A Red Leaf & Ten Orchids Ch. 12

Kayla moved herself up far enough to look down into his face. She looked for a long moment and then she leaned down to kiss him very softly, meaning every second of it. She laid her head on his chest and said, "Tell me."

He drew a breath, doing his best to push the clouds away and wondering why they'd chosen this moment to seem to need to make their appearance, "I want to get something settled about this place, Kayla. Once I know that, I need to figure out what I'm going to do to earn a living, since, - once my last month's pay and my vacation pay runs out, I'm unemployed and broke, other than what I've got in the bank. Since I love you and Jilly, can you maybe see why something like this would bother a man like me?"

Right then, inside his mind and all the way into his heart, the gray clouds let go and it began to rain. Cold, forceful, and wind-driven rain, pushed by a wind a thousand miles deep out of the prairies, the November kind that finds every gap in a man's clothing and carries a chill that lasts long after a hot bath because it was just on the verge of freezing into sleet when it found him.

"If I didn't have those swords hanging over my head, I'd be ready to do whatever you wanted. I think that I understand the significance of what you've told me, but how can I offer anything right now? I can't agree like this."

Before she could say anything -- before she could even think of anything to say, Joshua eased her off of him and Kayla found herself lying on her front on his bed as he walked to his desk, lit a cigarette, and sat down heavily.

Kayla was confused, "Josh? What just happened here?"

He looked out through the dirty glass and shook his head. "The reality of our situation just landed on my chest, and the irony has just become more than I think I can bear. For once in my life, I've actually fallen in love so hard that I can't even think straight, and I can't even afford to play."

He looked down at the flooring and fell silent.

When he didn't move for over a minute, Kayla began to feel uncomfortable. Then she felt something else.

"Put that thing out," she said flatly.

Josh looked up with a slightly surprised expression, as though he'd thought that he'd been alone here.

"How the hell is it possible that you can go all over the world to places that I've barely ever heard of and you can't follow directions?" Kayla asked, "Joshua, I'm not big on this, but if you love me -- if you love any sensitive part of your own body, then come back to bed."

He didn't move. He only looked at her sadly. Kayla wondered if he could still understand her.

"Joshua, please,..." she said quietly, "I'm begging now. Please come back here to me. You already feel like you're three thousand miles away. We need to talk, but even before that I need to tell you something. Please? I'll get on my knees if you want, but please come here."

Josh suddenly came back to himself and the image that he saw in his mind of Kayla on her knees was too much for him. He looked at the cigarette in his hand going largely unsmoked and he turned to stab it out viciously in the ashtray. He stood up and he walked to her.

It was only about four steps, but in that second and a bit, she had time to admire him and to decide some things as she felt for him and how he might feel as well as how she felt too. Kayla's resolve hardened to something approaching steel as she waited for him to get settled.

She stood up and stepped to the top of the bed, grabbing his pillow to place it lengthwise against the headboard. His blue eyes followed her motions.

"Lie back," she said, and it wasn't a request.

When he'd complied, Kayla stepped back to where she'd been and slapped his ankles apart. He moved them.

"More," It was all that she said.

Seeing the space that she wanted, Kayla climbed onto the bed and positioned herself. There was a bit of awkwardness over what to do with his genitals, but she solved it by pointing his penis toward him and being careful with how she positioned her ribcage so as not to put too much weight on his testicles while allowing his manhood to nestle in between them as much as possible. She wished at least for the moment that she was a little larger, but then she remembered what he'd told her about her tits, so she surmised that they would have to do. She settled her upper body weight onto her elbows on either side of his hips, deciding that if she was crushing anything, that he'd point it out to her.

Joshua said nothing.

Kayla thought for a moment. "Listen to me, Josh. I might not know all of the details of your life, but I'm just learning, aren't I? I do know enough about you to tell you that I want you. I want you in my life. I don't know how I managed it, but it seems to me that ever since I got out of high school, all that I've ever done is make bad choices and the wrong decisions every fucking time.

