A Final Valentine

However, several of the ones who survived "the storm of the century" (which hadn't actually dumped any more snow than somewhere up north might see in an afternoon) had lost dogs, cats, and other animals they had selfishly murdered by leaving them out to freeze and starve. Those people, I would cheerfully have dragged off to a spot in Yellowhouse Canyon I knew of with four tremendous anthills, staked them out after stripping them naked, and smeared honey on their genitals before leaving them there for the ants.

"Oh, we'll just get another one, honey."

Fuckers.

Even once things did start moving, the little neighborhood our small pack had washed up in was the last to be returned to fully functioning. No big surprise as we were the poorest following the revamp of Overton.

But, I didn't find all that out until much, much later as it didn't really affect us beyond Bitty's potty.

And our houseguest, of course.

Bitty was in a mood after breakfast and wore out both myself and the girl burning off some of her excess energy by having us throw a ball down into the library so she could run down, snag it off the ground, bounce off the couch, around into the bedroom to bounce off the bed, and haul ass back to the dining area, where, in an astounding feat of dexterity to any that didn't know her, she managed to maneuver her bulk to corner the dining table like she was on rails before dropping the ball next to the footstool I had set against the wall next to the kitchen for that very purpose.

While it had bothered me to give up our house for Angela, in addition to no longer being able to afford it we had both gotten bad enough we couldn't keep it clean anymore. It was a nice house, nicer than I would have bothered with for just myself. But, it was too much in excess of our needs or ability to take care of anymore.

I did, however, much more severely, regret giving up Bitty's backyard. More just the room to stretch her long legs than the obstacle course I'd built for her.

I had even contemplated giving Bitty up for adoption when the best we could do was a tiny little two bedroom duplex that had seen it's best days disappear over the horizon before either of us were born. But, Angela had pointedly refused and convinced me that Bitty loved me more than any big yard to run and play in.

And besides. She had outgrown her puppy stage and didn't have the energy she had once had.

Bitty seemed bent on disproving that theory that morning. I only lasted my usual five minutes before my long damaged rotator cuffs made me have to stop. Then Bitty convinced the girl to take over through two of my smokes. Bitty might have gone longer, but the girl was starting to flag by that point. So, I completed our ritual by putting Bitty through her paces and re-establishing her training.

The girl was thrilled that Bitty's commands were all gestures other than a sharp double-clap to get her attention. I wasn't as thrilled that she wanted to learn Bitty's commands. But, I didn't see any way out of showing her that wouldn't make me an asshole.

And it made my ear flare when I didn't want to.

I drew a firm mental line at showing this interloper Bitty's more advanced training and held us to only the basics. Sit. Stand. Come. Stay. Heel. And a couple of parlor tricks such as beg, apologize, reach for the sky, show me that pretty smile, and heigh-ho silver.

I did another round of my exercises, a little more serious than my wake-up routine although not even a quarter as serious as I'd once been as the girl watched me while she scratched Bitty behind the ears and worried her dog statue.

"What happened to you?"

"Which time? A lot of injuries piled on over more years than you've been alive," I signed back flippantly at the question I had half expected earlier. I didn't particularly feel like running through my three-inch medical file for the obvious damages, much less going into the hidden enemy that had actually been the one to bring me down.

"Was that some kind of karate you were doing at the end there?"

At various points in my checkered past, I'd been a student of (in no particular order) American Kenpo, Tae Kwon Do, Aikido, Hapkido, Judo, and Tai Chi Chuan, although I'd never reached "black belt" in any. The only one I still half-assed my way through was Tai Chi Chuan in an effort to retain as much balance and control of my body as I could yet muster. And I was a bit surprised she had recognized my stumbling bastardized forms as some kind of martial art.

"Something like that, yes," I signed back. "Do you study?"

I knew enough to know if she had, she hadn't been serious. Or had a lousy teacher. One of those like the self-styled "Master Lee" in town who sold belt tests at all but the highest levels and used his "black belts" as protection detail during his drug deals. But, she might not have known the difference and thought she had studied while getting scammed.

"No," she signed. "I always wanted to. I wanted to be able to fight back when someone hurt me. To stop them from hurting me."

