by Jo Watson
“Must have been hard growing up with a grieving mother?”
“I didn’t grow up with her,” I said sadly, sharing the most intimate part of my life. I never shared this with people. Mike was an exception. “I was looked after by relatives, mainly. A lot of them. But I never really felt welcome anywhere, you know? I was always an imposition—that’s how it felt, anyway.” A small tear escaped my eye and rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t help it.
“Hey, hey . . .” Mike reached out and touched my cheek. He caught the tear on his fingertips and wiped it away. It felt so incredibly intimate that another tear immediately ran down my cheek. “Are you okay?” he asked, wiping the other tear away.
I shook my head, unable to speak. Everything was sort of crashing around me. Thoughts and emotions slammed into me like stormy waves against the rocks. It had also suddenly dawned on me, in that moment, just how huge and important this story was that I was trying to tell. This wasn’t a story about two people who weren’t allowed to be together and love freely. This was a story about everyone who’s ever had that privilege taken away. A basic human right to love whomever you want to love—romantic, platonic or otherwise. Edith hadn’t been allowed to love the person she wanted to love. Petra hadn’t been able to love her son or her grandchildren in the way she should have, and then there was me. I hadn’t been able to love my father, and, as for my mother, well, she and circumstances had made it impossible to love her the way a daughter wants to love her mother.
“Don’t cry, Becca.” Mike leaned in closer to me and placed his hands on the sides of my face.
“Sorry, I . . . just feel emotional.” I pulled away quickly and wiped my face, embarrassed by this sudden show of emotion.
He smiled at me. Killer smile. Smile to end all smiles. Smile that held the power to melt Neptune, melt hearts, melt me . . .
“Becca, you are a strange one,” he said.
“Strange?” I enquired.
He shook his head and continued to smile. “Fence jumping, bestseller writing, nesting-bird scaring, library breaking, graveyard stomping, head banging, wife acting, chaos causing, cat stealing, fake naming, cat maiming, wasabi eating—”
“Hang on, hang on!” I held my hand up and cut him off. “You can’t label me with all those. There are some serious extenuating circumstances that led me to do all of those things,” I said, in my defense.
His smile grew even more. “With-everything arguing—”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I cut him off again. “What you just said is all very grammatically incorrect, thus meaningless.”
He laughed. It sounded amazing. Like my favorite song. The soundtrack I had been waiting to hear. He leaned closer to me and his sudden closeness was so palpable, so tangible, that all the muscles in my body contracted and suddenly I felt like I was sitting more upright than I had in a while. As if every part of my body was standing to attention, like those soldiers with the fluffy hats outside Buckingham Palace. And then his smile faltered, he hung his head and shook it.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“I’ve got a real problem on my hands, here.” He kept shaking his head.
“What problem?”
He looked up, reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, like he had that night in the bar.
A long, loud breath escaped my lips. Shit, I hadn’t meant for it to be that loud. “Wh . . . what problem?” I repeated, as his hand grazed the side of cheek, slowly, deliberately.
“It seems I’m really attracted to the criminal elements.” He came closer to me, his lips almost touching mine.
“You . . . you said, if I came back to town, you would arrest me. Are you going to? Arrest me?” I asked, his lips brushing against mine.
“You’ve put me in a very tricky position, here, Becca.” He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and I felt my whole body melting into the seat. “I should arrest you, but . . .” He trailed off.
“You can’t?” I asked.
He shook his head and his eyes moved down to my lips. “What is it about you, Becca?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Ever since you came to town, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” He placed his other hand on my cheek, cradling my face between his big hands. I closed my eyes and drifted away a little, allowing myself to indulge in the warm feeling of his hands on my skin, the coolness of his breath as it danced across my face like a soft, gentle breeze of breeziness. So airy and breezy and wispy and . . . did I say breeziness . . . ?
CHAPTER 46
I was climbing on to his lap.
The breeze was gone now, and it was a hurricane of heat, and every single part of my body was burning as he ran his hands over it.
And we were kissing . . .
Or we weren’t. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. Because everything we were doing felt so natural and automatic, like breathing or the beating of your heart. It’s something you cannot control, it just happens, even when you’re asleep. And I was asleep. Awake, but enjoying the best dream of my life. Lost in a kind of waking dream where everything felt more alive and intense than it had ever felt.
Hands and mouths and bodies did their own thing, as if we had no control over them. They were moving to some soundtrack that I couldn’t hear over the buzzing in my ears. I think I started unzipping his pants. I think he had his hands up my top, pulling at my bra, trying to get it off just as frantically as I was trying to get into his pants.
And then, as quickly as it had all started, it stopped. Our eyes connected and . . .
“No!” I looked at him and gasped.
“Shit!” he said, reading my mind.
“Condoms! Please tell me you have some this time?” I asked breathily.
“No, I don’t, because I didn’t think I would ever see you again. I wasn’t really planning on sleeping with anyone else so soon.”
I smiled at him. “I’m flattered.” I slumped forward and rested my head on his shoulder.
“What’s the time?” He pushed me a little and looked at the clock on the dashboard. “It’s four a.m.!” he said, shocked. “Reddy’s won’t be open now.”
