Ice Heart Ch. 02

"Um, you um, you want to come in, um, see my place?" Fred stammered.

"Didn't drive out here at eleven thirty at night just because you needed a ride," Nicole smiled and leaned over the console and kissed him on his lips.

She then playfully rubbed his mustache.

"That's going to have to go, though," she smiled.

"Aw, hey!" he complained. "I like my mustache!"

"Okay, you can keep it," she said and got out of the car. "Just won't be kissing me, though."

"And who said I want to be kissing you?" he teased as he guided her along the walkway.

"Good night," she said and turned to leave.

"Come here," he said and pulled her in for a hug.

It was typical 'bachelor' furnishings; a tattered old couch with three books acting as a leg, a coffee table that had very little veneer left on it faced a large plasma television. The television and sound system sat on a ramshackle shelf system made of cinderblocks and boards. The dining room had no table; there was a single barstool at the island that separated the kitchen from the dining room and living room. Nicole looked at him in mild amusement. If this was his idea of furniture, she couldn't help but wonder at what was upstairs in the bedrooms.

"It's uh, well, I haven't really had a whole lot of time to go furniture shopping," Fred stammered, seeing his surroundings through someone else's eyes for the first time.

"Uh huh, most places open on Sundays," Nicole said.

"Honestly?" Fred said. "Truth is, I never seen any reason to get anything nice; I never thought I'd ever have anyone as beautiful as you even close to here."

"Well I'm here," she declared. "So, next time, there going to be better stuff or what? I mean, at least a table and some chairs; where are me and Sophia going to sit?"

"I'm off tomorrow; I got to get my car, then I'll get me a table," Fred declared.

"God, I am such a fucking bitch," Nicole said and sat down heavily on the couch. "We ain't even dating and I'm already bossing you around."

"You're not a bitch," Fred said and sat down next to her.

"Yeah I am," Nicole said. "You got a right to live any way you want; you got a right to whatever furniture you want."

"Hey, I also got to get a table and some chairs," Fred said.

"And if you really like the stupid mustache, keep it," Nicole said.

"Rather kiss you," Fred admitted.

"Yeah?" she smiled.

"Yeah," he said and leaned over.

They were both panting heavily, her blouse bunched up to just under her bra.

"Listen, I got something to tell, I got to be honest with you," she moaned as his fingers came closer and closer to her tightened nipples.

"Yeah?" he whispered, sucking another kiss from her lips.

"Look, I'm, I'm pregnant, okay?" Nicole said and tensed up, waiting for the explosion.

"No kidding?" Fred said and rubbed her exposed belly. "That what that is? I was going to like tell you you might want to cut back on the Pepsi, switch over to Diet Pepsi or something."

"That don't bother you?" she asked and let him kiss her again.

"Nicole, I could tell you was the first time you came in," Fred said. "And I said, God damn, lucky son of a bitch got her all PG, wish it was me."

"Wish it was too," Nicole said and shuddered as his fingers lightly pinched her almost hypersensitive nipples.

"I better go," she said and pushed herself up with great effort.

"You sure?" he asked.

"Yeah," she smiled and lightly rubbed his painfully erect cock. "Before I do something, make you think I'm like this super slut or something."

"I wouldn't think that," he hastily said and she laughed.

"Good night, Fred," she said and walked to the door.

It took another fifteen minutes before she finally walked out into the dank night, and then strode rapidly to her car. She got into the driver's seat, reached her hand down the front of her shorts and groaned and shuddered through an orgasm.

Chapter 8

He clenched his teeth in exasperation; he had told Nickie he was slammed at work. There was one hurricane bearing down on the off-shore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and a tropical storm was crossing over Cuba at the same time. As soon as that tropical storm hit the warm waters of the Gulf, it too would burgeon into a hurricane. The hurricane was a category three and picking up strength.

He couldn't leave anyone on the rigs; that would be sheer lunacy for anyone to stay out there, exposed like that to the elements, but at the same time, he had to make sure there were the proper precautions taken.

But Nickie didn't want to understand that.

"What, Baby?" he asked as he answered.

"Hey, it's me," her voice said dully.

"Baby, I'm right in the middle of..." he said, forcing his voice to stay calm, even though he wanted to scream at her.

"Listen, I know you don't want to be seeing me no more 'cause I'm this big dyke," Nickie said and let a sob escape.