I've had lots of time to think it over, and I still don't know how it's possible for me to have done that. I mean, even if you flip a coin, you're bound to come up heads at least some of the time, but that never happened to me. In all of that time, only two things have gone well for me. One of them is a beautiful little girl and the other is a slightly scuffed-up but otherwise wonderful man, and I can't think that I did anything to deserve either one of them."

She looked hard at him. "But I'm not about to question the only luck that I've ever had, or just walk away because I don't know how it's going to work. The fact here is that it has been working."

Her eyes fell to his abdomen. "All I know is that, for the first time that I can even remember, I'm not unhappy. I'm not murderous, or mean-spirited, or bitchy, or snarly, I'm happy," she said, her voice beginning to crack as she looked up at his face.

"And that's all your fault," she croaked. "I know that there are so many things in front of us. I know that there are going to be issues because of where we're from, and what Aunt Rose is going to do with this place, but,.."

She sobbed for a moment and then her eyes blazed wetly at him, "I don't fucking care! I need you, Joshua, that's all I know. None of it makes sense, but you and I are the same somehow. We're just different in how we face the world. I'm probably just louder about it than you are.

But that doesn't change what's between us. I even know that I'm the girl of your dreams, if you want to call it that. I still can't imagine why, but you've told me enough so that even I have to get the message sometime, and I know that you were made for me, as far as I'm concerned.

All of the men that I've ever been with just want to lie on me or grab me and grunt while they bang away until they squirt. That's it. Done. That's all they know. And then they tell themselves that they're great lovers. It's not even about me to them and I know that. They actually believe what they tell themselves!

Josh, for the first time in my life, I've made love to somebody and meant it because you did. I love how we slow right down to almost nothing and we talk, Josh! We talk to each other and we're still screwing. I love how it feels when I look into your eyes while you're inside me and I know that I'll need that from you forever, because there's nobody like that for me. Not like you, Joshua, and I know that you feel the same way about me. Neither one of us can help it and we'd be even more stupid if we throw this away now."

She sniffled and wiped her tears for a moment and her voice became a broken whisper.

"Don't pull back now, Joshua. I don't care what we have to do. I'll pack up Jilly and follow you if I have to. I'll move to Canada, I don't care, anything. You said that you liked the feeling of having a family. Well I hate to pull this card out of the deck now, but what do you think Jilly wants? If she was here right now, ..."

Kayla looked at them both and shook her head a little, "Well once she got her eyes back into her head, she'd tell you that she likes the idea too. She's already asked me if you'll be her father. I know the way that she thinks. It's not totally relevant to you and me, but it couldn't be more relevant to her.

Joshua, since her parents died, that girl has never even looked at a man, other than to maybe make sure that he wasn't about to step on her, never mind look a man in the eye. So maybe you can figure out what you might mean to her when she holds your hand or wants to kiss you goodnight. That's never happened before. But what's between us is what has to be there first before she gets what she wants out of this, and I can't imagine going on without you."

She shook her head, "Shit, and it's only been less than two weeks! For God's sake, Josh, don't give up. We'll figure something out. Look, I just received the papers yesterday, the first mail that I've gotten since we moved here."

She sniffled, "I haven't told her that it's done yet, but I've adopted Jilly. I was going to tell her, but she came up with how she still misses her parents and that just made me decide to choose a better time to tell her, though it's what she told me that she wanted back in Phoenix.

As far as the world is concerned, I'm not really her aunt anymore, and her last name is now Fraser because I'm her mother now. That took a long while, so I really don't care if I have to adopt my very own Canadian goldfish if it comes down to stupid papers because I'd do anything now."

She stopped as a thought came to her.

Joshua had been sitting back and staring at Kayla. He knew that she was right. He hadn't actually given up on anything, but he had been feeling very overwhelmed when it had hit him.

Right now, he felt even more overwhelmed but in a very different way. He watched Kayla as she struggled with something that she wanted to say, her lovely face lost in thought as she seemed to be looking at his navel or something. Her long red hair spilled around her head and he could feel it whenever she moved just a little. There was no choice in anything for him and he knew it. She was the one for him, and if she wasn't there was just no point anymore, was there?

