| Stay |
| by Chandrah |
| Chapter 3 |
| Part I |
| So tired. So damn tired and not caring that I am. And happy. So damn happy that I could feel guilty about it if I didn’t already feel guilty about all the things I’ve done tonight. Don’t feel all that guilty about that, either, if I have to be honest with myself, which I usually am. Don’t bullshit myself too much. I open my eyes just enough to peek through slits and see her, Betts, asleep on me. Betts. Betsy. I nudge her and she turns away, and then moves back up against me to spoon, to fit. Her fingers knot with mine, holding my hand to her breast.
“You make me delirious, woman,” I whisper against the back of her neck, into the mess her hair’s become. Delirious. That’s about the least of it. Couldn’t tell you how we got up here, in this bed. It was fine by the fire. Seemed right, there, the first time. We’d been livin’ there every night, so I’ve been thinkin’ that place was the only place for us; it’s been ‘ours’. Spent a goodly amount of time today straightening up there, too, putting all that paper away so that she wouldn’t think that work was on the table to be done. No. Didn’t want her to get the idea that we were here tonight for anything but each other. For the pleasure of her company. For the pleasure. The pleasure. It’s all been a pleasure, in a way. From ‘hello’ up to her callin’ out my name when she comes. From the first handshake, so firm, so sure, to her shaking hand as she touched me tonight. Touched me. A streak of lightening blazes above us. I count to myself, one, two, three, four and the sound of thunder roars outside, meeting the sound of the rain that hasn’t stopped since it started. Tomorrow this place, it’s gonna be one wet mess. Maybe the rain won’t stop at all. Excuse for her to stay. Stay here. Don’t go out there and get wet. Stay. Stay. I close my eyes tight, squeeze her close. Let this last. Not just the feeling; this. This closeness. This, this ‘whole-ness’. I thought I already had this, with someone else, in another place. That will never be the same: Miranda and me. Never. My fault; I went into this knowin’, fully, that nothing would ever be the same again. And when, good god, when this, here, now, isn’t anymore, when I have to go back to my world and Betts has to go back to hers, and I’m not sure how I can do that now, when that happens, I don’t know how I can go home to Oregon and survive. I don’t. I push the thought away, all the thoughts other than thoughts of what’s happened here, and the sweetness of it all. Another flash of lightening, closer this time, I can just tell, and the thunder is so loud it rocks the house, rocks the bed. “Easy,” I tell Betts as the noise startles her awake. I feel her heart jump under my hand. “Christ almighty, what was that?” “Just some thunder.” “This place is a hellhole, David,” she tells me, just the way she’s told me that every time somethin’s happened that she’s not used to. A frog jumpin’ into her lap, bird shit on her shoulder, a fish nippin’ at her foot in the pond, thunder, rain, heat, mist, mosquitoes. Hellhole. It makes me laugh. If this ain’t heaven, what is? Such different ideas, she and I are so different, and so alike, and so tight together. I don’t think she would interest me half as much if I didn’t disagree with her about things. Spar a little. Spark a little. Then find some middle ground for a while. Laugh. She loves to laugh, and I know how to make her laugh, too. Be silly. She really digs silliness. Skin on skin, she turns in my arms and gets nose to nose with me. “Hell. Hole,” she says again with a small sleepy smile. “And you’re the devil himself.” “Don’t start sweet talkin’ me now, girl.” “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, and with another smile, this one a bit coy, she touches the side of my face with her hand and kisses me. “It would only spoil you,” she breathes. Another kiss and the desire between us begins to build again. “You, you’re t…t…too precious to sp…sp…spoil…” Sweet little stutters from sweet lips. The words that come so easy for me are hard for her to say. I can say anything. She only thinks her thoughts, and then writes them down for others to see, but I want, no, I need to hear them. Need them. Tell me what’s on your mind, Betts. I roll to my back, pulling her over me, better than any blanket, softer than any sheet. Lightening again and the crack of thunder. She trembles before steeling herself to the unwelcome sound. “Don’t be afraid,” I say, and I’m not so sure I’m talkin’ ‘bout the weather. “I’m not,” she counters, and I’m not sure she’s talkin’ ‘bout it either. “You could spoil me just a little.” “You’re spoiled enough, rock star.” “Ha!” Talk about bullshit. Rock Star. Sure, perks all over the place and nothin’ I’m interested in. “Everyone wants you. Everyone loves you…” She halts herself and her eyes dart away from mine. I bring her back to