by KT Morrison
Geoff pushed his arm but Dino held him.
“No,” Geoff sobbed, “no, you fucked her, you fucked my wife, you made my baby, my Odie came from you.” He fell and Dino held him. He clawed away from Dino’s arm and Nia was on his back, weighing him down.
He shouted to the universe, “She’s not mine? She’s not mine?”
“No, Geoff, no, she’s yours, baby, she’s yours. I know she is. I know she is! Geoff, the drawing, baby, no...”
“Get off,” he said, shrugging her away but she clung to him, her claws digging into him like hooks.
“Odie came from Dino,” Geoff wailed.
Nia cried, “She looks like me, Geoff, but she draws like you!”
“Off me!” he screamed. He threw her aside and an iron grip circled his wrist, crushing it, and he yelled like it would break. Rocco loomed over him, bent and scowling, he had Geoff’s arm in his fist.
Rocco growled, “You fuckin hurt her I’ll crush every bone in that fuckin hand you draw with.”
“Fuck off,” Dino said, and he grabbed Rocco’s arm.
Nia beat her fists on him, shouting, “Rocco, Rocco.”
Rocco eased and Geoff pulled from him and got to the ladder, but Nia scrambled up his back. “Geoff, we’ll...stop, Geoff, Odele is yours—we’ll get a DNA test!”
He peeled her off him and threw her on the deck and she cowered under him, flat on her back, that crazy mane of hair spread around her. Tears streamed her eyes, her face twisted in agony, her hands held up in case he would strike her.
“Never, Nia, never! Fucking never!” he screamed, jabbing a finger in her face with each word.
Dino grabbed his arm again, not to hurt him. Dino’s eyes welled with tears, he said, “Hey, hey, stop, Geoff, it’s okay, man...”
Dino looked in his eyes, some despondent connection there, an understanding. “Geoff, man, we’ll...we’ll...” a tear came out of Dino’s eye.
“No,” Geoff said, “no, if it came back, if I wasn’t...I swear...I will kill myself. I’ll just always wonder. Every day of my life. Every time I look in her beautiful eyes I’ll wonder.” He stepped down two rungs on the ladder but Dino wouldn't let him go. Nia screamed and cried. She beat her chest with her fists, her breasts shaking and swinging. Rocco fell back and sat on his ass, his eyes wide in shock before he held his face in his big hands again, shutting out the world.
“Geoff,” Dino said, “don’t leave...”
Geoff reached up and he grabbed his wallet and keys from the bench where Nia had left them. He looked around. Took it all in. The day everything ended. The day he stopped wanting to live, the day that everything he had built and loved and cherished burned to the ground. The day he lost his family.
He bent and sobbed into his wallet clutched in his hands. His tears streamed through his keys on their ring, the fob some gimcrack his beautiful awesome Odie had made him buy him at Centreville. A barrel with a cartoon ghost winnowing from it with a long mournful mouth.
“Aww,” he wailed again. Looked around once more, took his arm from Dino, saw his balls swing between his legs. Those big things had produced the little girl he’d devoted his life to.
“Nooo!” Nia screamed at the top of her lungs and slapped at the deck. Rocco held her, bent over her. She screamed into his chest and beat her feet.
“Geoff, the condom broke,” Dino said, choking up.
Geoff took another step down, his stomach heaved and he coughed bile into his throat. He covered his mouth with his forearm, bit his flesh hard enough to draw blood.
“You didn’t kill your baby.”
“What?” Dino said.
“When you punched her. She wasn’t pregnant when you punched her. You didn’t kill your baby. She let you believe that.”
He scrambled down the ladder and onto the swimming deck. He slipped on his cold wet clothes while Nia howled from the roof. Left his shoes up there and he got on the jet ski. Unwound the rope from the cleat with a bare foot up on one of the car tires lashed to the side of the houseboat. When he looked up he saw Nia’s arms thrashing, Rocco’s head and shoulders as he tried to console her.
