Melisa walked over to him and led him over to the bed. “You know you don’t have to be corny. This is pretty much going to happen, no matter what.”
“What do you mean, ‘corny’?” Dominic asked her with confused look.
“You know, cliché.”
“Oh,” his eyes dropped down to the ground. “Do you believe that I was using clichés because I called you beautiful?” He looked serious, and his tone was serious to match. He really wanted to know.
“Well, yeah,” Melisa admitted.
“That seems very wrong to me.”
Melisa wasn’t quite sure about what she should say. The conversation seemed to have turned serious and her drunken brain wasn’t in any state to keep up. “It’s just the way the world is,” she shrugged eventually.
“Is it really?” Dominic asked, as though he was he was taking her statement as a fact and he had no previous knowledge of his own to refer to.
Melisa looked at him curiously. He was strange. It wasn’t a bad strange. He was just different. He didn’t seem to waste his words like other people did. He seemed quite happy to observe what was going on around him. His dark brown eyes met hers and she smiled at him. It was strange. She didn’t really know the man standing in front of her, but she felt comfortable with him. She wondered whether perhaps it was the liquor that was brewing up feelings of familiarity between them.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Melisa asked him, because she could just sense the miles he had traveled on him.
He shook his head. “I’m thinking about moving over here though. The place where I live is becoming uninhabitable.”
“Uninhabitable?” she asked. “Where is it that you come from?”
He smiled and then closed the space between them. “A long way away,” he whispered into her lips before he kissed her.
The whole room was spinning. It could have been the whiskey. It could have been Dominic’s tongue drawing circles against her lower lip. He had taken his hands no further than the curve in her spine, but she could feel his touch reaching much lower. Her perfectly kept garden was aching to be tended. She could feel it growing wet in anticipation of the ground being moved from under her.
They fell against the bed. Her chest was rising with a ferocious speed that could have formed tempests in the ocean. Dominic’s hands were grazing her sides, as they dipped into her curves and stopped at the line of her low-riding jeans. “Shit,” she cried out when his hands started to move up her body again and away from the one place that was throbbing with jealousy over everywhere else being touched.
“Do you want me?” Dominic whispered into her ear. He grazed her lobe with his teeth. She could feel his hot tongue just behind them. She nodded. He shook his head. “I’m going to need to hear you say it,” he whispered and then he lowered his mouth to her neck and started to leave a blazing[S4] trail of kisses down to the tan line on her breasts.
“Yes, I want you,” she answered him in a croaky, pained voice that was begging from mercy. She pulled his body into hers. She could feel his hot skin bending and molding around her fingertips as she dug them into him so that he couldn’t move away from her.
She didn’t need to ask whether he wanted her. She could feel his want. She could feel it as it pressed up against the side of her leg and throbbed with the same desperation that she could feel between her own legs. She pushed her back away from the bed, so that her hips were pressing against his. He was taking it slow. He was taking it so painfully slow that all Melisa could think about was what it would feel like to have him sliding inside of her.
The rest of the world was gone. There was only him and the feeling he brought. Her head fell back, as he finally pushed her legs open and thrust inside of her. “Oh, fuck,” she cried out, as every nerve in her body started to tighten and burn, as she was brought closer to the edge than she had ever been before.
********
15 years later.
The sound of the alarm clock ringing shrilly sank through into Melisa’s dreams. “Why don’t you just get an alarm radio?” Snoopy asked, before her dream melted away and she found her hand slamming the night stand next to her bed in a futile attempt to make the noise stop. The attempt was futile because her past self knew this trick. She had recently decided that her alarm was better kept on the dresser, which was across the room.
She grunted as she realized her mistake, and she slid her legs out of the safety and warmth of her sheets so she could follow the noise. She brought her hand down roughly on the top of the alarm and found herself standing in silence. The mirror on top of the dresser was showing her a tired version of the person she remembered being. Her skin had fine marks etched close to the eyes, which would soon turn into wrinkles; her lips seemed thinner than they once had. She was getting undeniably old, but she couldn’t seem to remember that the time that had passed to cause it.
She walked out of her bedroom without getting dressed and stopped at the bedroom next door. She listened for a moment. She would never give up hope that perhaps one day she might find that her daughter was already awake and that a battle wasn’t about to start. She knocked on the door loudly. The only sound she could hear from beyond it was her daughter’s deep snores. “Get your ass out of bed,” she called through. A grunt answered the demand. “I mean it, Josie, you need to get up, and you’ve got school in an hour.”
She walked away from her daughter’s bedroom and back into her own. She knew that she had about ten minutes before she would need to go back and try again. She walked over to her small closet and looked through her clothes. The day felt hot already, and she could see the perfect, cloudless blue sky reaching over the ocean, which told her that it would remain nice all day. She pulled out a small cotton vest top and a pair of shorts and put them on before tying her auburn hair back into a ponytail that more closely resembled a waterfall.