Now, that was an argument I could get behind as I thought of the marks on her body hidden by my t-shirt and pajama bottoms. And the bits of her story I'd managed to piece together.

And, what the hell? It wasn't like any of us had anything to do, really.

I ended up wasting her time and mine by "teaching" her some pretty basic stuff with an imperfect style that any but the most conniving of con artist "martial arts instructors" would have given me a couple of lumps over letting her get away with. Not only was I having to tell instead of demonstrating, the truth was, outside of the dojo, I was a firm practitioner in "Aaron Do," which was to do unto before I was done by and as dirtily and completely as possible and let the paramedics and courts work out the details later. Forget that crap about not hitting below the belt. Grab a handful and do your best to rip the fuckers off.

And yeah, it had landed me on the defense bench against a plaintiff more than once. But, "our side" was alive, and even most of "them" survived. So, I marked each one as a win until I got tired of having to constantly defend after-action reports to armchair voyeurs a week and even a month after the fact and went looking for another career.

Oddly, or perhaps not so odd since my favorite of my all but forgotten odd jobs had been a trainer, I enjoyed myself. Rather more than she did, I think, since I categorically refused to teach her any fancy kicks. But, in my opinion, any idiot who gets his foot above his (or her) opponent's knee in a real situation is just asking to have their ass cheeks pulled over their shoulders.

Not that I was going to attempt to argue the point with Bill "Superfoot" Wallace. But, the kid (and I for that matter) was a long, long way from that kind of expertise.

And too, the kid wasn't a big fan of the push-ups, crunches, and jumping jacks, fifty each, I put her through. After the way she butchered those, I didn't bother with the more advanced stuff.

I called a halt when I judged it was about time for her to eat lunch and told her off to go shower since she had worked up a sweat even in the cool room while I warmed up the leftover tuna, macaroni and cheese, and peas I'd found to feed her for breakfast.

I don't know why I did it, old habit maybe, but I even dug out Angela's old vitamins that had somehow survived the purge following her memorial and set one of those beside the kid's place setting.

I wasn't trying to be nice or generous or any of that. I guess I must have just done it on auto-pilot since I had been taking Angela a vitamin with the meals I'd served her for the last two years she'd been with me.

The kid came out wearing the same clothes she had gone in wearing. Clothes that not only had she sweated in, but I could plainly see were wet even in that dim candlelit room. A whole lot wetter than her sweat could have accounted for. I knew without even asking, or going to check, the little shit had showered with the shower curtain opened again and soaked them on the floor next to the tub.

I contemplated making her wear them but figured the smell of her sweat would get a tad ripe percolating under the stacked covers on the bed later. So, I sent her back to the shower with a side order of laundry detail and dug out yet another set of clothes since the flannel and sweats from the first day still weren't completely dry.

Sure enough, she was still showering with the curtain opened so she could see by the light of that stupid rose. And, in addition to a growing pond out beside the tub, it illuminated a whole hell of a lot more of her than the candle she had been using. More than I was altogether comfortable with.

Certain parts of my anatomy took notice and decided the kid didn't look quite so bad after all with that water sluicing over her skin. But, my brain shoved that back to its corner in a hurry. And I made a mental note to try to see if I couldn't find some private time to dump some hormones later before they managed to mutiny and turn me into some hideous parody of "a dirty old fool of a man."

And just another user and abuser to that poor kid.

I hurriedly set her fresh change of clothes on the counter and retreated to my chair where I lit a smoke and stared at Bitty who wasn't starting her lunch can yet.

"I don't understand what the difference was," she signed once she was out and eating. "Yesterday, you told me not to wash the clothes. Today, you tell me to wash the clothes."

Angela, give me strength.

"Today, you worked up a sweat," I signed back. "Yesterday, you didn't. If you sweat, the clothes are dirty and will stink if you continue to wear them."

The kid took another bite and then a second before she responded.

"You would be a good father," she said.

Oh, what the fuck?!