"Nickie, I do want to see you," he assured her. "It's just with one hurricane already out there and another potentially on the way..."

"So I'm going to take care of that," Nickie said and Cris heard a great deal of noise as she fumbled with the phone.

Then he heard a loud roar.

****

"I'm fat!" Nicole wailed as she looked at her reflection in the mirror over the small vanity.

"You're pregnant," Fred reminded her.

"There is no way I'm going out there like this!" Nicole said as she stepped out of the bathroom, clad in her bright red bikini. The bottom was bunched underneath her belly.

"Fine, put on your sundress and you can just sit there and watch me and Sophia swim," he shrugged and picked up the wiggling baby. "We'll be splashing and swimming in the nice cool water and you'll be sitting there in the hot sun, all hot and sweaty and miserable and we'll be having fun but you won't but that's fine, you'd rather be all sad because you're fat."

"I hate you," she said and grabbed the towels.

"Hate you too," he smiled and kissed her. "Damned shame though, 'cause you look so hot in that bikini."

"You're retarded," she said and made sure she had the sunscreen applied liberally enough to Sophia's skin. "I'm big as a house."

"And still hot," he smiled and herded them out of the condo.

She needn't have worried about her looks; the three women that were at the pool each weighed as much as she and Fred together. Their bikinis (she was both surprised and repulsed that bikinis came in their sizes) revealed sagging flesh and stretch marks and pasty white skin.

"And you were worried?" Fred whispered to her.

"Uh huh," she whispered back and took Sophia from him.

"You ready?" she asked the baby then walked into the cool water with the child.

Sophia's eyes opened wide as the cool water lapped at her and she chortled and giggled and warbled in her strange way.

"Good God," one of the large women sneered at her. "Just had one and you're already expecting again?"

"She's my sister, not my daughter," Nicole sneered back. "But I can understand your confusion; I am a breeder; you wouldn't know anything about that."

"What?" Fred whispered as he took the wiggling, thrashing, splashing Sophia from her arms.

"A breeder; what big dykes like that like to call non-homos," Nicole whispered back as the three women glared hatred at her.

"Oh," he said and smiled at the three women. "I'm in unit twenty two seventeen; you?"

They ignored him. He lost the smile.

"I'm going to ask you again, what unit are you in?" he said. "Do you have permission to be here?"

"Yes we do," one of the women snapped. "We're in sixteen twelve, okay?"

"Thank you," Fred snapped back.

"Twenty two seventeen?" Nicole asked him. "We're in..."

"Like I want them knowing where we live?" he asked her.

He and Nicole played with the baby. Finally, they were pretty water-logged and she watched as he lovingly dried the wiggling, now fussing Sophia dry and waited until she was finished drying herself before handing the baby to her and drying himself.

He waved her ahead of him while he gathered up all of their belongings then went back to twenty one twenty seven

Nicole looked around at the furniture. He'd asked her what her favorite color was; the apartment was a sea of red now. He'd even bought an unfinished table and four chairs and then stained them a cherry color. Then he bought a high chair and stained it to match. Bookcase and entertainment center, cherry red. Couch and matching recliner, bright scarlet micro-fiber.

And upstairs, he'd thrown out that horrible, uncomfortable futon and bought a real bed. With red comforter and red pillow shams.

He came in and set the bag of things by the door. She turned and looked at him. He'd shaved off that itchy, stupid looking mustache for her; had shaved it off the night she drove him home from his work.

"I love you, I am so in love with you," she declared and kissed him with all the passion she could put into the kiss.

"Wow," he said when she finally released him. "I um, I love you too."

He wasn't the most handsome man she'd ever met. His thinning brown hair and dull brown eyes were actually a little nondescript, his skin bore the scars of bad acne, and his nose was a little large, but he was a good man, a loving man. If she put on three inch heels, she was taller than him, and he was beginning to develop a little bit of a beer gut on his skinny body.

But he went out of his way to make her happy.

And when he talked about the condo, it was 'ours,' not 'mine.' He referred to it as where 'we live,' not where 'I live.'

She didn't pay a single bill, she didn't contribute to the household expenses at all, still lived in the two bedroom apartment with her mother, but he called it 'ours.' He had even given her a key to the condo. Every now and then, when she knew he was working the lunch shift, she would be there, preparing dinner for them.

She looked into his loving eyes and made a decision.

"I'm tired of this," she said. "I want us to be together all the time, okay?"