He slumped onto the seat of the jet ski and he cried. He sobbed and held his face. He had to go, he had to be home. He turned and mimicked the things Dino had done. Got the machine started and he headed to shore, screaming into the wind.
GEOFF
She was standing with her backpack over a shoulder, wearing the dress Nia had bought her. The real love of his life. His raven-haired beauty.
Under the fluttering shade of the huge old oak that grew out front in the playground of Alistair Lessing Public School he crouched. Odie hadn’t seen him yet. He enjoyed watching her when she didn’t know she was being watched. Dancing in place, her hips going from side to side. Looking around and waiting, waiting to see her mom and dad. Mom had been bad and some mean lady had punched her in the nose in their own hall and then her mom disappeared. Daddy found her and she was going to come home. Restrained excitement made her wiggle as she waited to be reunited.
He had dry cotton clothes on, comfortable. Bags packed for him and O in the hatch of the Volvo. The house had been left a mess. Clothes strewn and mirrors smashed. Odie wouldn’t see that. They would stay with Kelly.
Odie jumped when she saw him, her face burst with happiness, then twisted to chastisement for watching her and not calling out. She ran to him.
He could cry but he was empty. Wept himself dry in the three hours it took him to get home. Wouldn’t burden her with that. He loved her far too much.
“Baby,” he whispered.
She ran to him, though she couldn’t hear him. She had a happy gait. A hopping skip, doubling up her steps on each leg. Each hop bringing her closer, tightening a knot in his heart, tightening the love he felt for his imaginary daughter.
The love he had for her was eternal. What of her love? There would come a day she discovered the man she called Daddy had no connection to her. Would they drift? Was it possible that she might love him less?
Their relationship was a collection of time spent. He was a father to her but they shared no blood. She had another father.
“Odie,” he cried as she bounded into his arms almost knocking him over.
“Daddy!” she laughed.
“Oh, Odie,” he said and he held her tight.
“Did you find her? Where is she?” she said in his ear.
“Yes, baby. I found her. She’s totally fine. You’ll see her. She’ll come home, baby. She loves you, Odie. She misses you so much.”
There was moisture left in him and he squeezed it out, his dried out husks were split once more with tears. He hugged her tighter til she hollered in his ear.
“Da-ad!”
“Sorry, baby,” he laughed, whisked her back and held her angel face between his hands.
She was smiling and it made him smile despite his pain. Her pretty Nia mouth spreading and showing him her little-kid whites. Black, black eyes twinkling like her mother’s and her father’s. How had he never seen it? He was blinded by his love for her. Blinded by his love for both of his girls.
“Where is she?”
“She’s on her way home, baby.”
“She’s coming home?”
“She is, Odie. I swear. You’ll see her. We’re going to go right now to see your Auntie, okay?”
“Why?”
“A pool party, O. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said. Her smile fading to an even and cautious line. “Is Mommy there?”
“No, Odie. You’ll see her. Soon, all right?”
“Okay,” she said, looking deep in his eyes. He rubbed his thumbs over those freckles that faintly sprinkled her cheeks.
She said, “Daddy, are you okay?” Her skinny fingers combed through his beard and her little brows curled up with concern. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Nope, baby,” he said, straightening his back and blinking away his tears. “No, I’m fine.”
“What's w
rong?”
“Nothing, baby. Nothing, my sweet baby. Tell me you love me.”
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, O. Are you mine? Are you my baby?”
“I'm your baby, Daddy.”
“I know you are.”
Part VIII
Universe
8 Months Later
35
Cherry Blossoms II
Wednesday, May 16th
GEOFF
He lay awake next to her. Shoulder pressed to her warm back, he stared at the high-vaulted ceiling. Today was the day he’d dreaded now for two weeks. He’d been able to push it aside at first, but it taunted him from the calendar on the fridge, poked at him with a chime—notifications on his iMac, on his iPhone, on his iPad. Yesterday had been spent in physical pain, even holding his stomach three or four times and wincing. Now it was 6 A.M. The day of.
