Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning

by Susan Fanetti

  Nonetheless, he’d been at war, in danger. He’d needed her, and, twisted in her own sense of hurt and outrage, and of grief, she’d left him to survive it alone, for the most part. She loved him, but she’d left him alone, all those months when she’d been unable to muster words to write. Stewing in resentments love should have quashed.

  As he leaned down now to kiss her, Mo cupped her hands around his face—it had changed in this year, was somehow both older and younger than when he’d left her—and held him off. In her hands, his head tilted curiously.

  “You okay, Irish?”

  “Aye. I’m sorry, Brian. I should’ve …” She searched for a way to say it.

  “No, sweetheart. Not tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll go somewhere to sit and talk everything out. But let’s not have any of that in here with us right now. Right now, I have your sexy body in my hands, and I want to love every damn inch of you.” He punctuated his declaration by pushing through her hold and burying his face against her neck.

  The touch of his mouth, his breath, fed a fire that had simmered all this long time apart, and Mo whimpered and arched up as bright need flamed through her. She felt his erection against her hip and tried to shift so he was between her legs, but he resisted the move and bit down on her shoulder with a hungry groan.

  His hand pushed beneath her, grabbed hold of one globe of her arse, clutched her close. He was all around her, clamping her body to his, grunting every breath as his teeth and tongue assailed her. Mo wanted to hold him, too, to imprint the feel of him on her hands and the taste of him on her tongue, but he had too much control. Her arms were trapped above his shoulders, and his head was at her chest. All she could do was coil her arms around his head as he laved a path over her collarbone and down the center of her chest.

  “My God, Irish. My God, I missed you.” He spoke without pulling away, drawing each word over her skin with his tongue and lips and breath.

  He was home.

  He was home.

  “Please never go away again,” she whispered.

  “Never. It would kill me to be without you.” He’d made his way to her breast, and paused there. “Ah, sweetheart. How I dreamed of you.”

  He put his mouth over her nipple and sucked—just lightly, as if he were learning her taste again. The feel of that sweet, gentle touch reached deep and drew up more need than Mo had allowed herself to feel in a year—not only the need that was desire, but also love and hope. The blast of it through her body and soul raised her from the bed with a cry.

  Brian followed, pulling her up, going to his knees, cleaving her to him as he sucked harder, and harder still. With each pull of his mouth, he groaned as if the act sated him, too.

  Nearly fused to him but not yet close enough, when Brian moved to lavish the same fiery devotion on her other breast, Mo shifted to straddle his lap. His erection was right there, her folds lay over his shaft, so close to what she needed, and she flexed her hips. Brian stilled, released her nipple, and rested on her breast, panting.

  Just when she thought he’d fill her, as she was trying to decide whether she had the willpower to stop and get a condom, he leaned forward and set her on the bed again. “You’re drivin’ me crazy, but I’m not there yet. I don’t want to go again yet. I want to taste you when you do.”

  His head dipped low, and he moved down to her belly, kissing every inch of the place that had only barely begun to swell before their baby died. Within the bittersweet roil of sudden emotion and surmounting need that buffeted her, she wondered if he was thinking of that loss, too.

  Then he slipped his arms under her thighs and went lower, brushing his nose through her wedge of hair, and Mo let the thought go. She sighed and shivered at his soft, reverent touch.

  “Missed you so much,” Brian murmured and put his mouth on her.

  At the first touch of his tongue, the perfectly intimate, brilliant sensation flamed through her, caught all the nerves in her body, pulled them all together and dragged them to that single point. Every single nerve sang out at once, and Mo could not be still or quiet. She forgot that her family was in the house, just beyond this small, miraculous moment.

  Brian stayed on her as she twisted and writhed, moving with her, tasting her fully and bringing her to quivering helplessness. She felt her arms flailing, her hands crashing against the tufted headboard, knocking pillows away, tangling in her hair. She heard her gasps and cries, her desperate pleas for more, for less, for everything. Brian clenched his arms like a vise around her hips, dug strong fingers into the meat of her thighs, and fed.