"Are you, are you serious?" he asked, surprised. "You sure?"

"Fred, I, you don't want me?" she asked, feeling a little sick.

Maybe he just liked having her around for a quick fuck, just said he loved her, but didn't really mean it.

"Are you kidding?" he said. "God damn, I hate it when you leave, when you and Sophia go back home and I'm here by myself, all alone and everything."

****

"She was supposed to be taking, she had this medication the doctor give her," Harold mumbled, voice hollow. "Didn't like taking it, you know? Said it made her gain weight."

Had he not been so grief-stricken, Cris would have laughed. It wasn't the medication that made Nickie gain weight; it was Nickie that made Nickie gain weight.

Mickie came over and clung to Cris, sobbing loudly. He felt guilty as he held her and his cock began to swell. He still remembered her tight pussy and her hot mouth; it had been only eight days ago that the three of them had been on his bed.

Nickie's declaration of his not wanting to see her because she was a 'big dyke' hit him and his erection wilted. Nickie thought he was avoiding her because of the things she and Mickie had done together, not because of the threatening storms out in the Gulf. His heart froze a little more.

"God damn you, you idiot," he cursed the tragic girl in the box.

"God damn you, you weak bastard," he thought as he looked at her father. "Could have made her take the fucking medication."

"God damn you, fucking slut," he thought as Mickie, whether consciously or unconsciously rubbed her full breasts against him.

He had been in the middle of saying a rosary for the soul of his fiancé when Mickie had approached. When she finally walked off to talk with some of Nickie's co-workers and friends, he tried to continue saying the rosary. After a minute, he realized the prayers just would not come. He sighed and put the beads back into the leather pouch he carried them in and put the pouch into his coat pocket.

"Hey, how you doing?" Sweet William asked quietly as he eased his bulk into the pew next to Cris.

"It's all a fucking waste," Cris said, not bothering to whisper.

"Heard that," Sweet William agreed.

"You know, this is the, we was supposed to get married in this church," Cris said, almost angrily.

"Yeah?" the large man said, looking around. "It's nice, nice place to get married."

"Little late now," Cris said.

"Listen, I know you hurting," Sweet William said, voice low but firm. "I know you hurting, but it ain't you, it ain't you in that box; you still breathing."

"I don't know about that, Sweet William," Cris said. "I just don't fucking know about that."

****

Ann Marie spat angrily at Nicole; Sophia's little ears were sunburned. The child was also getting a few freckles across the bridge of her nose from being out in the sun all the time.

She wasn't really mad at Nicole; she was jealous. She busted her butt all day long for a few measly bucks, and most of the time it wasn't enough; Daddy had to slip her a couple of hundred dollars every month. Nicole, however, was raising her daughter and getting to play while Ann Marie had to work.

"Called being a grown up," Harriet had said when Ann Marie gave voice to her complaint. "You work while everybody else plays. But how many years you just sit around and play while, what was his name, Carl? While he had to bust his butt?"

"Cris," Ann Marie said. "His name was Cris, and you right."

"Course I am," Harriet said and hustled to get another order out to the dining area.

And now Nicole was happily prattling about moving in with Fred. Ann Marie tolerated the twenty eight year old man, recognized that Nicole liked Fred because of who Fred was, not for how Fred looked. But now that meant her thin budget would have to go toward a baby-sitter, or a day care for Sophia.

"But his condo is right on the way, you just come down Eraste Landry, then turn left on Ambassador Caffery, and it's right there on the left and you can drop Sophia off before you go to work or I can come get her and..." Nicole was prattling as she packed the cardboard box on her bed.

And if they'd let her move into one of the one bedroom apartments, that would take another hundred off her rent, and probably be a lot cheaper utilities too.

"You love him?" Ann Marie asked suddenly.

"Well, yeah," Nicole said after a long moment of deliberation. "I mean, he doesn't make me all hot and bothered when I look at him, but Mom, he makes me feel special. Everything he does, he does it for me."

"Let me tell you something," Ann Marie said, voice strained with earnestness. "He does everything, don't let that go, and don't ever throw that away for 'hot and bothered.' Your dad, Cris was the best thing ever and look at what it got me, running after Tom, just because he got me all 'hot and bothered.'"

"Yeah?" Nicole said and rubbed her swollen belly. "You seen my 'hot and bothered' moment, huh?"