He turned and put his arm around her waist, ran his fingers up between her breasts and he sucked on her shoulder. “Jenny,” he whispered. There were three minutes before the alarm sounded and she had to get ready for work, but he’d like to wake her gently rather than with a mechanical buzz. Her body stretched out, responding to his warm mouth, and her little legs trembled with the effort under the sheets. She went tense, groaned, then softened. She turned to him.
“Mm, morning,” she mumbled, her mouth twisted away. He kissed her forehead. Jenny feared morning breath. She smoothed her hands over his chest, smiling sheepishly, then slipped out of the covers and she trotted barefoot across his studio, both her hands, palms facing him, covering his view of her cute behind. Jenny was a short and soft, loving little woman. She’d saved him when he thought he’d never love again. Her attention to him made him want to try.
Her sticky feet tapped across his hard maple floor, her thighs jiggling, her cheeks shifting up and down behind her white cotton panties. He watched her cross his open loft, into the white door set in an exposed brick wall. She slipped in, closed the door, watching him from the gap as it closed, seeing if he was watching her. He waved, laying on his side, head on the pillows, indeed watching her. The door closed, and he listened to her pee, listened to her flush, then the teeth scrubbing, faucet running full blast.
It was a big decision, her moving in with him, not one either of them took lightly. Just two weeks now, and he was glad for her presence. Some of those cold nights over the winter he’d ached so bad he really wanted to die. Odie was his anchor. He wouldn’t leave her when she needed him.
So Jenny had moved into his studio in Liberty Village where he’d been living. A plugged in residential/work space in the dirty red-brick skeleton of an old factory that at one time, ages ago, had made wooden toys. He had a bed, the entire contents of his old garage studio (recreated in front of his kitchen), there was a bathroom, and a small room that now held a princess bed and veil and a dresser with hand-painted scrollwork. He was only ten minutes farther from Odie’s school. Different village but they were the same neighbourhood.
Jenny came out of the bathroom, eyes on his, and she crossed again, one arm nervously behind her, her other arm squashed across her lovely braless bosom, her tight sleeping tank bunched up around her waist. She laughed as she crossed, “Geoff, do-on’t,” she said, shying from his gaze. She hopped back into bed and under the covers and he looked for those breasts to sway against the white fabric. She hugged herself to him, smiling up into his eyes. She kissed his lips, her wet eyes still on his, giggled nervously and it provoked one from him. He needed her.
Jenny’s cute little mouth sucked on him, and he took her tongue, stinging with Scope. He’d been up for an hour already, looking blankly into the dawning space, dreading the events of the day. He’d brushed his teeth, had a drink of water. Holding someone against him was the thing he needed the most right now.
Their mouths sucked on each other, his hands explored. She was soft and sleepy, her ample flesh under his fingers made him pulse to hardness in seconds. Hands went up her shirt, grabbed those big soft breasts and found her nipples pleasantly ready. She wriggled against him, getting his heart pounding.
“Get a condom,” she whispered.
Condoms were in his night table and he rolled to his side and opened the drawer, eyes on Jenny—breasts swaying while she lay on her back and pushed her panties down. He fished a packet out and tore a condom free. Jenny pulled the sheets up to cover herself and she made a funny little face, eyes rolled up and to the side, pulling her top off under there, knowing his eyes were on her. He got himself undressed, and he rolled the condom down his erection. She lifted the sheets for him to come under, arm covered over her chest. He slipped under and got on his knees over top of her. Arms went around his neck and he kissed her again, kissed her chin, her neck, down her collar, and between her breasts. Tension stiffened her, he continued, but as he got lower, her thigh muscles flexed and he felt her closing up on him.
“Geoff,” she whispered, “Geoff, I didn’t shower.”
He kissed his way back up to her lips and he took them, his eyes on hers. Their lips smacked as he broke away, and he said, “I like you better like that,” he touched her between her legs with the head of his cock. She gasped and her eyes went wide. He whispered, “I love the way you taste.”
Her lower lip sucked in under her teeth and her eyes quivered as she stared at him. He turned her on so fucking bad, and he could watch her face all day when he was inside her. He eased himself in, hovered over her, both arms outstretched, holding himself above. She made a high little grunt as he passed through her muscles.