  When Mo came, it went through her with such tremendous force that she twisted them both, rolling Brian along with her as she went to her side and tried to curl into a ball, to protect herself from the violent onslaught. A dam was breaking inside her, sweeping up everything she’d held back all these months, these lonely, angry months.

  Why hadn’t she written? Because each letter she’d sent had been a chip at this dam, a crack forming. Each attempt to reach him across an unspannable sea had weakened her. To live without him, the dam had to hold. After the baby, she’d needed everything she had left to keep the dam up.

  And now, racked with an orgasm so intense it was more pain than pleasure, the dam simply burst.

  But he was home now. She could let go.

  “Hey, hey. Irish, hey. It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here.” His head was near hers again. He was folding her into his arms, covering her with his body, tucking her against his heart.

  She was sobbing. Without realizing it, still quivering with the release he’d brought her, she’d collapsed into great, wailing sobs, and now she couldn’t stop. An ocean of repressed pain and longing crashed through her. She cried for her loneliness, for their baby, for her anger, and her guilt. She cried for Brian’s pain, and need, and the hollows war had carved in him.

  She cried because he was home. She cried because he’d been gone. She cried for love.

  He held her and never asked her to stop. He held her until the crashing waves settled and made a new landscape in her heart.

  He was home.

  ~oOo~

  “Mmmm. You smell like gravy.” Brian nosed Mo’s hair out of his way and nuzzled her neck.

  Her hand went still, and she closed her eyes, savoring the touch. In the days he’d been home, he could hardly stand to be more than five feet from her. Which was fine and dandy with her. If she had her way, they’d never yet have got out of bed.

  He was even helping with Thanksgiving dinner while Uncle Dave, Lenny, Robby, and Paul watched a football game in the living room.

  Well, he was ‘helping.’ Mainly by distracting Mo from her work with caresses and kisses.

  “Ach, you two!” Aunt Bridie complained. “Brian, the gravy’ll be lumpy if you don’t get your paws off her.”

  He stepped back with a chuckle, and Mo got back to making the roux for the gravy. “Sorry, Bridie. What can I do?”

  “You can go with the men and let the women work, is what. You’re in the way, lad.”

  Faye piped up, “Actually, we need the leaf in the table. Is it still in the garage?”

  While Brian had been away, his family had joined her own. More than their marriage had connected them all; they’d bonded tightly in their shared worry and melancholy. Brian had been an empty place in all their lives, and they’d filled it with each other. So Faye had some familiarity with the workings of this house, and the Quinns knew the Kemper house, too.

  Mo thought Faye Kemper was the first true friend Aunt Bridie had ever had in Oklahoma.

  “It is,” her aunt agreed. “There. Something for you to do. Go be useful—the leaf and the topper, too. You can put it all together as well—and be a wee love and get the big crystal bowl down from the top shelf in the china hutch, please, while you’re in there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Before he left the kitchen, Brian turned Mo around and kissed her good and proper.

  Faye laughed. “Oh come on, Bridie. That’s worth a f
ew lumps in the gravy, don’t you think?”

  “I think so,” Brian answered and sauntered toward the garage.

  ~oOo~

  Uncle Dave and Aunt Bridie had always enjoyed decorating for the holidays. Both the shop and the house got decked out for Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas at least. Brightly colored paper cutouts, tablecloths and kitchen linens, crepe paper and streamers—whatever was appropriate to the holiday in question.

  For Thanksgiving, Aunt Bridie had a lovely set of table linens she’d embroidered herself, scattered with leaves in fall colors. A centerpiece of squashes and vines complemented the linens. And of course there was her Belleek wedding china.

  In and on those dishes was a typically American Thanksgiving feast: roast turkey, with (somewhat lumpy) gravy and cornbread dressing; mashed potatoes; green bean and mushroom casserole; and cranberry sauce from a can. In addition to dinner rolls, there was soda bread, but that was the only nod to the homeland on the table. That and the Jameson Uncle Dave broke out for special occasions.

  Thanksgiving was an American holiday, and the Quinns were Americans—in fact and, more and more, in spirit.

