Gathering Fallen Rocks Ch. 06

"Gail, oh Baby, don't do that. God, Baby, I'm trying to behave myself."

"Um-m-m," she responded sleepily, "I was dreaming. I could feel your hands."

Rolling her over, he was on top of her, resting his hardness against her heat. "See what you do to me." He moved against her. He was hard, so hard he hurt. He started kissing her and increased his exploration of her mouth when she responded, putting her arms around him, rubbing her hands up and down his back, reaching down as far as she could, pushing him tighter against her and lifting her hips.

She moved her hips up and down rubbing against him and mumbled, "Feels good."

He put his hand down between them, slipped his hand down inside her underwear, slid his finger between her labia and began to stimulate her, going around and around in a circle, as her breathing grew faster and faster. "Oh lord, you are so wet."

Suddenly he stopped, got off the bed, and walked across the room. Angrily, he jerked the top and bottom metal bars out of the door facing, opened the door, and escaped outside into the early morning light, taking deep breaths, bending over with his hands on his knees. When he turned around Gail was standing in the doorway, looking at him.

"I'm sorry, Howard," there were tears in her voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't know I was ... I'm sorry." She turned and went back inside walking to the bed, bending over to pick up her jeans and sat on the side of the bed.

Howard followed her into the house. Almost afraid to get too near her, he sat down at the table, put his elbows on the table, and buried his head in his hands, groaning. He looked up when he heard her in the kitchen opening the window shutter and pulling the can of coffee out of the cabinet.

"Gail..."

She shook her head and finished filling the coffee pot, then put it on the fire but would not turn around and look at him. She was wearing an old thin man's undershirt and panties. When she reached up for the can of coffee, he could see a faint line of skin above her low cut underwear. He shook his head and smiled, wondering if she always wore tiny white bikini panties with little pink flowers, or did she change colors.

Howard stood and moved nearer to her, "Baby, I'm sorry. I woke up. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew I had this warm delicious woman in my bed and I wanted her. Oh lord, I wanted you. I still do."

Still, she would not turn around and look at him. Knowing it was absolutely the wrong thing for him to do, but unable to stop himself, he walked the remaining few feet and put his arms around her. Pulling her back to his chest, and wrapping his arms around her, he was kissing her on the shoulder and working his way up to the soft spot beneath her ear.

In a trembling voice, Gail told him, "I don't know a lot about ... Ricky didn't touch ... he'd drink, and then he just wanted to, I guess the proper word is intercourse, but I thought of it as a much uglier word, then he would go to sleep." She paused a moment, sniffed and then continued, "I ... I used to avoid him. I'd stay up late and try to be so still when I went to bed, so he wouldn't wake up. He wasn't gentle or stuff, he was rough and he hurt me, not bad, just a little painful." She shuddered and took a deep breath. "He, ah ... he complained because I was too dry. Sometimes, he was so fast, he wouldn't get it in but just a minute, and then he'd say I wasn't sexy enough to give a man a decent hard on. I thought something was wrong with me."

Howard whispered in her ear, "Well, I've got news for him, you are not dry. My shorts are still wet from just touching you. And you can feel that the rest of his excuses were a bunch of bunk, too."

"Gary didn't ... he wouldn't ... he kept his clothes on ... his zipper scratched and it hurt, so I pushed him off and got up."

"Oh my, and I'm Mister Eveready. Doctor Jackson said we have to wait, and I don't want to. You kiss me like a mad woman and I think it's an invitation. I get anywhere near you and I'm so hard I hurt from wanting you. I'm not much better, am I?"

Gail turned around and Howard dropped his arms, looking down at her. The thin, lightly ribbed, material of the undershirt didn't disguise the soft roundness of her breasts. If anything, the fabric of the shirt enhanced her shape. Her nipples were hard and pushing against the soft fabric. Seeing where his attention was drawn to, she quickly folded her arms across her chest to hide herself from his view and started to turn around.

He caught her shoulder, stopped her from moving, and gently reached out to take her arms down, "Don't hide from me, Baby, please. I can't do much else, but I can admire your beauty."