"Good, so you already know what I'm talking about," Ann Marie said and affectionately hugged Nicole before leaving the girl's bedroom.

****

He looked around as he stood in line at the University of Louisiana at DeGarde. There were only three people in line ahead of him to sign up for Mexican Cooking' but the woman at the head of the line was arguing shrilly with the instructor, delaying everyone else.

'Automobile Maintenance,' 'Leather Arts&Crafts,' 'Organic Gardening,' 'Learning Guitar,' and a few other tables were in the hallway, but there was no 'Motorcycle Maintenance' table set up, no April.

"Hi," the woman smiled tiredly and he returned the smile and signed up without asking any questions.

"We meet here, well, actually in the Science Building, Emily Hall?" she said, her accent quite heavy. "Classes are every Thursday night, from six thirty until nine that okay?"

"Sounds great," he smiled and wrote out a check for the tuition. "Who I make this out to?"

She told him the name, laughed at his expression, then spelled it out for him.

"See you Thursday, hope you're hungry," she smiled and he shrugged and sauntered out of the hall.

"That is one sweet bike," a man said as Cris swung his leg over.

"Thanks, it's a piece of American History, a nineteen forty nine Indian Chief, all original parts," Cris smiled and kicked it into life.

"I'd give my left nut to have one of those," the man said.

"Nah, they don't cost that much," Cris smiled. "I just had to give up my cheating wife and bratty kid."

"Where do I sign up for that?" the man laughed.

****

"What the fuck you so happy about?" Zack sneered at Fred as the manager bustled about.

"'Cause, every day, when I wake up and I look in the mirror, it ain't your face looking back," Fred said and finished wiping down the counter.

"Shit, you wish it was this face instead of that ugly ass face you got," Zack sneered and ignored the work that was waiting to be done.

"Wright, think you could actually show a little initiative and do something without me having to tell you to do it?" Fred asked as he took the boxes of sauce packets out to the self-service area.

"What the fuck I want to do that for?" Zack asked.

"'Cause when it comes time for a performance review, I might actually remember it, might actually give you a raise," Fred said and smiled as a middle-aged couple came in.

He smiled wider as he watched the man and woman, both in their late fifties as they looked over the menu above his head. They were holding hands. The man turned to the woman and spoke softly to her and she was intent on every word he said. He could envision he and Nicole doing that in thirty years, holding hands.

Then his smile froze; the woman's eyes were colorless. She was blind. Then his smile returned when they gave each other a quick little kiss and approached his cash register.

"Welcome to Taco Bell; may I take your order?" he asked cheerfully.

"Go ahead, Honey Bunny, tell him what you want," the man gently said.

"Man that is fucking weird," Zack mumbled as he watched the couple.

"Why?" Fred asked defensively. "Why is it fucking weird?"

"I mean, she's all blind and shit, fucking gives me the heebie jeebies just looking at her," Zack said and shuddered.

"God, dude, it is a wonder no one's put you out of our misery," Fred said and smiled at the couple as he walked around the dining area.

"Thank you, come again," he called out as they left.

He laughed out loud when he saw the man playfully pinch her on her buttock and she squealed and laughed and slapped the man's hand away, and then leaned against him. The man led her around to the passenger side of a compact car, and then hurried around to his side.

****

"How you do, Missa Dumas?" Cam Pao, his tenant in Apartment 22 asked as Cris unlocked the door to Apartment 1.

The woman was a Vietnamese refugee, one of the 'boat people' rescued off the coast of San Francisco in 1982.

She had watched as the Viet Cong pressed her brother into military service, then watched as they killed her crippled father and laughed.

She had hid underneath a basket while the soldiers raped her mother and her sister, and then shot them dead. Then they helped themselves to the food that her mother had been preparing and left.

She had grabbed her younger sister and they snuck out of the hut and ran through the paddies south. They stayed off the roads which were often thick with Viet Cong soldiers, hiding in the thick vegetation until silence, or nightfall, whichever came first, and then continued south toward the Americans, toward protection.

When they had seen the American troop out on maneuvers, they smiled and ran toward them, praising Buddha. The burst of machine gun fire behind them had cut her sister in half, and got her in both legs.

The Americans cut the machine gun bunker down and a Marine actually risked his life running out into the field to see if either girl could be saved. Cam Pao looked on in wonder as the young blond man cried bitterly over her dead sister, a girl he did not even know.