“Get your lazy ass out of bed,” she said as she skipped knocking and walked straight into her daughter’s room. Josie was still in bed, which wasn’t a surprise. Her dark brown hair was surrounding her face in a mess of perfectly formed curls, and her arms were covering her eyes, as though she was trying to hold onto the night time, which she’d refused to sleep through. She grunted and Melisa sighed. “I’m not doing this every morning until you finish high school,” she told her daughter firmly. “I have stuff I have to do. I have a life, Josie.”
“Mom, just five more minutes,” Josie groaned before she rolled over so that her face sank into her stained pillowcase.
Melisa tried not to think about what the cause of the stains had been. It was Josie’s fault that her bedding was so grim. She’d told her to bring it down for the wash over a month ago, but her daughter was still yet to do it. “No more minutes,” she said firmly. She grabbed a hold of Josie’s sheets and pulled them sharply so that her daughter would have to face the cold. “I’m going to put breakfast on. When it’s ready, you better be downstairs and ready to eat it.”
She walked back out of the room again. She was sick of Josie and the battles she brought forth every morning when it was time for school. If the girl would just sleep at night like she was supposed to, then this wouldn’t be a problem all the time. She stopped at the kitchen door and pushed it open. The room was sparkling. She’d spent the day before cleaning it from top to bottom. She pulled out some eggs from the fridge and turned the stove on. She could hear the thump, thump, thump of Josie’s heavy-footed walk, which told her that her daughter was at least out of bed and on the move.
She cracked the eggs into the pan and waited for them to cook. Her stomach was growling. She hadn’t had a chance to grab dinner after she’d gotten back from work the night before. She turned the stove off and poured the scrambled eggs out onto two plates before bringing them over to the table. “Breakfast is ready!” she called out, so that Josie would come down.
Thud, thud, thud. Josie made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. She was already dressed. She’d picked out a dark
grey loose racer-back top and shorts. She was wearing tights too, but they had so many holes in them that they wouldn’t pose as any real problem in the heat. Melisa frowned at her daughter. “Does your school really not care about all the makeup?”
Josie’s eyes were outlined in heavy black eyeliner. Her lips had been over-lined and painted a deep reddish orange. She shook her head. The mass of curls, which had hidden her face earlier than morning, danced freely around her shoulders. “They don’t care if you turn up. Why would they care about what’s on my face?” she asked with a strong current of teenage attitude that Melisa did her best to ignore. “So, I kind of have to ask you something,” Josie said slowly. She pushed the eggs around her plate with her fork so she wouldn’t have to look up at her mom as she spoke.
“Oh, and what’s that?”
“It’s a school thing,” Josie shrugged. “It’s this whole family tree project thing that we’re supposed to do.”
Melisa shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She could feel the direction of the conversation and she didn’t like it. “That sounds like it could be interesting,” she bluffed, because she wasn’t going to bring it up without her daughter mentioning it first.
“Whatever,” Josie rolled her eyes. “It’s just a school project.”
“Your enthusiasm for academics gives me so much hope about your future,” Melisa said dryly.
Josie grinned. “I know.” She leaned back on her chair and met her mom’s eyes. Melisa could see the hesitation within them. She could see that her daughter didn’t really want to ask the question that she couldn’t avoid asking in the situation she’d found herself in. “So, I kind of need to know about my dad.”
There it was. There was the question that Melisa had been dreading since Josie had learned how to speak. It had taken longer than she had feared to be asked. She had almost been lured into a false sense of security about whether it would ever be asked. It was time, though. Her daughter had questions, which Melisa would try her best to answer. “What do you need to know about him?” She smiled at Josie so that her daughter knew that it was okay to ask whatever she needed to.
“Everything,” she said simply. “I need to know everything that you know about him.”
Melisa could feel her cheeks burning red. She was about to tell her daughter about a dark point in her life. Would it change the way her daughter saw her? she wondered. Would it change the way their relationship worked? She cleared her throat and dropped her eyes to the table. “His name was Dominic. He was about the same age as me and he had hair just like yours. He was handsome and funny, a real catch,” she said as she thought back to the man she had met at the bar. “We met at a bar one night, when I was having a really bad time.”
“What was going on?” Josie asked her mom curiously.
Melisa thought about telling her the whole tale. She thought about revealing her failed marriage and the fights that had led up to the divorce, but she decided that Josie didn’t need to know everything, at least, not at that moment. “It was just a bad time,” she replied simply. “I went to the bar so that I could drown my sorrows, which isn’t something I recommend,” she added quickly. “I met your dad there and we spent the night together. When I woke up in the morning he was gone.”
“So, you don’t actually know who my dad is?” Josie asked, and Melisa could see the judgement in her eyes.
“No.”
“Wow,” she leaned back on her chair. “Does it bother you that you don’t know who he is?”
Melisa shook her head. “I know enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I know you. I know the person you are, I know that you’re a good kid and that’s enough.”
“You know I’m going to fail this project, right?” Josie said carefully after some consideration. “It almost seems pointless even doing it.”
“Are you trying to get my permission to not do your project?” Melisa asked as she shook her head and smiled at her daughter’s blatant cheek.
“Well, I’m not doing the project either way, but your permission would make the whole thing easier when I get the detention slip.”