"They're not, though." She held her arms out wide and said, "See, that's not beauty, there's nothing there, just two little bumps. That's what Melissa ... ah ... my mother called them. When I was in junior high school, she wouldn't even buy me a bra. She said I didn't have anything to put in one."

Slowly, watching her face, he put his hands out, placing them over her breasts. "There is more than enough to fill my hands." He bent forward and removed one hand, opened him mouth, closed it over one breast barely covered by the thin fabric, while he put his hand behind her and pulled her forward as he moved his tongue across the hard nipple. He heard Gail catch her breath and let out a soft groan, then stiffen her body when he sucked on the nipple.

She pleaded with him, "Please ... oh please, don't bite me." Putting her hands on each side of his face, she tried to push him away. "... please don't bite me ... it hurts, if you use your teeth."

Howard raised his head, stood up straight, dropped his arms, and looked her in the eyes, "If I knew where to find the bastard, I'd kill him."

He turned, walked across the room to the metal cot where he began the night, pulled his jeans on and jerked open a drawer in the small chest to pull out a pair of clean socks. He pulled the socks over his feet, not caring if they are straight or not and grabbed his shirt, pulling it on as he stomped his feet into his boots. He was out the door seconds later, saying nothing to Gail who stood beside the stove with the coffee pot boiling behind her. Only when she heard it boiling over and hissing in the fire did she shake herself out of the trance.

Howard slammed his feet into the ground as he walked. He cursed himself for a fool, and called another man so many despicable names he knew his mother would have given him the tongue--lashing of his life for saying them. Halfway to the small partially fenced area where the horses came for water, Howard put his hand in his pocket and realized he still had Gail's keys.

Turning around, he went back to the house, walked inside and stopped. Gail was sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her and she was looking down at her hands, in her lap. She looked up at Howard, smiled, and asked, "Would you like me to fix you a cup of coffee?"

"No, keep your seat. I'll get it." He poured a cup of coffee and stood leaning against the kitchen counter. "Sweetheart, maybe you can tell me what it is. I look at you and I see a quiet person, so self--contained that I believe you have the confidence of a woman much older than I know you are. Then something happens and it's like you are a child, so frightened you can't even sleep alone without falling to pieces."

He walked over to the table and sat down across from her. "When we were outside last night, you kissed me like no woman has ever done before. I was drowning in the passion coming from you. The next minute you're on your feet telling me you are a virgin, or very nearly so."

Howard leaned back in his chair and looked at her, she hadn't taken her eyes off him, and she had not said a word. "You stomp into the house and start ordering me around like some Amazon. Minutes later some stranger, probably just looking for something to eat, pounds on the door and you are screaming with fright."

He picked up his cup and took a sip of coffee, then swallowed more. "Early this morning you are rubbing against me and telling me you want me. Maybe not in so many words, but the message was clear. I touch you, that's right, I just barely touch you and it's like a flood, how wet you are. Then you tell me some asshole, with a severe case of premature ejaculation blames you for his problems. You walk around here dressed like that and I'm burning to touch you. When I tell you, what seeing you like that does to me, you turn my admiration into an insult and try to hide from me. So, I try to show you, the only way I know how, and you think I'm going to torture you."

He took another swallow of his coffee and still she said nothing. He stood and walked around the table and dropped to his knees, put his head in her lap, and wrapped his arms around her. "Oh Baby, tell me what I have to do to convince you that I'm not those other men. I'm just me. I want you so much, I'm considering telling Santos he can have the whole damn thing and I'll follow you wherever you want to go. If it frightens you to be here, I'll take you somewhere else. If you want some revenge against those men, I'll tie them up and hold the bastards still and you can do whatever you want."

Slowly, almost tentatively, Gail began to thread her fingers through his short hair. He did not move when she started to speak. "I can always tell when you're angry at me. You call me Gail. The rest of the time, you call me Sweetheart. And when you call me Baby, it's for a different reason. I can't remember anyone ever calling me anything but Gail, except for your Aunt Jean. She calls me Honey, just like she does you. I wonder why it is so easy for your whole family to treat me with so much love and my family just didn't seem to care, or thought I was in the way of their career or interfering with them looking for their next fucking partner. That's all it was, just another partner to take to bed."

