Chrissy's Deception Pt. 01

Before she got the second drawer emptied, there was a knock on her door. Since it was a knock and not a pounding, Chrissy figured it was her sister. She decided it was better to be safe than sorry, though. "Who is it?" she asked.

"Chrissy, open this door," her sister growled back. Given the option of seeing Mike angry or Tracy angry, Chrissy wasn't completely sure which one she would choose, but at least she had seen her sister angry before and knew what to expect.

Chrissy opened the door slowly. "Well, move out of the way and let me in!" Tracy demanded. Chrissy moved back and let Tracy in. "So are you going to explain to me why I have a future brother-in-law pacing back and forth in my kitchen, acting like some caged tiger, mumbling about a woman named Mickey, who he is certain is hiding in my upstairs guest bedroom?" Tracy said, all in one breath.

Chrissy wanted to assure her sister that nothing was wrong, but at this point, there was no way anyone was going to believe that. So Chrissy did what she felt like doing most - she burst into tears.

"Oh, Tracy! What have I done?" Chrissy wailed. Then in a jumbled rush of words and tears, Chrissy told her sister the whole story. She told her how frustrated she was with her life in Chicago. Chrissy poured out how tired she was of trying to continue to believe that she was attractive when not a single one of her male friends ever thought of her as anything but "Dear Abby". Then she told her sister about her plans to have a baby. She blushed as she recounted meeting Mike in the airport, but Chrissy was determined to tell the truth. So Tracy got the truth - the whole truth. Chrissy told her about the motel room. She told her about dinner. And she told her about sneaking out this morning. Chrissy stopped short of any details about their love making, but she bared everything else.

Tracy sat in stunned silence. She was forced to look at Chrissy in a whole new light. Chrissy had never done anything impulsive, as far as Tracy knew. Knowing that, Tracy realized that this situation was too important to her sister to simply be shrugged off. And she wasn't about to let Chrissy run away from facing Mike - he was her future brother - in - law, for pete's sake. "Chrissy, you have to tell him. You can't let him go on wondering. You have to tell him the whole story."

"Tracy, I just can't. He'll hate me," Chrissy moaned.

"Chrissy, you have no choice. He's about to become a part of our family, and you can't expect for him to just to forget about what happened between the two of you. He's confused and hurt," Tracy reasoned.

Chrissy knew Tracy was right, but she wasn't looking forward to the next few minutes of her life. Tracy waited with her while she dried her eyes, then she hugged her and left, promising to send Mike upstairs in a few minutes. Chrissy sat on the bed and waited, wondering if this was how a prisoner felt waiting for the executioner.

Finally, Mike knocked on her door. "Come in," Chrissy called. Mike opened the door. His face was dark and angry, but at least he wasn't yelling at her. Chrissy repeated her offer, "Please, come in". Mike stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. He looked even bigger and more impressive in the confines of Chrissy's childhood bedroom. Chrissy screwed up her courage and continued, "Will you sit down and let me explain?"

Mike looked like he might explode at any moment. He opened his mouth, but suddenly snapped it shut. Instead, he nodded his head curtly and took a seat on the bed. It was Chrissy's turn to pace. She crossed in front of Mike for the third time, trying to find the words to tell him about her foolish plan, yet knowing that her story was going to make him feel used, no matter how she told it. And that was going to make him even angrier than he was right now.

As she turned to continue pacing, Mike's hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She turned to look at him in surprise. He growled, "Sit down. Talk."

Chrissy sighed and sat down beside Mike. "OK, here goes. I live a fairly simple life back in Chicago. I go to work, and I come home. I don't have much of a social life and I don't particularly want one. I don't date, I don't sleep around. But I guess you already figured that out. Anyway, I decided that I want to have a child. Since I have no prospect of romance in my life, I chose an alternative route. When I returned to Chicago after Christmas, I was planning on being artificially inseminated. But then I met you. You were so sweet and so stunningly handsome. And you were flirting with me. I decided that I would try to seduce you. That way, when my child asked, I would have the face of a real person and some information about his or her father to share with child. It seemed like the perfect plan. I would walk out of your life and we both would have had something that we wanted."

The words all came out in a breathless tumble. As she came to the crashing end of her story, Chrissy turned to peek at Mike's face. It couldn't have been more impassive if it had been carved out of stone. The silence in the room stretched on and on. Chrissy had nothing else that she could think of to add to her story, so she sat, waiting for Mike to dole out her punishment. When he turned to face her fully, she gritted her teeth in preparation to take whatever he dished out.

