Being on the road for seven years straight, I had no real connection to my family, whom I mainly saw on holidays. True, I was 13 in age, but I’ve never been a child. Samantha didn’t seduce some wide-eyed kid. I seduced her.”
“You seduced her?”
“Yep. I knew she was as lonely as I was and nature had gifted me a keen understanding of people and a ridiculously large penis that made an equally large impression in any pair of pants I wore,” he said, rubbing his brow.
“Scott, trying to romanticize this doesn’t change the fact you were only 13,” she said.
“Zelda, stop trying to make me out to be some wide-eyed innocent. I lost my virginity backstage at the age of 11 to a showgirl, I kid you not, named Lola. When I was 12, I knew how to make a woman orgasm in less than five strokes and I didn’t want to be at home with my square, stiff parents. On the road I had freedom. Each night I had choices of women of all races and nationalities. Girls my age didn’t interest me. Older women were my thing because there was no stupid chatter, just me, a major boner, and the energy of a 13-year-old after a hit of cocaine,” he said.
“Chandler...the depression, the weird ass table you made with the hands coming out of the head, Scott, what was all that about?”
“Baby, I was thirteen and getting laid every night with a woman who got down like a porn star. Anything I wanted to eat I could order from room service, a car to take me to any see any famous sight or landmark I wanted, and I had to leave all of that to come home to my mother’s Wednesday night meatloaf. Shit, you’d be depressed, too!”
“This Samantha woman, did you love her?”
“I loved what we had. Looking back on it, her need to be with me was as twisted as my need to be with her. She had an insatiable appetite for sex and me, constantly at the ready was a match made in heaven,” he said.
“What ended your little love fest?” Zelda wanted to know.
“My mother. She decided to surprise me one night in Los Angeles and walked in on us,” he said. “Now, that nearly scarred me for life.”
“Well, aren’t we the pair?”
“You are perfect for me, Zelda, and more than anything, I want a life with you. I will give you your happily ever after, honey,” he said, pulling her close. “But first you need to shower. You smell like sex and a dirty nightclub.”
Zelda threw her diary at him after bounding to her feet to head to the shower. Scott held the journal, flipping through the pages, reading some of the words, seeing them, understanding, yet not wanting to know the ugliness. They were words, chronicling the actions and pain of child wanting to be loved. His life was different. He was no one’s victim.
Ugly, awkward, and not even remotely shy, girls and women often approached him, taking pity with the belief that their actions would build his self-esteem. Chandler likened Scott to a colorful spider waiting in an intricately designed web, sitting, allowing the flies to come to him to pet the monster. Often, their tentative kisses were met by a young man with skills beyond their comprehension. He never forced any woman, but a few of the right moves with his hands and fingers, and they were tearing at his clothing. By the time he reached college, he was bored by it all.
As an adult, the Vent Conference often brought more of the same, which is why he chose to never participate in any dalliances with the conference goers. Zelda was different. From the moment he spotted her in that bar, he knew. She was meant to be his. And she would be, but everything had to be right.
Currently, it was all wrong. However, he had a plan to change it. He picked up his cell phone and made a call. Tomorrow morning would bring a new edge to their relationship.
Chapter 5 – Fire and Her Fury
Friday Morning, Cincinnati
Pip packed her costume and suitcases, ready to leave for Vegas for the Fall convention season. Her schedule had arrived that morning and she was booked four nights a week with two daytime conference presentations, and she would be off on Sunday and Mondays, with an alternating Tuesday. The money was nice and it was a great change of pace from the museum.
“What happened to your Prince Charming man I was supposed to meet?” Roxanne asked her sarcastically.
“I think he dumped me. So now, you’re stuck with me for the rest of your days, and you know what I am thinking, Mama? I am thinking I’m going to sell this house, put you in a nursing home, and when you go through the money like I know you are going to, you will be on your own,” Pip said. “I deserve a better life than you have given me and you are not going to steal the one I could potentially have with your drunken, whorish bullshit.”
“You don’t speak to me like that; I’m your Mama!” Roxanne said, pulling a long drag from a cigarette.
“If you don’t like it, pack a bag and get out of my house. I will be so much happier without you, those stinky cancer sticks, the smell of sour beer putrefaction in cans, as well as your sorry excuses for housekeeping,” Pip said. “I have put money in your account to last you the two months I will be gone. If you go through it, you are slap out of luck. Best start learning now how to manage your money because when I get back, you are getting out of my house.”