  Even so, Mo was surprised when Uncle Dave cleared his throat at the head of the table, where a gleaming bronze turkey sat waiting like a prop in a Norman Rockwell painting, and said, “Why don’t we go ‘round the table and say a wee word about what we’re thankful for this year.”

  They’d never done that before. Always before, they’d simply said their usual Catholic grace.

  But this year, the Kempers were with them. And Brian. And Maggie’s man, too. They were twice the family they’d been since they’d come to the States.

  Mo looked around the table. Uncle Dave at the head. Aunt Bridie at his right, still wearing her apron. Maggie, and her fiancé, Roger. Faye, and at the far end of the table, Lenny. Kristy in a high chair wedged between her parents. Little Jamie, sitting on phone books around the corner from his dad. Then Paul, Brian and Mo, and Robby.

  Her family had grown so much. How had she not noticed?

  “I think that’s a great idea, Dave,” Brian said. “You mind if I start?”

  Mo swiveled her head in surprise. Brian was more likely to roll his eyes at such a public display as this. But he smiled and leaned in to put a kiss on her cheek.

  “I think that would be grand,” Uncle Dave said.

  Brian considered his empty plate for a moment. “I’m thankful for all of you,” he said before he lifted his head. Then he looked around the table, meeting the gaze of each person. “I’m thankful to be home, and that this is home. I’m thankful for your understanding—or your patience, if you couldn’t understand. I’m thankful to have you all, and to be part of this family. For Faye and Lenny, who took me in and finished me up when Dad died. For the Quinns, who accepted me when I fell for their girl, and didn’t kill me when I broke her heart. I’m thankful for the kids, because being an uncle shows me how great being a dad is gonna be someday.”

  A little wince went through Mo, but Brian sensed it and set a soothing hand on her knee. He turned and met her eyes straight on. “And most of all, every day since the day I laid eyes on her, every day that I was away, every day for the rest of my life, I am thankful for Mo. I didn’t think I could love like this, and now I can’t imagine ever not. I am a lucky SOB, to have this woman as my wife. Thank you for waiting for me, sweetheart. I’m gonna work the rest of my life to make you glad you did.”

  When he leaned close, Mo threw her arms around him and kissed him. Right there at the table, full tongue, pulling him to her until his arms had coiled around her.

  “Aye, that’s worth some lumps in the gravy,” Aunt Bridie said quietly.

  ~oOo~

  “Why don’t we wait until the spring? Things will look nicer in the spring.” Other things would hopefully have improved as well, but she didn’t add that part. Brian was sensitive already that he hadn’t found work after almost a month home.

  “I don’t want to wait,” Brian said, pushing an ancient refrigerator back against the wall. “We can’t sleep on your twin bed much longer, Irish. You get more exercise at night asleep than I do all day. And we’re loud. Dave and Bridie are getting grey from the stress of trying not to complain about the noise we make in bed. I want us in our own place. Just—fuck, everything we’ve seen is a dump.”

  Mo nodded as she dragged a finger over a dusty windowsill. They’d been looking for an apartment or house to rent for a few days now, but it was the middle of December. Everything was bleak and grey. Not appealing at all.

  One part of their struggle was that, setting aside the less-than-ideal sleeping arrangements, neither of them was especially eager to leave home. Brian was almost thirty-one and, aside from his Kerouac year, had lived on his own only in the Army, which didn’t count at all because it wasn’t alone at all. Mo was twenty-two and never had lived with even that much independence.

  They loved their family, and they weren’t hemmed in. Moving away was much harder than Mo would have expected it to be.

  But they were married. Brian was home, and they were a year married. Not even newlyweds any longer, though only just now starting their life together. So they were looking—and judging everything by what they already had.

  What they didn’t have was a lot of money. Brian had savings, a substantial amount from the sale of his parents’ farm, and from working all of his adult life without incurring many expenses. But they wanted to save his savings for when they were ready to buy a house. With Brian not yet working, buying a house was not in their immediate plans.

  Renting a place shouldn’t be, either, while he was unemployed. It was definitely narrowing their options. But his military service had convinced a few landlords to take a chance on a young couple where only the wife was earning at all.