"I'm not giving up, Kayla," he said quietly, "I was just feeling flattened by everything." He exhaled, "I don't think that I can be accused of being a genius, but I'm not stupid either."

"Alright then," Kayla whispered as she looked up at him, "You're mine, right?"

Josh had to refocus. "Huh?"

"I said, you're my man, aren't you? I'm asking you if I have your scarred and beat-up heart. Or is that too hard a question for you now?"

He nodded, "I've never thought in those terms befo -- " He nodded. "Yes," he said, "I'm yours if I've got you, and I think you've already said that."

She smiled just a little for the first time since this had begun and she nodded once, "Oh, I'm your girl, Joshua, don't you worry about that."

She moved herself around a little experimentally and found that she could just kiss the end of his penis. She did that once slowly in spite of the lingering taste left behind by the condom.

"Do you know why I just did that?" she smiled. "For all of the reasons that you might expect, Josh. But also, I did it because I can't help but want to. I've never had the inclination with anyone else, to tell you the truth, but with you, I just can't help but want to.

So we have a million things in front of us. Most of them, we don't even know yet because we haven't identified them, let alone think of how to overcome them. But I'm a logical girl when I'm not crazy, so I'll deal with what I can identify as an issue first and then I guess that I'll work outward from there."

She looked down, struggling again. The absurdity was almost sublime and ludicrous at the same instant when she realized that she was looking down at the his penis there between her breasts. Then again, she thought, there was this side of it as well, and it changed nothing.

She looked up.

"Marry me."

There was a pause while Joshua made sure that he'd heard it.

"I mean," she said, "Joshua, will you marry me?"

"Yes." He replied instantly, "but wh-"

"Never mind for now. You said something like that before, but I'm being very definite here," Kayla smiled in reply, "This is the first thing that I think we need to nail down. It doesn't matter what we decide to do or where we'll live. I just wanted to be sure of that one thing. Now that I have your answer, I can move forward myself.

We'll have a talk with Rose at dinner tonight, and that'll be a start, at least. Now I don't have to worry so much about Jilly's feelings and whether you'll disappear -- even though I already knew that you're not that type."

She crawled up onto him slowly, "So now that we're clear on that one little detail, I want each of us to make some promises to the other. I've seen for myself how a marriage becomes a drag while I've listened to some of the women at work, and I just know that at least some of that unhappiness is due to failed expectations. I just don't think that they knew that there might be someone else who was disappointed besides them.

So I think I want to tell you my hope that what we have doesn't fade, at least not much, and I promise you that I want and need a really good life with you out of bed and in it. Say you'll do your best and I think that we can move ahead to figure the rest of this out."

The promises took a little while and there was some demonstration required from both sides of it. Afterward, they were just thinking that they had better get up and decide what the overall options might be for them when the phone on Josh's desk began to ring. It was a second number on Rose's line and she only activated it with the phone company when Josh was there.

They looked at each other. Josh ran down the very short list of people who he had even had a chance to give this number to and it came down pretty much to Rose herself. Kayla got up to answer it. The conversation was short, and it had been Rose who'd called.

"Aunt Rose is bringing home dinner, and Jilly's staying the night at Margarita's. I'll have to go and pick her up in the morning before Margarita heads off to open the cantina. My aunt told me not to do anything stupid."

Josh was a little confused, "Huh? What does that mean?"

Kayla smirked, "It means that we'll have to pick this up again later, since she's on her way, and I'm really beginning to wonder about my aunt and whether she's got this place wired or something."

She smiled a little crookedly as she came back to bed, "She told me to keep using condoms and not to forget, no matter how carried away you and I get."

She reached across Joshua and hung halfway off the bed. The sight of the orchid on that one cheek was more than he could withstand and he made her laugh with his kisses there and the direction that they seemed to be headed in. She amazed him with her subdued but still very pleasing squeal and he filed the detail away, now knowing a place where she was very ticklish.

Kayla rolled back onto the bed and almost ended up lying on his front, but she grinned as she held a condom packet aloft.

"Come on, she said, "we've got just about enough time to follow instructions."