With a great deal of controlled fury in his voice, Mike began, "So you used me to get something you wanted. And you thought that I got what I wanted since we had sex?" Chrissy cringed at the word sex. She had thought of their union as the purest form of love making, but she wasn't going to point that out right now. Mike had asked her a question and he was waiting for her answer. Because her throat was tight from fear, she was only able to nod her head in response.

"Well, in that case," he continued, "I suppose that, since we are both holed up here at your sister's for the rest of the holiday, we need to have a plan. Tell you what - you sleep with me for the rest of the holiday, then we will go our separate ways. That way, I get my sex and you have a greater chance of getting pregnant. Then we can arrange it so that we never have to see each other again after this trip."

Chrissy was dumbfounded. Whatever she had been expecting, that wasn't it. She sat staring at Mike, her mouth hanging open and her eyes stretched wide. "Are you serious?" she finally stammered.

"Sure. Like I said, I still get my sex, and you have a greater chance of getting your baby. Of course, for your sister's sake, since she seems to have fairly high moral standards, we are going to have to act like we are doing this out of love rather than out of lust. But, given your little performance with me yesterday, I can tell that you are a pretty good actress. I'm sure you can pull it off, Mickey."

Chrissy was stunned and hurt, but her mind was working in overdrive. So it had been nothing more than sex to Mike. Nevertheless, he was offering her a chance to up her odds of getting pregnant. Of course, given how much she was attracted to him, she would have to make sure she didn't give him her heart in addition to her body, but she was fairly confident she could manage that. A little voice in the back of her head questioned that confidence, but Chrissy ignored the warning.

Finally, after weighing his proposition out as well as her muddled mind could manage at that moment, Chrissy whispered, "OK, you've got yourself a deal."

"So what's your real name, Ms. Stanton?" Mike snarled. At her shocked look, he shook his head and continued, "You gave me your ticket and it had your name on it. I knew you were lying, but I thought it was just good sense, not pure deception."

Chrissy's face paled at the venom in his voice. "My name is Christina, most people call me Chrissy. My middle name is Michelle, that's where I took Mickey from. And you apparently know my last name is Stanton."

Mike stood up and extended his hand to her, "Well, Chrissy, I guess we better go start deceiving our family." His voice was harsh and his grip was tight, but Chrissy was determined to make the best of this turn of events.

As they started down the steps, Mike was in front of Chrissy. Suddenly he turned and pulled her to him in a rough kiss. "That's just to make sure you look good and loved in front of our family," he snarled, as he pushed her away from him. Chrissy's feelings were bruised, but she wouldn't let him know how much she wished that the charade they were about to put on could be for real - that he didn't just want sex and that instead of just the next few days, they had the rest of their lives together.

When they entered the kitchen, Tracy and Mark were standing beside one another at the counter, chopping vegetables for the salad. They both looked up when Mike cleared his throat, "Chrissy and I have talked things through and have decided that, although we didn't start out under the best circumstances, we both want to continue this relationship. We don't mean to make you two uncomfortable, and if our interest in one another is out of line in your opinion, we will drive back into town and stay in a motel. You are both very important to us, and we care a great deal about not offending you," Mike said.

Tracy looked at Chrissy and raised her eyebrows, as though questioning if Chrissy really agreed with Mike's little speech or not. Chrissy nodded her head and walked into Mike's embrace when he opened his arms to her. Mark turned to Tracy, "I'm ok with it if you are, Honey. It's your house and I know that you have to worry about Sky as well. I'll go along with whatever you think is right."

Tracy narrowed her gaze as she studied Mike and Chrissy. "Mark's right. I do have to worry about Sky. Do you think you two can be discrete?" she asked pointedly.

Mike smiled, "If we take one step out of line, please let us know. As I said, you are both very important to us."

That seemed to settle the issue. For the rest of the evening, Mike seemed to keep a hand on Chrissy constantly. He took every opportunity to touch her - brushing her hair back from her face, rubbing her shoulder, holding her hand. Chrissy was completely thrown off balance by Mike's attentions. She hadn't expected affection from Mike. She alternated between reveling in it to fearing that he was merely doing it to torture her.