"Ah, so love--birds have no fear when I give the warning," a voice from the doorway teased and was followed by laughter, jerking Gail and Howard out of their moment of intimacy.

Santos Aguirre stepped inside and waved a small stack of envelopes. He walked to stand beside Gail and placed one envelope down on the table.

"Mrs. Pleas, does your new husband know of the many lovers of your mother?"

Another envelope, was placed on the table, as Santos taunted her, "What a poor choice you make for the first husband, yes? Maybe this Howard cannot give you the baby. You permit Santos to give you the baby, huh?"

He leaned a little nearer and lowered his voice, "The virgin sister of this Howard enjoyed Santos as her lover."

His voice grew louder when he declared, "There is much sorrow I have for the death of my son by her hand."

With force, he slammed the remaining envelopes on the table and told Gail, "Nothing of you is hidden from me."

Then he walked across the room, stopping at the door. "Howard, the brothers and the families, is to warn, the last I send to you." He rattled off additional sentences in Spanish and laughed as he went to his shiny black vehicle.

Howard was trying to stand and had to bear Gail's weight also, because she had her arms around his neck, whispering in his ear, "No, oh no, please. Not this way." And then she was kissing him, stopping to say, "Hold me" kissing and pleading, "Kiss me, Howard," begging and demanding, "Kiss me, Howard," until he did, the world around them fading as he backed her to the bed, falling and rolling over, with her above him, his hands on her breasts and her mouth moving across his.

When she raised her head and smiled at him, he grinned back at her, his breathing heavy, "My lord, woman, you would try the will of a saint."

"You already knew about Marie, didn't you?" Gail asked as she tried to take in deep breaths of air. "How did you know?"

Howard nodded, as he pulled up Gail's undershirt, rolled her over, and began to suck on one breast before moving to the other, and finally pulling the undershirt over her head so he could have access to every inch of her. Holding her arms out to the side, kissing down her stomach, to the very edge of the elastic of her underwear and then to her hipbones and back up to her breasts, he mumbled, "God, you taste good. How the hell am I going to wait another day, and then another, until Doctor Jackson said I can make love to you?"

Using his lips and teeth, softly biting her, he nipped the soft skin at her waist and then the skin on her ribs and felt Gail twitch from the tickling sensation, so he did it again until she was squirming under him and laughing, and he was too.

She laughed and tried to wiggle away from him until he pulled her closer, "Stay here, I can't do much more, but at least I can touch and taste you."

Gail cleared her throat, "Ah, pardon me sir, but I seem to have misplaced my clothes. Can you assist me, please?"

"No, I'm not sure I can." Howard answered, trying not to laugh at her ability to put a little humor into their half--hearted wrestling match. "In fact, I think I'll hide everything you own, so I can watch you, all day long, wearing nothing but these tiny little scraps that hide something I very much want to explore."

Trying not to sound too serious, Gail admitted, "I looked one time." A furious blush moved up her face. "After I watched Carol Ann's tape, I got my mirror and looked to make sure I had all the right parts. I didn't know why they don't work right, so I looked."

"Is that when you experimented?" Howard tried to keep his voice from being too rough. He brushed his fingers lightly across first one pink cheek, and then the other.

"Yeah, and I saw little spots of water on the mirror. That's when I decided it wasn't me it was them. I was trying to tell you, but I didn't know how. I didn't know what words to use. Except, I guess the medical ones, or vulgar ones. When I ... when you kiss me ... I feel wet, I never did before. That's what I meant, I didn't understand."

Howard stood, picked up her undershirt, and held out his hand, "Come on, Sweetheart, I have to check my cows."

When Gail stood, he looked at her, smiled, and pulled the undershirt over her head, saying it was a shame to cover her up. He even picked up the jeans she had put across the back of the kitchen chair when she made the coffee. He reached into his pocket and pulled out her keys, holding them out to her.

Gail shook her head, "No, Doctor Jackson said I wasn't really supposed to drive for a couple of weeks. I was just mad last night that you didn't believe me."

"Alright, let me go check my cows, then I'll take you to town and you can report your cell phone as stolen. Would you like to see if Frank and Melanie are interested in sharing some pizza? We could spend the night in my room above their garage. Or I'll take you to Aunt Jean if you don't trust me in the same bed with you."

