by Lois Greiman
I held my breath.
“Whoa, there, whoa, sweetheart,” he crooned, and suddenly they were inside the room with me. I closed my eyes and apologized to all the deities I had offended earlier. None of them struck the couple dead on the spot. Then again, nobody fried me to crispy-critter consistency either. I considered it a win.
Until I heard the unmistakable zip of an opening fly.
Chapter 14
If you think God ain’t got no sense of humor, get naked and take a good long look in the mirror.
—Momma Hughes, aka Big Bess
He groaned. She giggled. Mother-of-pearl snaps sprung open like the lid on a jack-in-the-box. The pair stumbled across the room, well into my line of sight. She was bent backward. He was bowed forward. Her hair was long and blond, her boobs thrust upward.
It took him only a second to set them free. I was about to be tremendously intimidated by the sheer magnetism of her bosom, but just at that moment something hit me in the face. I was sure it was a bullet, but in retrospect, I think it might have been one of her buttons. Regardless, I gasped.
“What was that?” she huffed.
“What?” He jerked upright, entirely abandoning his mission.
Weird. In my experience, nothing short of a nuclear blast can jostle men from their boob quest once they’re on course, but he had frozen like roadkill, attention riveted on the door.
“I thought I heard a noise.” Her voice was sex wrapped in velvet, but he pushed her unceremoniously out of the way, opened the door a crack, and peeked out.
“Not there.” His sigh made his shoulders sag.
“Who? Who’s not there?” Vengeful jealousy was already firing up in Blondie’s voice.
“Momma.” He moved closer to her. They were hidden from me now, but I heard the rustle of clothes, the sigh of their bodies as they met. “You didn’t think there was someone else, did you, sweet cakes?”
She moaned. “Tell me there ain’t, Rom.”
“There ain’t.”
“You promise?”
“Course I do.”
“Cross your heart and hope your thingie’ll fall off?”
Her phraseology was sophomoric and disgusting. Classy Christina reminded herself of that while Crazy Chrissy simultaneously stored away the memory for any solemn vows that might be called for in the future…if she had a future.
“Shit, you’re a dirty little— Ah,” he said. Apparently, she had found the organ most susceptible to fall-offage.
“So you ain’t worried about your brother?” Her contralto had softened a little.
“That scrawny little runt? Why would I be?”
“I meant, won’t it hurt his feelin’s if he finds out we been…ya know…doin’ it in the hay loft…and the corn crib…and the trunk of his car?”
The trunk of his…
“After all, I’m sorta supposed to be his girl.”
“Ya, but he ain’t got…” There was an expectant pause. “This!”
“Ohh!” she gasped. “Rom, that’s the cutest little thing ever was.”
“Little!”
“I meant the barbell. Did ya get it pierced just for me?”
“Well…ya said ya wouldn’t do it no more if I didn’t find a way to prove my true feelin’s.”
“Well…” She purred the word like a stretching feline. “I’ll do it now for—”
“Careful!” he croaked, then got ahold of himself. “It’s still a mite sore.”
“But you can still—”
“Ya bet your world class tits I can!” he growled.
Half a second later, a shirt landed three inches from my feet. Jeans followed. Apparently, the underclothes were better for distance shots. I picked his boxers off my left shoulder with gritted teeth and balled them in one hand.
Then they were going at it like spinner dolphins. At least, that was my assumption. I couldn’t see them, but from their mating-walrus noises, I was pretty confident of my deductions.
Not that I wanted to see. I’m far too classy to wish to witness something so disgusting. On the other hand, I hadn’t seen anything really disgusting for a long time. And couldn’t, no matter how I craned my neck, see more than a right foot and a left elbow. The pairing seemed odd, but I haven’t been disgusting for a long time either, so maybe I had forgotten how to do it properly.
What I lacked in visuals, however, I more than gained in audio.
Their performance seemed to go on forever. The panting, the groaning, a slapping sound similar to an oar in rough water.