“And there I was saying that you are a good kid,” Melisa teased. “I can’t force you to do it, but I’d prefer it if you gave it a try at least.”
“Can I ask one more thing about my dad?” Josie leaned forward suddenly and the feet of her chair slapped against the ground.
“Sure,” Melisa nodded.
“What bar did you meet him in?”
********
Josie stood outside of the bar that her mom had named. It looked like a dive. The windows were so thick with muck that she couldn’t see inside. She wasn’t even sure whether it was open. The front door was closed and there wasn’t a sign out front alert the passing crowd to the fact that it was still in business.
She walked up to the door and pushed against it. It opened with a creak and she stepped inside. The room was dark. The dirt, which hid the inside from the outside world, was also working as a natural light block. She waited for her eyes to adjust. The potent stench of vomit burned at the inside of her nose and forced her stomach to grind.
She walked over to the bar. The bartender looked at her as though he was giving a solider an inspection. “Do you have any ID?” he asked gruffly.
Josie snorted. “Are you telling me that you can afford to turn business away?” she asked cockily.
The bartender’s eyebrow arched at her comment. His face looked temporarily conflicted. Josie could see the dance between amusement and annoyance on his face. He laughed. “You’ve got some cajones, kid,” He threw his dirty rag down on the bar and leaned forward. “What can I get you?”
“Information,” Josie told him with a firm look. She tried to ignore the cringe-worthy feeling that came with the words she had said. She sounded like some cheesy cop out of an eighties sitcom or something.
“Is that so?” the bartender asked. “What makes you think I’ll talk?” He was teasing her. He’d heard the bad cop show in her words too, and he was mocking her.
“You think that this is a joke?” she snapped at him. “Do you think I’m standing in old vomit and dirty blood because I’m here to fuck around?”
“Well, well, well, you are a feisty one, aren’t you?” The bartender stood back up straight and picked up the rag that he’d thrown down in front of him. “What is it that you want to know?”
“How long have you been working here?”
“What have I got to do with anything?” he asked her quickly.
She looked at him. He had a scar running down the left side of his face and over his nose. His nose was crooked and had clearly been broken more than once. He had probably got himself into a hundred different bad situations, but they weren’t what Josie wanted to know about. “I was hoping that you worked here around fifteen years ago. You see, my mom met a guy here and, well, he’s my dad, so I was hoping maybe you’d be able to give me some clues about who he is.”
The bartender laughed. He laughed long and hard. It was without warmth. It was pure amusement. He couldn’t believe what he was being asked. He stopped and pulled a serious expression back to his face. “So, you’re asking whether I remember your skank mommy and the dude she took home?” he asked her. “You know, we have plenty of skanks who walk through this door, kid. I’m not going to remember them all.”
Josie opened her mouth. She was ready to explode at him. Who did he think he was, calling her mom a skank? Had he seen himself? Had he seen the state that he was in? “Excuse me,” a voice said behind her, and she turned quickly to see who had thought it was a good idea to interrupt.
“What?” she snapped at a middle aged man with a smooth chin and treacle-glazed eyes.
“I think I might be able to help you,” the guy said with a warm smile. “I’ve been drinking in this bar nearly every night since I turned twenty-one. Maybe I saw your mom?”
“Oh,” Josie said quickly. She felt bad that she’d
snapped so readily at the man when he seemed so happy to help her. “That would be great, thanks.”
“We should probably go somewhere else to talk though,” he added quickly as he glanced back at the bartender who was staring at Josie with a cruel smile across his face. “He seems like he’s pissed at you.”
Josie nodded. “I think I saw a diner down the street. Could we go there?” she asked, as she walked over to the door with the strange man who had offered his assistance.
********
Where was she? Melisa had been waiting for Josie to get home from school for hours. She was starting to worry. It wasn’t that slow-burning worry either; it was that heart-pounding, loss-of-breath kind of worry, which was driving her crazy. How could Josie be so selfish, she vented to herself. How could she be so dreadful that she wouldn’t even answer her phone?
She reached into her pocket and pulled her cell phone back out. She tried calling Josie again. The phone started ringing and then cut dead, as it had all the other times she’d tried to call in the last few hours. She stood up from her couch and started to pace the room. Was it too soon to call the police? Was there some kind of waiting time that she was meant to obey before she started to get her real freak-out on?
When evening had long passed and it was officially late, she started to call around to Josie’s friends. No one had heard from her. She hadn’t been to school. She had been missing since she had left the house that morning and it was only then that Melisa had known for sure. She hung up on the last friend in her contact list and dialled 911. “What’s your emergency?” a deep voice asked when the call connected.
“My daughter’s missing,” Melisa said quickly. “I need the police.”
“Okay, miss, can you give me some details, please?” the operator asked.
“Um, I don’t know,” Melisa said as her mind turned into jelly. “She’s fifteen years old. She had brown hair and eyes. She’s about five-foot two-inches. She was with me this morning and then she left for school, but she never got to school. She skips sometimes, but she always comes home. She’s not answering her cell either. This isn’t like her.”
Untamed Abduction: Alien Romance Collection Page 4