“Oh, mm, careful,” she sighed. He gave her all he had, inch by inch with great deliberation, seeing her eyebrows raise, her eyelids lower. He worked her then, his hips twisting and thrusting, teasing her, dipping shallow, feeling her sexy little thing trying to grip him, making him smile. Nails scratched lightly at his back, she gripped his arms. Little high girl noises were coaxed out of her, her head lay back now, careless, mouth agape. Her calves climbed his thighs, her knees rising, her feet stroking at him. “Oh, Geoff,” she chanted, “Oh, Geoff.”
He brought her to orgasm. She had a shy little way she climaxed. Very self-conscious and demure. A girl trying to hide a sneeze. Her face would scrunch, her button nose wrinkling. Her pale cheeks grew red and her chest spread with a rosy broadcast. The soles of her feet rode the crest of his buttocks. She creaked, dry and thin, then bashfully hid her face.
“Oh, mm, oh, Geoff,” she finally gasped, still hiding from him. Her hands covered her mouth for a moment, then she stroked his beard, looking at him timidly.
He said, “Stay at home with me today. This is all we’ll do,” still thrusting into her.
She made an excited face, remembered then what today was, and her open mouth closed and her eyes lowered. His own face sank, he felt it, knowing she wouldn’t and he couldn't. She kissed him instead, and he frowned, cleared his mind, pushed it all away. Concentrated on Jenny, how she felt. Thought only of her, his first time with her, awkward as it was, the first time he felt the inside of another woman in over a decade, the first time he saw her bare sweet pussy, how cute it was, how pink and cheery, thought how she gasped the first time he went down on her, how she acted like it was a rare thing, how she cried the first time he made her come, the night she told him after they made love how amazing he was and how she didn't think she was good enough in bed. He came then. Filled up the inside of his condom, his face painfully contorted as he focused on the positive, grunting and growling and thrusting hard, and his Jenny hugged him tightly with both arms around his waist.
He kissed her, sighed, knelt between her legs, let the sheets come away from her. Jenny’s hand covered her belly and a breast. She was so pretty, so cute, and her body was adorable. He wished she’d just let him see it—he told her, but she was still shy.
“Coffee?” he asked her, tugging off the condom.
“Yeah, I—”
He dipped between her legs and he kissed her furry little sex and
she hooted and clamped her legs around his ears. Her fingers ran through his hair and she laughed, “Don’t, Geoff, agh, don’t!”
He slapped the outside of her thigh and stood, walked naked across the studio and into the kitchen. The counter was strewn with wine glasses and empty Chinese takeout from last night. His sweet Jenny bringing home dinner after work. He’d been up drawing but stopped when she got home late with food. They’d eaten and drank and talked and slowly he was putting himself together and feeling like he was a living person.
The condom went in the trash, kettle flipped on, French Press filled with two scoops from a new roastery in the village. Jenny lay in bed, looking sexy for him, but trying to appear natural. Laying on her side, head propped up in hand, tousled hair spilling around her face and over her shoulder, she had a shoulder bared for him above the bunched bed sheets, and one naked leg bent out of the covers, toes pointed.
A smile was drawn again from her as he walked back to the bed, she cocked her head at a sexy angle and bit her lower lip. He plopped down next to her, sitting at her hip. His hands went up her back and she rolled onto her belly, moaned for him, encouraging him to rub her more.
“Are we going to go the cottage with Odie this weekend?” she said up to the headboard.
“Yeah, we could do that,” he said. Nia had Odie this week, but she was coming home to him on Friday after school. They had the book to work on. The weather was nice, the spring was a warm one. He spanked Jenny's bottom, said, “You have to get in the shower, Jenny.”
She dropped her head, making her shoulder blades thrust out, her head down in the pillows. She let out a doleful groan, looked at the clock. “Shoot,” she whispered. The bedsheets got wrapped around her and she held it tight to herself, got off the bed and crossed to the bathroom and closed herself in.