me with a finger to her chin. “Not everyone,” I counter, keepin’ it light. “Everyone,” she assures me. “Everyone?” Say it, Betts. Say it; mean it, say it if you feel it, even just a little bit of it. I said it, and meant it all. “Yes,” she murmurs. “Even you, my hardass reporter friend?” “Even me,” she whispers, failing miserably at trying to be hardassed. Her eyes begin to shine, and the lightening comes again, revealing every emotion on her face. “I love you, David.” The smallest voice for the biggest words. “I love you, too.” “God, what’s going to happen?” The tough question, the hardest of them all. Leave it to her, and her inquisitive mind, and probing nature to get directly to the point. “I don’t rightly know.” I sound like an idiot. “I…,” she begins, but I stop her. “Not now. Another day. It’ll figure itself out, like most things do. Just, just stay with me tonight, and the next, and the next, and let be what’s to be.” I kiss her lips, the creases of her eyes. I taste her tears and try to ignore them. “Just stay.” I kiss her cheeks, her neck. “Please.” Her ear, I kiss it, run my tongue around the shell of it, and feel her shiver. “Stay.” “David…” “Stay with me.” I kiss her to quiet her, and roll, roll, until we’re on the other side of my bed, so big that it has ‘sides’, so big that it seems I’ve been foolish keepin’ it to myself, keepin’ the ‘half’ of it empty. Betts seems small beneath me. A small warm creature that clings to me in the best way; that wraps itself around me without coaxing. My tiredness changes into something else, into a dreamy, slow kind of feeling charged with the beginnings of excitement. I feel the tremble of her under me, the points of her nipples against my chest that beg me to find them with my mouth, to taste, to suck, to make her arch up and open. I want to put my hands and mouth everywhere on her all at once and devour her. Make her moan, and whine, god, that tiny whine she makes in the back of her throat when I touch her right, taste her right, do this right. And it seems that right is the only way we know how to be together. “Stay,” I breathe into her ear one more time. Yes. Stay. Here. Now. Tomorrow. And for the rest of time. Hell. Heaven. I can’t tell the difference anymore. **~~***~~****~~***~~** **~~***~~****~~***~~** “If you stay a few more weeks, Jackson, Tyler, Bryce, and Lloyd are comin’ out. You could, you know, interview the guys and…” “I interviewed them already,” I tell him. Oh, yes, I’ve sat with each of the four other men that comprise the group D.J. fronts. The Unit. A double entendre if there ever was one. Some of those men were forthcoming; others were more reticent to speak until D.J. gave his blessing. Their brand of loyalty was nothing new to me, only the depths of it was. These men are protective of their ‘leader’, of each other, of the band and the code of ethics they’ve adopted of being about the music and only about the music. In all the research I did on them before the actual sit downs, there was very little gossip to be had. “You could watch us in the studio, you’ve never done that.” “I guess I could.” I’m sure I could. I’m reluctant. I have my own brand of loyalty and ethics, too. I want to keep David to myself and I’m not so sure I’m ready to be anywhere around other people. The possibility of having to restrain myself right now seems grim. Particularly since we’re having this conversation while the both of us are basking naked in the sun beside the small brook that feeds the pond on David’s land. This certainly won’t be happening with others around. “You don’t sound as if you relish the idea much.” “No, it’s not a bad idea, I just don’t relish other people being here,” I tell him, being direct and frank. “I don’t want to share you with a soul for… for as long as I don’t have to.” Hesitate. Choke on my words. I wanted to say forever, but that’s not a word that’s allowed. There is no forever, there’s only now. There’s only this moment and perhaps the rest of the day. Tomorrow could bring any number of changes to the status quo. A phone call could tear our fragile world apart, and it’s going to have to happen anyway, at some point, because I can’t stay here until I die, and neither can he. I just want to hold onto that illusion for as long as I can. “I was only thinkin’ that…” “That it would buy more time, I know, I know,” I say, and take hold of his hand. Contact. I need the contact all of the time. I need it when the idea of our inevitable parting crops up like a nasty weed in a field of flowers. “Well, it would,” he says softly, and he squeezes my hand. “Maybe another month.” “How do you get away with this?” The words slip out, but once they do, I keep on going. “I mean, don’t you have to be home or…” “Not when I’m workin’,” he says. “When I come here, it’s important, and everyone knows that.” He turns to bend over me, and block the sun. A droplet of water