“Harder! Harder!” she insisted, and despite all probability, he managed to do just that.
After that, there was some wildcat screeching, a lot of growling, and the inevitable collapse. I dropped my head against the wall behind me and tried to be as silent as the furniture, but there was no point; if a 747 had careened through one window and out the other, I’m pretty sure its flight would have gone unnoticed by the sexletes.
But in a matter of moments, she spoke. “Wanna do it again?”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. I’ve never been more surprised…until he spoke.
“Why not?”
“So, you can get it up?”
“Course I…What was that?” he rasped.
“What?”
“I thought I heard somethin’.”
I strained to hear. Perhaps a distant rumble reached my ears.
“Was it a truck?” Her voice had risen to Minnie Mouse range. “A diesel? With twin cylinders and a hemi?” She sat up, scooting into my line of view, eyes as wide as chicken eggs. “Where was it? On the road? In the yard? Coming through the trees?”
“Through the trees?” He chuckled. “Don’t be silly, love bucket. The woods is too thick. There couldn’t be no—”
“If he can drive through a window, he can drive through the trees.” She was on her feet now, scrambling around like a monkey. A naked monkey. Damn! Some of those monkeys have really impressive boobs.
A rumble came from below.
She squeaked a noise only heard by Chihuahuas and women hiding behind desks. “Oh Christ! It’s my husband!”
“You’re married?”
She was married? And dating Thing One?
“Sorta.” She grappled for her clothes while I held my breath, hoping she’d find the bra I’d tossed out before she found me.
“Huh,” he grunted. “I suppose he’d get kinda riled if he knew?” He plucked her shirt off the floor and handed it to her.
She pulled it over her head, apparently forgoing her bra for more important, or at least more visible, garments.
“Kinda riled? Kinda riled! Where’s my shoe? Where’s…There!” She grabbed it from somewhere above her head. “Underwear. Under—”
He handed them to her. She shoved them into a pocket of the shorts she was still yanking up, then hopped into the one shoe that had been removed. “That was…” She was panting.
“Spectaculent?”
“Yeah,” she said, but she was already searching the room, head spinning like Linda Blair sans exorcist.
“I’m pretty good, huh?”
“Yeah, yeah. Hung like a donkey. How do I get out of here?”
He glanced around, calm as Sunday. “Window?”
“How high— Never mind.” She yanked it open. In a second, she was gone. There was a little umf of pain as she hit the ground, then a clambering sound, a few pitiful whimpers, and silence.
I remained where I was, wishing rather fervently that I had taken the same route some time before.
As for the Spectaculent Thing One, he sighed in satisfaction, then plopped down on the couch. I held my breath, sure I couldn’t be so unlucky as to have him think now would be a good time to unwind in the barn/office/sex shack. But I was wrong. He groped around for a moment, then raised his arm.
A noise blurted beside me. I almost erupted from my hiding place like Vesuvius on a bender. But the noise belonged to nothing deadlier than a television. I calmed myself wi
th Herculean effort, and a second later, the Thing was totally reclined.
I closed my eyes in misery, determined to wait it out. In my disappointingly limited experience, men are generally catatonic seconds after coitus, and though those seconds seemed to stretch into millennia, in reality less than two minutes had probably passed before he was snoring like a hippo in need of a tonsillectomy. I held my breath, listening, and waited for another eternal five minutes.
He didn’t stir. Exhaling quietly, I jacked up my nerve, dropped to my hands and knees, and crept forward half an inch. That’s when my camos betrayed me. They brushed noisily against the couch.
The giant snuffled to wakefulness. I jerked back into my corner. He sat up groggily, then, rising to his feet, he stretched, scratched, and scanned the room. It was then that I realized I had failed to eject his underwear a satisfactory distance from my hiding spot. They were lying at the corner of the couch, and if retrieved, would put his face just about level with mine.