“No.” I slumped even more.
“What about the condoms you bought the other night?” he asked, perking up.
“Oh, so now you want those,” I teased him. “I threw them in the dustbin.”
“Which dustbin?” he asked.
“The one in the parking lot . . . Wait! You’re not being serious?” I asked, appalled.
“Garbage collection happens on Monday, and wasn’t it a sealed box?” he asked.
“What?” I gasped even more now. “I might really, really want to do this, but I don’t think I am soooo desperate that I’m prepared to fish a box of condoms out of the garbage can, despite how good your hands feel on my, um . . . on my . . .” I exhaled sharply as his hands crept under my shirt again.
“On your?” he asked, teasing me with his thumb.
“Uh, my, uh . . .” His hands slipped under my bra and I winced as his hard, hot palms grazed against my nipples. I moaned loudly as he took them between his fingers and squeezed. I threw my head back, arching my body towards him. I started moving in his lap, grinding my hips in small circles. He was hard; I could feel it beneath me, so close, yet so far away. I gripped his shoulders as he brought his mouth down on one of my nipples and sucked, hard. His hands moved down and gripped my ass; he held me in place as he started a slow, steady thrust underneath me. The feeling was electric and every single one of my nerves was alive and awake and begging for more, more, mo—
“OKAY! Fuck it!” I climbed off him in one swift movement and jumped into the passenger seat, pulling my shirt back down. “Let’s go get them. But, if there is a hole in the box, or a rat, or a dirty diaper, or anything like that even close to them, then that’s it!” I laid down the law.
He turned the key in the ignition as quickly as possible and pulled off at speed. “Deal,” he said,
driving off in the direction of the parking lot.
“No, you can’t stick your arm in,” I said, looking down at the sealed box in the bin. To my surprise, it had landed perfectly on an old sheet of newspaper, totally separated from the crap below it, whatever that might be.
“It’s almost on the top, though, and it’s on paper.”
“Still, I’m not letting you touch me after your arm has been in the dustbin,” I said firmly.
At that, he laughed. “God, this is ridiculous, you know that.” He looked at me and I smiled.
“I know. I know.” I looked into the bin and my mind started racing for a solution. “If only we had a fishing rod with a hook on it, we could get the hook through the loop at the top and pull them out.”
“Uh . . . I kind of do have a fishing rod,” he responded, looking over at me.
“You do?”
“This is a coastal town. I fish.”
I looked around; the streets were completely empty and we were in the shadows. But surely we couldn’t get a fishing rod out of a car to fish a box of condoms out of the dustbin? Were we that desperate for sex? Mike was standing there with folded arms, muscles all bulging and busting, chest all broad and hard, eyes all dazzling green and lips all red from kissing, hair all ruffled from me running my hands through it and . . . and . . .
“Oh God.” I threw myself at him and kissed him again. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me closer, held my ass in place and moved me over him. I pulled away, trying to catch my breath and my senses. But both were gone. I stuck my hand into the dustbin and grabbed the box!
CHAPTER 47
Back in the car.
Decided couldn’t drive home.
Have to have each other, now!
Right now!
Right here!
In car! (Thanks, tinted windows!)
Parked in secretive make-out spot.
Hands again.
Lips, tongues, clothes coming off.
Box of condoms ripped open. (Hands quickly disinfected!)
Pulling at the wrapper with my teeth . . . Pulling at the wrapper with my teeth . . . Pulling at the wrapper with my teeeetthhh . . .
“Shit, I can’t open this thing.” I passed the condom to him and he tried to rip it with his teeth, too, unsuccessfully.
“It’s not opening!” He pulled it as hard as he could; the plastic inlay only stretched and nothing ripped off. “Bloody hell.” He reached into his cubby hole and . . .
“Whoa!” I held my hands up as he produced a pocket knife.
He shrugged and stabbed the condom packet. “I feel like MacGyver,” he said, laughing.
“Don’t put a hole in it; we wouldn’t want a real Jolene.” I smiled at him and, just then, as the condom was being taken out the packet, as it was being lowered and was just about to be slipped on . . . his phone rang!
“Don’t answer it, don’t answer it,” I whimpered.
He looked at his vibrating phone on the passenger seat. “I have to. Could be work.”
“The only criminal in town is in this car and she wants to have sex with you . . . She really, really . . .” I took the condom from him and slipped it between us, seeking him out. I found him and started rolling it down over him . . .
“Oh God,” he moaned, looking at me. He looked at the phone, then at me, then at the phone again (repeat a few times). “Shit! Hold that thought.” He put his hand over mine, stopping me mid-roll, and reached for the phone. He took a deep breath before answering it.
“Hello, it’s Mike—”
He hadn’t even finished speaking when I heard the voice on the other end. It sounded loud and angry. I tried to listen, but couldn’t hear the actual words, just the muffled screech of them.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded as he listened. “Okay. I see.” He looked at me and widened his eyes. “I agree. Sounds totally suspicious.” He listened some more. “Of course, I’ll take a look.” He nodded and gave me an apologetic look. “That definitely sounds like something that should be checked out.”