“Persephone...you know to never let a man come between you and blood,” Demeter said.
“I’m not letting a man come between me and you Mama. My life is. My desire to live freely and enjoy the money I work hard to earn is coming between us. No more. No more sapping my life force,” Pip said, closing the suit
case.
“It’s him! It this man filling your head with his highfalutin ways,” Roxanne snapped at her daughter.
“Mom, he dumped me. However, I am starting to see my own reflection a bit better, now and maybe he did shine some light on how unhappy I am in our current arrangement. Mom, I will always love you as my mother, but you are toxic to my happiness, and I want to be free. I plan to be free starting today,” Pip said, picking up the case.
“So you are just going to leave with things like this between us?”
“I am going to leave, and when I get back, I am finding you somewhere else to live. You have worn out your welcome here,” Pip said, walking to the door. “If you burn the house down while I am gone, fine. I have insurance.”
She left the house, her mother’s voice calling in her ear as she climbed inside the paid shuttle car to the airport. If Michael showed up in Vegas, she would talk to him. If he didn’t show up, she would go on with her life.
“Dear Jesus, I am sorry for my fornificacious ways, but somehow in a month, I fell in love with that man. It was supposed to be a fling, but my heart wants a life with him,” she said softly with her eyes closed. She’d kept her eye on the news as Hurricane Harvey made landfall, nearly decimating Houston. Pip’s concerns quickly shifted by the time she landed in Las Vegas from hoping Michael would make it to Las Vegas, to praying Michael would still be alive.
She arrived in the wee hours of the night, checking into the adjoining suite next to Zelda’s. It was too late to call her, so she sent a text that she’d arrived. Instinct made her turn on the news to eye the devastation in Texas. Tomorrow she would call him. Maybe it wasn’t a blow off after all. Michael was a responsible man.
Going back to Texas was the responsible thing to do.
I am an adult. I can be responsible as well. I am not going to allow my mother to ruin this for me or kill my relationship with this man. I’m not going to call him, though. I have my pride.
THE WORST PART OF THE storm had passed, leaving Houston as a wet, soaked bog of a city filled with floating debris, poisonous snakes, and an alligator walking across the street. Grandma Lula spotted it after she made a stink about checking on her house, trying to get out the door. Spotting the alligator strolling down the street as if it were going to the market to shop brought the old lady back into the house.
“Grandma, we can watch the news on my tablet. The whole area where you lived is flooded. You are not going to be able to live in that house again,” he told her, placing his arm about her shoulder.
“What am I supposed to do? Live here with you?” she asked, her old eyes filled with tears.
“No, you don’t have to do that, but until we figure something out, Zelda is gone for nearly two months, so there is more than enough room,” he said softly.
“I’m not staying in this house with you and your fornicating redheaded she-devil either!”
“Persephone is working in Vegas as well for the Fall conference season. She will not be here, but I am planning to go there once the water clears,” he said.
“Michael, are you planning to marry that gal?”
“I was...but just my luck she has a crazy Momma to contend with,” he said sighing heavily.
Lula placed her arm around his waist, squeezing him tightly. “Don’t let that stop you. I wish I could go back and do so many things differently, but my life was hard. Feeding your Mama and keeping a roof over our heads was a constant struggle. I did things I swore would land me in hell, then I got lucky and got a decent job,” she said. “I gave my life to Jesus and never looked back.”
“Grandma, we are all imperfect. You have to fall down in order to get back up,” he told her.
“Don’t use my words against me,” she said, pulling away.
“I’m not, but right now, we are all down and have to get on our feet, and I’m tired. I want a nice girl to come home to and a couple of kids after I travel the world a bit. I have worked my entire life taking care of Zelda and you, and right now, I am down. Persephone makes me feel tall. I stand tall when I am with her,” he said softly.
“I saw,” she said.
“Then you know where I am standing,” he said to his Grandmother.
“If she makes you happy, then be happy,” Lula told him.
“She does and Persephone is going to be a part of my life, but I am not going to bring her into my world if you are going to act ugly. If you force me to make a choice between the two of you, I will.”
“You would choose her over your own Grandmother?”
“If my Grandmother decides she can’t act right and wants to be rude, telling the woman her puppet is a conduit for Satan, then yes. Yes, I will,” Michael said to her.