He turned one circle, saw his boxers, and reached for them. I held my breath, hoping against hope…but our eyes met. The world stood still. My heart slammed against my ribs. My brain, still stunned by the up-close sex-a-thon, was whirling like a pinwheel, trying to come up with an explanation or an excuse or a…
He straightened, tugged his pants on commando style, retrieved his shirt from a nearby lamp, and sauntered from the room.
I will never know how he missed me. My only explanation was that, in my terror, my senses were heightened, while his, in post-coital stupor, were dulled. Whatever the reason, gratitude washed over me. The deities had forgiven me. Still, I waited several minutes, remaining in the corner until the world went completely silent. Then, quiet as a carrot seed, I crept from hiding. It was a relief to straighten my back, better yet to—
Light flooded the room. I spun around just as the giant stepped inside. His brows winged upward, his eyes widened, and then he grinned, slow and Machiavellian, as he shut the door behind him.
Chapter 15
Some people have an unfair advantage in the game of playing dumb.
—Father Pat, perpetually impressed by Chrissy’s innate abilities
Thing One stood absolutely still, table-sized chest naked, feet bare, and expression going from WTF to IWSN.
“Well, fiddle dee dee, if it ain’t Miss O’Tara.” His voice was smooth as custard.
I stood my ground, though my knees felt kind of wiggly.
“So you finally come for a little taste o’ heaven?” he said, stepping toward me.
I raised my chin, searching for courage. “I don’t believe heaven is something one can taste.”
He chuckled, still advancing.
“Wait!” I held up a hand, then motioned spastically toward nowhere. “I think I heard something. An…an angry husband, maybe.”
He remained silent for a second, then grinned. “So ya saw the whole thing, huh?”
“What?” I blinked, looking innocent, or possibly myopic.
He snorted softly. “Was you hiding in here the whole time?”
“What whole time?” I asked, but my voice squeaked like a rubber ducky in distress.
“Where was you? Beside the desk?”
I neither confirmed nor denied. Possibly because my heart had crowded up against my larynx.
“Bet you got yourself an eyeful, huh?”
“I thought I heard someone,” I repeated hopefully, but didn’t quit backing away.
“Sometimes, when Pork Chop dreams, it sounds like a three-quarter-ton diesel.”
“I do not,” I said.
“What?”
“What?” I repeated, realizing, belatedly, that he probably wasn’t privy to my high school nickname.
“I was talkin’ about our boar. Pork Chop,” he said. “What was you talkin’ ’bout?”
I shook my head, but my nimble little brain was already patching together seemingly unrelated facts. “Why did you want to get rid of her?”
“You got any idea what Momma does if she finds folks creepin’ round her property without permission?”
I ignored that. “Why?” Maybe it was the therapist in me that made me need to understand his reasoning, or maybe I’m just nosy. Or maybe they’re the same thing.
“I guess she’s kinda private and don’t like—”
“Why didn’t you want her to stay?” I asked. “You seemed to be…enjoying—”
“I tell you what, honey cakes, I won’t tell Momma what ya been up to if—”
“What about Remus?” Meeting his eyes wasn’t easy, but I had learned long ago to either take the bull by the horns or be skewered by the same.
“What about ’im?”
“I don’t suppose he’s going to be too thrilled to learn about your nocturnal exploits.”
“Huh?”
“He’s gonna be mad when I tell him you were doing the hump and bump with his girl.”
“Well, sweet tits…” His voice was steady, but a light flashed in his eyes. “I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.”
What? Since when? And why was he so sanguine about the situation? If I wasn’t mistaken, men could get kind of peeved about this sort of…
My mind spun to a halt.
He wanted Remus to learn the truth. What was the fun of screwing your brother if said brother didn’t even know about the screwage?
“Guess I’ll just tell your momma instead,” I said, and turned away, but he grabbed my arm.
“What do ya want?” he rasped, voice desperate, brow already damp.