"No, I wouldn't," I said verbally before repeating it in sign. "No, I would not. I would have been an awful father. Always gone. Only home when I was too hurt to do anything while I was there. My wife would have been... was a great mother. But, I would have been the worst father ever. Now, shut up and eat your vegetables. And don't forget to take that vitamin."

For some reason, that made the cheeky little shit grin at me. I swore I should have let Juanita see if there was candy in her skull.

And what was with all the damn 'Daddy' business anyway?! First Angela, her ghost, or my dream of her brought it up when we'd long ago put that issue to bed, I'd thought. After her full hysterectomy, if not before. And now the kid, herself, brought it up as well?

Fuck, but I was ready for a fucking heat wave to come blow this white shit, and this girl, off the South Plains or at least out of my fucking life.

After getting Bitty and the girl ensconced on the bed, I plucked Stanley Coren's "How Dogs Think" out of her hands and replaced it with my old dog-eared copy of Pavel's "The Naked Warrior." Which I insisted she at least start reading while I showered and then she could get back to the other after.

I didn't really need a shower since I hadn't worked up a sweat. But, I hit the high points of pits, crotch, and ass before rocking back into the corner and soaping up my crotch once more. It was difficult as Bitty still wouldn't allow me to close the door despite defecting to the interloper and shoving me down to second place in her affections.

But, eventually, visions of Angela helped me to achieve the hardness I sought despite keeping my eyes on the ceiling to see if that damn rose-flashlight moved.

It had been awhile since I had managed. But, my soap slicked shaft slid through my gripping fingers as I recalled a time Angela had lain on her back with her head off the edge of the bed, her beautiful long red hair touching the floor, as she reached around to pull my ass towards her, pressing my pulsating cock between her lips, across her tongue, and swallowed my tip into her throat over and over and over, making it bulge slightly above the collar around her neck with a dog tag engraved "His Bitch," until I filled her mouth and throat with my cum.

As I remembered and worked my shaft, my current crop of cum boiled out to splatter against the tub floor as I moaned aloud, safe in the knowledge the kid couldn't hear me anyway. Fuck, but I had needed that!

I let the hot water sluice over me as I thought of Angela and wished I could hold her as we had after that memory while the blood left the tissues of my cock to return to its journey through the rest of my body and the last of my spent semen beaded on the tip before dropping to the floor to join the rest of the little wrigglers looking for an egg to fertilize on the chilled tub floor there in the dark.

To my surprise, the kid had her notepad in hand and was not only reading Pavel but making notes. I considered telling her she could go back to the other but figured Pavel would most likely be more useful to her in the short run than Coren despite being a Coren fanboy myself.

I had already been weary just from having the kid around, not to mention the extra effort of conversating, cooking more for her than I did for myself, and then starting her on some physical training she seemed to have been sorely lacking. The usual post-orgasmic crash was just a tired cherry sitting on top and I fell into a doze that wasn't really sleeping but I wasn't really awake either.

Gradually, I became aware just what the movement of the bed and the sounds on the other side of it signified. Perhaps aided by the familiar smell of a sexually aroused pussy. I opened my eyes to the darkened room and just recalled it was the kid instead of Angela barely in time to stop myself from reaching out to help her.

Well, that was just plain awkward.

I laid there for a fulminating minute and tried to work out how to handle it without embarrassing both of us worse than I already was.

Finally, I determined the best course was to flee and abandon the bed to her until it was over, sat up and got up to take Bitty out and start thinking about supper. The sounds and movement stopped when I sat up and I felt even more embarrassed that she knew that I was aware what she was doing.

Then again, she was deaf. Maybe she didn't know she was grunting and groaning and making other noises such as the gentle creak of the bed, the slapping sound of her hand against her crotch, or the wet sucking sounds as I imagined she must have been driving her fingers up inside her to achieve there in the darkness.

Either way, I was embarrassed enough for both of us. And my own session in the shower was turning out to be for naught as the pheromones of her solo sex act assaulted my brain.

I stood outside longer than Bitty wanted to, but I needed the cold as the wind scudded across the drifted snow and brought my fever back under control.

Supper was a can of shredded chicken and boiled rice for both of us with the last of the peas and another vitamin pill for her and the second glass of water I insisted she drink whether she thought she was thirsty or not. Once again, it didn't escape her notice that her plate was piled a bit higher than mine.