I climbed off his lap and shimmied over to the passenger seat again. This was starting to feel very familiar, our habit of almost-sex.
“Right. Okay. Well, don’t approach the car, then. Keep your distance,” he said into the phone. “Can you tell me where it is and I’ll go there as soon as I can?” He listened for a second and suddenly the atmosphere in the car changed. Mike ducked behind the dashboard and pulled me down with him.
“What’s happening?” I mouthed.
He quickly put his finger to his lips to silence me. He looked a little panicked and I could see he was trying to zip up his pants and put himself away. “I think the best thing for you to do is to drive away. No need to watch them anymore; I’ll be there and I’ll handle it. Go home; it’s late.” He peeped over the dashboard and then his head shot back down.
“What. Is. Going. On?” I mouthed, silently this time.
He put his hand over the receiver, pushed it into his chest and whispered across to me. “A resident just phoned in about some suspicious behavior. A white car parked secretively! Movement inside it!”
I tried to stifle a giggle.
“It’s not funny!” he mouthed. He raised the phone back to his ear and spoke into it again. “Give me five minutes and I’ll be—” The voice on the other end interrupted him again and this time the color drained from his face. “NO! No, I do not think it’s a good idea that you approach the car, AT ALL!”
My eyes widened as I watched him.
“Get back into your car; there could be people inside . . . uh . . . They could be, uh, criminals, you never know . . .” He was flapping now. Words tumbled out of his mouth frantically. He listened again. “WHAT? You’re already approaching the car?!” He looked at me in panic, and also as if he was asking me what to do. Why? Because he thought I was a criminal mastermind?
“Drive away!” I mouthed, and pointed frantically at the car keys hanging from the ignition.
Mike nodded at me and peeped over the dashboard. I did, too, and there he was—the little, inquisitive man, coming towards us with a torch. I reached out and turned the key in the ignition. The car sprung to life.
I heard the man shout down the phone, “Someone has started the car!” He yelled so loudly, I heard him both through the phone and from outside the car.
“Okay, now, listen to me,” Mike said in a calm voice. “Get back into your car. I’m on my way.” It seemed like the man agreed, because Mike’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Okay, great. I’ll be there soon,” he said, and then popped his head back over the dashboard. He looked across at me and mouthed the words, “Seat belt.”
I put it on quickly, as Mike pulled off, wheels skidding slightly.
“That’s great news,” he said into the phone. “I’m glad they’ve gone. Uh . . . you didn’t get their license plate, did you?” he asked, another hint of panic in his voice. “Oh, darn. Well, that’s too bad. Goodnight, Bruce,” he said, and finally hung up.
He looked over at me and shook his head as we drove off down the road.
CHAPTER 48
We’d arrived at the house and pulled into my side of the driveway. Mike turned the car off and we sat in silence again for a while.
“I’m not a superstitious man, and don’t believe in the power of crystals and vibrations and karma, but, if I was, I would say that someone out there is really trying to stop us from having sex,” he joked.
I laughed. “You know, I once bought a coffee table made of rose quartz because I read that it would bring peaceful vibes into my home.”
“Did it?” He turned in his seat and looked at me.
I smiled at him. “Do I look like the kind of person who’s imbued with spiritual peace?”
He laughed. “No.”
We smiled at each other, stupidly—the kind of smile you can’t help.
“You know what you are, Becca?”
“No.”
“A whirlwind of chaos. Everywhere you g
o, you bring chaos. And anyone who gets too close gets swept up in it.” He smiled, and I could tell he meant it in an endearing way, otherwise I might have been seriously offended, even if there was a great deal of truth in it.
We continued our smiles. The sexual mood was long gone, and I was starting to feel exhausted from my night of no sleep. I looked over at the clock on his dashboard—it was five a.m. already. “Do you think it’s safe for me to go to sleep yet?”
“I’m not a doctor, but I think this constitutes a night of no sleep.”
“I have exactly four hours to sleep, then,” I said.
“Why? What chaos do you have planned for nine o’clock?” he asked.
“Nothing. I just can’t sleep in later than nine. If I do, I always wake up feeling strange and groggy.”
“Well, I guess this is goodnight, then?” he asked, looking torn.
“I guess it is.”
“Thanks for helping me with Petra,” he added.
“Pleasure. I wish I could do more; she seems so sad.” I would never forget that look she had given me as she climbed into her small, single bed.
“I’m not sure much will help, other than seeing her son,” he mumbled. “And her grandchildren.”
I looked out the car window towards the house. “It really is a beautiful home.”
“We’re really lucky to have it. It’s steeped in so much history and so many memories, both good and bad.”
At that, my stomach contorted into a knot. A cloud of guilt, peppered with a good deal of shame, descended. If he knew what I was doing . . . what story I was really researching . . . what would he do? I suddenly felt like I needed to be away from him, before I burst into tears and blurted it all out.
“I better go.” I reached for the door handle and, before he could say anything, I’d climbed out of the car.
“Sure.” I could hear the surprise in his voice. “Thanks again,” he called after me, as I speed-walked towards the house and didn’t look back.
CHAPTER 49