I stored away my evil grin, sure I’d want it later. “A computer.”
“What?” He sounded honestly surprised.
“A computer,” I repeated. “You must have heard of them.”
“Of course I heard of ’em,” he hissed. “They’re implements of the devil.”
I raised a brow.
“They cause folks to wander from the path of righteousness.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“There’s all sorts of stuff on them things. Even…” He glanced right and left, then leaned close to whisper, “Pornography.”
“Porn…” I stared at him from a WTF angle. “You’re worried about a little porn when you were just…” I motioned wildly toward the spot where they had gone at it like rutting Labradors. “With your brother’s…” I was bumbling badly. “Who happens to be a married woman?”
“Well, she got me all revved up. You can’t stop no man then.”
“What?”
“Ya stop ’im and his dingle’ll fall off.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“It’s a proven fact.”
“That you’re certifiable?”
“That a fella’s gotta follow through once he’s riled. And just looking at you in them camo pants…” He shook his head, eyes alight.
“Swear to God, if you touch me—”
“Get out!”
“What?”
“Out the window!” he rasped
“I’m not—”
“Momma’s comin’.”
Fear swooshed through me like a shot of tequila. “How do you know?”
“Cuz I can’t hear nothin’.”
“That doesn’t even—” I began, but he grabbed me and shoved me out the window like so much fermenting garbage.
I hit the ground a second before I heard the door creak open in the little office.
“What ya doin’ in here, boy?”
“I was just about to watch some TV, Momma.”
“TV ain’t no good for you. It’ll make you go blind,” she said, then paused as if skimming his half-naked body. “Just like other things’ll do.”
“I thought I’d see if Jimmy Bakker is back on CBN yet.”
“You’re a good boy, Rom.”
“I try to be, Momma.”
I heard the door squeak as she turned away, but after a moment she spoke again. “You happen ta know where your brother’s run off to?”
�
�I ain’t seen him since supper.”
“He wasn’t in his bedroom.” Another pause. “He better not be with that skanky blonde.”
“What skanky blonde is that, Momma?” If his voice were any more innocent, he’d be putting his hair in pigtails to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot.”
There was a whisper of noise, as if she’d turned away, but she spoke again.
“You don’t suppose he’s with that city gal I hired, do you?”
“Miss O’Tara?”
“You think he’s lyin’ with her?”
“Golly, I hope not. Fornicatin’s wrong.”
Silence ticked away. “You ain’t interested in her, are ya, boy?”
“Me? Course not, Momma.”
“Good, cuz if she ain’t in her room, I’m gonna kill her.”
Chapter 16
Today’s mood: annoyed, with a fair chance of I’m-gonna-bitch-slap-you-into-Sunday.
—Chrissy, on multiple occasions
I scrambled through the bushes like a wild ape. But there was no way I was going to make it through the front door and up the stairs without being seen. My teenage years had taught me my limitations. True, I had been fifty pounds heavier, but even then I had been something of an expert at gauging how best to escape authoritarian figures, and it was clear from the get-go that the only way I could perform this particular feat involved the sycamore beside my bedroom window.
The lowest branch was seven feet off the ground, and I’m no tree squirrel, but necessity is the mother of dumb-ass attempts. I jumped at it, missed, tried again, and wrestled myself aboard. From there it was just a matter of shimmying up the slanted trunk, leaping sideways, and dragging myself through the window. I flopped to the floor like a hooked mackerel, stumbled drunkenly to my feet, then hauled the window closed before leaping for the bed. I had snagged the covers up to my chin a second before the lights sprang on.
Shielding my eyes with my right hand, I blinked as if stunned. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
“Mrs. Hughes?” My tone was wonderfully breathy. “What’re ya doing here?”
She glared at me, then shifted her gaze toward the window. “I was just worryin’ ’bout ya.” Striding into the room, she bent double and glanced under the bed. “Ya doin’ all right?”