Fortunately, the rest of the family didn't seem to notice the tension between the two of them. That was completely due to Sky. As an only child, Sky was used to being the center of attention. She was also a tightly wound ball of never ending energy. That combination meant that there was no need for any else to work at making conversation, because Sky did all the talking. She was funny and sweet and had a real gift for storytelling. She managed to not only keep the rest of them entertained throughout the entire meal but she also managed to keep Chrissy and Mike out of the spotlight. When the meal was over, though, Sky excused herself and rushed off to call her friends.

After Sky's exit, without asking for Chrissy's permission, Mike turned sideways in his chair and then pulled her chair next to his. This allowed Mike to pull her in between his legs, while keeping her in her own chair. He seemed more than content as he snuggled her up to him, keeping his arm around her shoulders. Chrissy felt like she was going to crack from the tension in her body. She wanted to let down her guard and enjoy Mike, but she just couldn't trust him, could she?

Tracy served them all coffee after Mark cleared the table. The four of them sat together and began sharing stories and laughing about old times. Chrissy was fairly sure that she was putting on a good front, but her heart was in her throat. Several times, she caught Mike staring at her, looking at her as though she really was someone he cared about. He continued to hold her in the position that put her practically in his lap. She knew that it was all just part of the act, but she had to admit that, the longer she spent with him the more she wanted this act to become her reality.

Finally, Mike stood up and held out his hand for Chrissy, "It's time that we said good night. We've had a long day and neither one of us got much sleep last night." Chrissy's eyes widened at his blatant statement and her face turned painfully red. Again, Tracy just raised an eyebrow in question. Mark said good night and Mike practically pulled Chrissy out of the room.

"I don't think that kind of statement was what my sister had in mind as discrete," Chrissy muttered as she stumbled up the stairs after Mike.

"Well, Sky wasn't present, and I didn't think there was any need to pretend we aren't intimate in front of those two. It's not like they don't know what you did last night," Mike huffed.

Outside of her bedroom door, Chrissy stopped. "Look, since we have both had a long and difficult day, why don't we call it a night? We'll have plenty of opportunity to fulfill our deal later," Chrissy said quietly.

Mike looked at her as though he were going to argue, then he clamped his mouth shut. Instead, he pulled her to him and kissed her. Chrissy was expecting the same kind of punishing kiss that she had received earlier, but this one was different. This one was gentle, loving and full of promises that Chrissy longed to hold onto. Mike teased her lips open with his tongue and gently plundered her mouth. Chrissy moaned in pleasure. The sound seemed to snap something inside of Mike and suddenly he was pushing her away and striding down the hall to his own room.

Chrissy stood and watched him for a moment. She longed to go to him and experience again all that they had shared the night before. But Mike closed his door and she heard the lock click into place. Here she was on the outside and her heart was suddenly aching to be on the inside.

As soon as Mike locked his door, he stumbled to his bed. Never had he had a more trying day - and seeing as how he was a Marine, that was saying a lot! He couldn't believe that one woman could get so far under his skin. What was it with this particular woman? She wasn't a model, she didn't have the sophistication of the ladies he was used to, she wasn't even smart enough to pull off a good deception. But she had his heart in her hands, and he didn't like that. Damn, how was he going to get through the next few days?

When he had first laid eyes on her sister that afternoon, he had almost swallowed his teeth. He had seen the resemblance and was trying to figure out how to ask if Tracy knew Mickey. The he had looked up and seen his Mickey coming down the steps. All Mike had been able to think about was that he was being given a second chance at heaven. Then her convoluted story about using him to get pregnant had him remembering the regret he had felt when he had thought she was on the pill. Now he had tricked her into a charade that would allow him constant access to her and it was tearing him apart.

He hadn't meant to keep touching her all evening, but he couldn't seem to keep his hands off of her. He wanted her beside him, under him, with him, surrounding him - forever. He didn't want to think about how he was going to feel in a few days when this vacation was over. He just knew that he planned to make the most of the time he had left. So what was he doing sitting alone in his bedroom? Laughing at himself, he admitted that he did plan to make the most of the time he had left with Chrissy - just as soon as he got himself under control!

Mike was pretty sure he wouldn't get to sleep without some help that night, so he raided his future sister-in-law's medicine cabinet. She had some over the counter sleep aids. Mike swallowed the correct dosage and washed the pills down with a glass of water. Hopefully that was all he would need to help him sleep. He was in trouble if it wasn't, because he knew what he really needed to help him sleep was to crawl in bed with Mickey - hell, Chrissy - and he had already vowed to not do that tonight. He dropped on his bed and, after tossing and turning for a little while, he finally managed to fall asleep.

Chrissy wasn't so fortunate!