rolls off his nose onto me. “You know that.” “I didn’t believe it,” I say. Truth. I didn’t believe some of the things he’s told me because they seem too far fetched and illogical. Like this hiatus in his life, where he stays out here in the Carolina fields, in his beautiful house, and cuts off all contact with his everyday world. Not even when I got here did I actually believe that he would stay here for such prolonged periods of time uninterrupted. But he has, and he must have in the past. “Well, believe it,” he says. His shoulder shrugs. “I work alone in the beginning, then the guys come and we fine tune it all. Sometimes it goes quickly. Sometimes it takes forever. It’s not practical with them there and school, obligations. It wouldn’t be stable for the kids.” I want to disappear into the earth. “Hypocritical, isn’t it?” he says. It’s his turn to drift his gaze. This is one of the more prolonged, painful instances in my life. I can only imagine what he’s thinking, or feeling. Me, I have no ties, no strings, no responsibilities to anyone other than myself and those friends and family I chose. There is no husband. There are no children. There’s not even a pet, talk about impractical. There is just me. David has so much more. The more you have, the more you have to lose. “I wouldn’t change a damn thing, though,” he says, and his eyes come back, steady, almost resolved. “Just a few more weeks, Betts. Just a few more, and then… then.” “All right,” I agree, because I was going to agree anyway. To anything. **~~***~~****~~***~~** “Do you want to start reading this?” I ask David over the ubiquitous wine and a bowlful of moussaka he’s made. He cooks, which I at first found amusing. Now I’m glad, because I’m no kind of cook myself. The wine is mellow, the food a little spicy. I push several sheet of paper toward him. “Why? You lyin’ ‘bout me here?” “Of course. I just would like it if you would confirm the lies.” “Let’s see here,” he says, making a show of straightening the pages and screwing up his face in concentration. “C’mon, Betts, this is… this is ‘mbarrassing.” “Did you get to the part about having a small penis that quick?” I retort. “Betts…” “The thumb sucking?” “You can’t start it off with this line.” “Oh, I’m pretty sure I can.” “And I quote, ‘D.J. Phillips swims nekkid in the pond on his farm in the Carolinas.’” “This isn’t true?” I stare at him, he stares at me, and we grin. “You swim nekkid there, too, but I don’t see anything about that here.” “And you won’t. It isn’t about me, it’s about you. I think that line is a metaphor for your life, and your work, don’t you? Don’t you ‘swim nekkid’ through your music? Your words? I think it’s a great line. Definitely one that’s going to grab the female readers. Of course there’ll be pictures.” “Of my small penis?” “Of course,” I say, and make a measuring gesture with my thumb and forefinger. “No pictures.” “Full on centerfold, I think.” I bend my head over my keyboard and continue typing on the parts of the story I’m still working on. This is something that’s going to be much longer than the usual byline, even longer by my magazine’s standard cover story. This is an exclusive that’s going to fill the July issue of Calliope, the newest, most up to date musician’s publication on the newsstands. It’s not just a fan rag, although plenty of fans read it. Musicians read it, which gives the magazine credibility it would otherwise not have. More upscale than Rolling Stone, more cutting edge than Spin, it appeals to aficionados of all sorts, from songwriters to article writers. D.J. and Unit are going to sere the pages that month, because by then they’ll be kicking off a summer tour, as well as releasing a new album of original material. No one in the industry will be talking about much else, because all of the Unit’s releases are anticipated with much hoopla and drama. They set the tone for a season in the industry. For the first time, Unit has been willing to back it up in print and push on a grand scale. Hence…well, hence. “This is very flattering, Betsy,” D.J. says, as he finishes what little I’m prepared for him to see. “No arguments with the fact checkers?” “Not a one.” He puts the pages down and leans close. “A person might get the feelin’ that the author here is a might hooked on the band.” “That’s the point.” “No, not in an ‘I like ‘em but can take or leave ‘em’ way. I mean hooked.” “You might say that I’m a fan.” “A fan.” He reaches for me, pulls me away from my work, and plants a kiss on my neck. “A little more than a fan.” “Fanatic?” “You love us.” “No. I like the band. I love you,” I correct. “I ‘preciate the sentiment.” Another kiss and I understand that there isn’t going to be any more work getting done tonight. “So noted,” I say, and let him take me where he will. **~~***~~****~~***~~** **~~***~~****~~***~~** © 2006 Chandrah, Inc. © 2006 (*> Baby Bird Productions |