"Okay, I like pizza. Howard, I trust you. I may not trust myself, but I trust you. I forgot about the cell phone. Yeah, I need to do that."

Knowing Santos had read her letters, she feared he might have mixed them up in the envelopes or written on them or might even have destroyed them. Gail opened each letter and became engrossed in what she had written over the few weeks before she moved out of her apartment.

********

Carol Ann,

I suppose I should not be surprised, after all, aren't you the one who believes she could find a man she wanted to keep by compiling a list of The Best 100 Men I've Fucked. You may be blonde, but you can't possibly be that dumb.

With all the men out there, why did you have to paint a target on Gary? Was it just to prove you could take him away from me? Had I known you wanted him, I would have wrapped him in ribbon and sent him to you. He talked about you all the time, anyway.

By the way, I still have your VCR tape. I even watched it a second time. Maybe you should order another, and be sure to check the CD box this time, unless you want to take it on your next date and hope the guy has his own VCR. I should have had something like that before I got married. I might have been a little smarter or made a better choice. I wish you would use it in that spirit, instead of starting on your second one hundred men.

There is no simple way to say this, but I thought you were my friend and now I regret telling you so much about my parents and my marriage. I just hope it went through your air head and did not lodge somewhere to be recalled at an inopportune time and break your concentration while you are testing your newly learned skills.

I have one request of you, if it's not too much trouble. Please, just forget me and I'll do the same for you.

Gail

********

"Hey, Howard," Frank stuck his head out the door while Howard and Gail were getting out of Gail's truck after Howard drove into the back yard. "I thought you were taking the week--end off. Come on in, Gail."

As they stepped up onto the small back porch, Howard told his brother, "She needs to use your phone, while you two change clothes. Let's go get a pizza, my treat."

"Good deal, I'll buy the beer."

Howard and Frank stood talking in the kitchen, while Gail used the telephone, trying to be patient as she was transferred from one person to another, repeatedly asked for her password, while she tried to report her telephone had been stolen. Some one at the cellular telephone company made her wait a long time, while they checked on her payment record before they finally decided they would honor the insurance policy and send her a replacement.

Gail waited additional minutes to convince someone else that she was on vacation and needed the telephone sent to a different address. Then Gail had to give Frank's name as the resident at that address and wait, while they checked that out. She wanted a three--month history of her phone calls mailed to the same address, so she could reconstitute her telephone book and had to talk to several more people to get them to understand that request.

By the time she could finally hang up the telephone, rubbing her numb ear, Melanie and Frank were dressed. As everyone walked out the back door, Gail told Frank to sit up front with Howard as she started to raise the middle seat from the floorboard. Howard stopped her, reminding her not to strain. When she and Melanie could finally sit down, Frank turned around and teased Gail about being his new sister--in--law.

"What are you talking about, Frank?" Gail asked.

"George Hernandez," Frank looked at Howard. "You know him, don't you, at the newspaper?" Frank turned back to Gail, "He called this morning. He said he'd heard Howard got married and he wanted to put your wedding announcement in the paper."

Howard leaned to one side and looked in the rear view mirror, watching Gail turn slightly pale, and asked, "What did you tell him?"

"Damn Howard, what could I say? I just said it was old news and not worth printing. Santos was in the Short Stop before daylight." As Frank continued, Melanie whispered that the Short Stop was the name of the store where Frank worked. "He was telling me some trash about something happening out at the ranch and he was going to take Gail, just like he did Marie, and leave you and me in the brush like two other brothers."

"I told you about that, Frank."

"Yeah, but I'm just now putting two and two together. I didn't hear about those bodies until I watched the news about half an hour before you'll got here. And that's the first time I ever heard he was the one who raped Marie."

Howard shook his head, "It wasn't rape, Frank. It was consensual, she told me about it. She didn't want Mom and Dad to find out, but it wasn't rape."

Frank almost yelled at his brother, "Hell, Howard what was she thinking, they say he's got a wife in Mexico. They said it then and they still say it. What did she think? That he'd let her be his wife on this side and take her to live at his ranch? What was she doing, giving it away?"