"Why are you feeding me better than you eat?"

"Because I'm as grown as I will be," I signed back. "You're still developing since you are only fourteen."

"Eighteen!" She said aloud in that nasal voice before returning to sign language. "I'm eighteen. I turned eighteen the day before my last foster mother found my last foster father on top of me and drove me out of the house with a belt. She said because I was eighteen, she didn't have to let me stay there anymore and seduce her husband. Only I didn't. I didn't seduce him. I didn't want him. He was fat and disgusting and smelled like a sausage that had gone bad. But, he told me I had to let him for him to let me stay there since I wasn't good for anything else. Just like the last six or eight had told me that was all I was good for. All I would ever be good for."

I wasn't sure I had caught it all and gotten it right since her anger and frustration had given her fingers, hands, and arms extra snap and speed. But, I was afraid I had caught enough and was accurate enough in what I did glean that I damn sure didn't want her to repeat it. Much less, for God's sake, clarify.

"Sorry," I signed when she finally stopped. "I'm sorry for all that has happened to you. I can't do anything about the past. But, that won't happen here. Not with me."

"Why not? Am I not even good for that?"

"That's not it. I just believe sex should be something special, between two people who love each other. Or at least an expression of something deeper. It should never be forced. And it shouldn't be a coin to barter with. I can't control what other people do. I can only control myself. And I won't ask you to do those things, much less force myself on you. And I say you are fourteen because you look younger and also to remind myself not to be another guy like those in your past.

"And you are good for more," I went on. "You are smart. I've seen that. I think you are a good person. Or at least not any worse than most. Better than I am, much less how I would have turned out if I had your past. You just have to decide you want something enough to work twice as hard as the hearing people to be considered as good at it as they are.

"Marlee Matlin is not a good actress because she is deaf. She is a good actress, and good at most everything she does because she puts in the effort to be. And still, she is underutilized and unrecognized for the incredible woman, both personally and professionally, she is because everyone is too busy crediting her for overcoming her handicap when she does three times as much as those with no handicap at all. She is all right with that since it helps other deaf people, but I'm not.

"And you can be as much, do as much if only you believe and stop listening to people who say you can't and put in the study and effort," I wrapped up.

The girl sat and fiddled with that dog statue she had pulled out once she had stopped signing at me while I took two more bites of my food and carefully chewed and swallowed it.

"Told you, you would make a good father," she signed finally, almost making me choke.

"You aren't helping your case to make me stop calling you fourteen," I signed back at her. "Now, shut up and eat your peas. And don't forget your vitamin."

For some reason, that struck her as hilarious and she burst out into laughter that was about as nerve-wracking as it was endearing. Endearing because I didn't figure the poor kid had had much laughter in the life she had described thus far. Nerve-wracking because it was a little too loud and off pitch. And the harder I scowled at her, the harder she laughed until she was sitting, quietly shaking, with tears streaming down her red face.

Cheeky little shit.

All three of us retired to the bed for the evening after she had tended the dishes while I had my twentieth smoke of the day. Perhaps I had trouble falling asleep because I had rested too much that afternoon. Personally, I don't think it helped that she jilled off in the dark again until Bitty got up and left in a huff. Either the kid worked herself through at least three orgasms, or she seriously needed help finding her buttons. I was leaning towards the former based on the sounds she made and the strength of the pheromones drifting up from under the covers.

I laid there in the darkness and tried my damnedest to ignore it and tell my dick there was not a fucking thing in the world for him to get excited about.

Finally, she quieted long enough for me to drift into a dream and the waiting arms of the ghost of the woman I loved.

--Interlude the Third--

"She's hot for you."

"Angela!"

"Of course, she's hot for you, Aaron," Angela smiled and kissed my slack mouth. "Think about it. No woman is going to jill off lying next to a man she isn't interested in. And it makes sense from her point of view. You've given her more than any man ever has from what she's said and haven't accepted the one thing they demanded from her and made her feel is all she has to offer. She's off balance, confused, and more than a little horny."