  Mo’s wage from working at the store was enough that she had a very small nest egg, too. But she was about to start the last semester of her degree, and she wouldn’t be working much—she’d be student teaching all semester, working for free, only at the shop on weekends. They hadn’t advertised that on their applications.

  The landlord here was an old retired Marine. Brian had chatted him up with war stories and distracted him from the glaring blank space on the ‘employer’ line of the application. It was clear he’d be glad to rent to them.

  It wasn’t a terrible house.

  “You know,” she said now, looking out at the back yard of this tiny shotgun-style bungalow—living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, all in a row. “The yard is pretty, and you like that garage. It’s less than a mile from Uncle Dave and Aunt Bridie’s. The neighborhood is fine, it’s just that this house has been neglected. With a scrub brush, a can or two of paint, and a sewing machine, we could brighten this one up. That’s a cherry tree back there. In the spring, it’ll be beautiful, and we can have fresh cherry pie from our own tree.

  Brian came to stand behind her. “Are you sure?”

  She leaned back into his embrace. There was no room here for a baby’s room, but she wondered when she’d be ready again to try. That day didn’t feel close.

  “I’m sure. I think we can make it work.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell the guy to come in with the paperwork.”

  ~oOo~

  Two days before Christmas, Brian pulled his truck into the narrow drive of their newly rented home. There was a wreath on the front door.

  “Oh, that’s lovely,” Mo said. “Mr. Burley hung a wee wreath for us.”

  Brian only smiled and got out of the truck. He came around the bed—which was full of their belongings, all of which fit in one truckload, with room to spare. For furniture, they had a new mattress and box spring, which they were picking up tomorrow, and that was about it for now. They’d spent a lot of time in the ValuMart furniture section, picking out things they liked and deciding what they might put on layaway, and after Christmas, they were going to go through Aunt Bridie and Uncle Da
ve’s basement for some hand-me-downs, but truly furnishing even these three little rooms would take some time on their budget. Until Brian found work.

  He’d thought he’d go back to the oilfield, but there wasn’t any opening, for a mechanic or anything else he could do. Not even Lenny could find a way to get him back on. The economy was in bad shape. Uncle Dave offered to give him some shifts, but that was, in Brian’s mind, obvious charity, and he couldn’t accept it.

  For the moment, they’d live, carefully, on his savings, and her small earnings. And sit on the floor until they could afford a sofa.

  He took her hand and began to lead her up the walk. She pulled back. “Wait. We should bring some boxes.”

  “Later,” he said and drew her forward. “Let’s go in first and look around.”

  “We were just here a couple days ago.”

  “Maureen …”

  She sighed. “Fine. But there’s nothing to bloody sit on in there. We could at least bring the folding chairs in.”

  Grinning, he dragged her up the short steps of the stoop and unlocked the front door.

  The wreath was real, and fresh. Mo sucked in the festive, warmhearted scent of balsam boughs as she stepped into her empty new home.

  Which was full of furniture. “What?”

  There was even a Christmas tree in the corner, decorated with colorful, shiny glass balls, softly glowing colored lights, and silver tinsel. A lighted star twinkled atop it.

  “Oh, Brian. Oh, lord.”

  “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Delaney.” He hooked his arm around her shoulders, and Mo turned into him and held on with all her might.

  “You did all this? When?”

  “Yesterday and this morning, when you were at work. And I had a lot of help. Faye and Lenny gave us the sofa bed I was using, and those end tables—I know they look like shit, they were in the shed, but I thought we could paint them or something. The TV and stand, I bought used at the RCA dealer. It’s little, but it’s color. The other rooms are partly done, too. There’s no frame for the bed yet, but I picked the mattress and box spring up today, and it’s ready to sleep on. Faye bought us new sheets and towels—wedding presents, she said. She also gave us some of her kitchen stuff, towels and tablecloths and shit, so that card table from your house will look better. With the dresser and stuff from your room, we can make the bedroom pretty nice, and I’ve got the little chest I was using at Faye’s. Come on, let me show you.”