“Well, then. You do what you feel you must,” Grandma Lula told him.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean I need to choose. I am asking you to be civil and treat her with respect. Are you telling me you are unwilling to do that?”
Lula said nothing as she went to the kitchen, looking for something to eat, her back to him and rigid as she opened the refrigerator. The heaviness in her heart was reminiscent of a similar conversation she had with her daughter before she returned home to a man that Lula knew was the devil incarnate.
“Be happy, Michael,” she told him. “Live your life and be happy.”
She had nothing more to say on the subject as he took a piece of cheese, a few crackers, and a bottle of sweetened ice tea to the guest room. Her Bible, the constant companion at her side, was flung across the room as she threw herself across the bed and cried. Her home was ruined, her relationship with her grandchildren shattered, and she cried for the loss of so much time. She mumbled into the bed covers, singing “Nearer My God to Thee” as the thought of not having her grandchildren in her life hit her hard.
“I can change,” she said. “I will change.”
Chapter 6 – Wake Up Call
Saturday Morning, Las Vegas
The clock read 8:00 am as Scott lay back, his head resting on the pillows, the sound of Zelda’s unladylike snoring making him want to shove something in her mouth. He didn’t recall her snoring before and maybe he’d been too love drunk or too tired to care, but it sounded like a hungry bear had broken into their room and was threatening to eat him. Time was not his friend this morning. His libido was awake, Zelda was not, and he was getting fidgety. Zelda made him feel like he was 13 all over again.
Zelda turned over, one cute little butt cheek peeking at him, forcing what felt like all the blood in his body to his groin and creating a dull throb which could only be remedied by rubbing it against something soft and moist. He wasn’t a pig, and the thought of waking her up in a sexy way didn’t work either. She hadn’t read the diaries, and he didn’t know if that bastard father of hers had snuck into her room with some of his punishing techniques. Either way, he needed her to wake up. Using his knee, he nudged her hip, eliciting a catlike mewl from her, which only seemed to worsen his current state. He nudged her again, this time placing his hand on her hip. The warm skin under his fingers made him nearly moan as his right hand rubbed her flesh and somehow his left hand ended up under the covers with him touching himself to stop the nagging throb.
Scott whispered her name, “Zelda, baby, wake up.”
She moaned again.
One more moan and he was going to lose it.
“Zelda,” he said, pressing his hand into her hip. “Baby, wake up.”
A long, lean leg was flung across his as she turned over on her back, her skimpy pajama bottom lifting up to reveal her lack of underwear. One boob peeked at him, and the hand which was formerly on her side rested entirely too close to the sweet spot he needed.
“Good grief,” he sighed. Nudging her again, he wanted to take that taut nipple into his mouth and suck it until she cried out his name. Instead, his hand slid up to her belly, pressing down as he said her name louder.
Her eyes fluttered open as his hand worked under the covers.
“
Scott, what are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to wake up so I can share my feelings,” he said, still stroking himself.
She blinked several times, trying to focus on him, but her eyes were drawn to his hand under the covers. The idea of what he was doing to himself turned her on, her nipples hardening at the thought of him in such a state of need.
“Take what you need, Big Guy,” she said, curious as to what he was going to do.
He moved so quickly, she wasn’t certain of how she ended up face down, one breast in his hand while his fingers probed, preparing her. As quickly as her body responded, her pajama pants were off. She felt the perfect, bulbous head pressing in between her thighs, sliding in, filling her, as her vaginal walls clung to him, and true to his word, five, deep, delicious strokes later, she was hitting her first orgasm as she clung to the side of the bed, shuddering through her release. Scott, on the other hand, was only warming up as his warm breath caressed the back of her neck, the hairy chest moving against her back, causing her to moan wantonly as he went even deeper.
“Dayyyyum,” she cried out as he lifted her leg, shifting his position, picking up a faster pace.
The first orgasm had barely subsided before the second began, this time bringing her Scottie along with her. A pillow crumpled in his hand as his body thrust hard, pumping life into her restless soul.
“You learned to do that at the age of 12?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am,” he responded, kissing her cheek. “Good morning.”
“And a cockle-doodle do to you, too,” she managed to say after wiping the drool from her mouth.
He rolled off her, smacking her lightly on the ass. “Get up, get showered, and dressed. I am taking you to breakfast and I have a surprise as well,” he said with a crooked, bucked toothed grin.
“Wasn’t that surprise enough?”
My Thursday Throwback Page 4