Lyric's Tale 03: A Maple Ferry Story

All characters involved in sexual situations are 18 or older, all are creations of mine and any resemblance to any people living or dead is purely coincidental.

-

Lyric's legs went out from under him as he read the first text from Darcy.

Evelyn couldn't get under his arms in time and he crumpled forward, landing on his knees, shoulders slouched with his head tipped forward.

Lyric stared at the glowing face of the phone.

Darcy 12:33 - Lyric, please ring me as soon as you can.

Darcy 12:44 - Lyric, I made a horrible mistake. Please call.

"Darcy says she made a horrible mistake. She wants me to call her." Lyric spoke softly, "Why am I suddenly so tired? My arms are cold."

"Lyric, your body is just catching up to your brain here, honey." Evelyn offered.

"Just in the ten minutes that I have been here, I have seen you go from terrified (sorry about that) to deeply, deeply sad. Now knowing that Darcy's messages from last night were misdirected, you're probably feeling some relief. You're going to feel that physically, not just emotionally."

"I guess," started Lyric, "I was so sure that I hadn't done anything bad. But I felt like I was in trouble. Losing my job, losing the Shack. That sucked! I was thinking that I was going to be stuck in Maple Ferry forever!"

"Honey, the Shack is one of your places. I know how much The Sugarshack means to you." Evelyn continued, "I also know how much you mean to the Shack. Darcy would be in trouble with most of Maple Ferry if she fired you."

Lyric smiled at her kindness, then stood back up and leaned back against the kitchen counter, looking at Evelyn.

Evelyn's wavy brown hair framed her face perfectly as she subconsciously pushed it off her face and tucked it behind her ears, all while keeping her clear blue eyes looking right at Lyric.

"So are you going to call her?" Evelyn asked?

"I guess I should. I kinda don't want to though." Lyric answered. "Now that I know that I was right, and didn't do anything wrong, I'm beginning to feel mad. I don't like being mad." Lyric stared down at his toes, willing to focus on anything to keep himself calm.

"That's normal, Lyric." Evelyn offered, "Someone you trust, and respect, did you wrong. It's OKAY to be angry. Just don't let being angry keep you from hearing what they have to say."

Lyric looked back up, staring at the two texts, his eyes boring holes through the face of the phone.

"Do you want me to be here when you call her, hon?" Evelyn asked.

"I don't know. I don't know what she's going to say. I don't know what I'm going to say." Lyric rambled on.

Strangely, Lyric had no issue reconciling the older female family friend persona that Evelyn was putting on now, with the horny, sweat drenched, cum-starved sex goddess he had witnessed through her bedroom window the night before.

In Lyric's mind, it was as if they were two different women. One, the woman who came calling for technology advice and to borrow sugar on baking days; the other, the multi-orgasmic muse of Lyric's fantasies and sketches.

Evelyn continued, "I don't have to say anything. I can just be here. You could put the call on speaker and I can just listen. I know Darcy. I think I know her pretty well. She wouldn't have sent those texts last night if she didn't believe it was important. Just like she wouldn't have reached out so quickly today if things hadn't changed." Evelyn provided.

"Okay," Lyric said quietly, "I'm calling her number now."

Lyric pushed the call icon under Darcy's name in her contact info, and then clicked the button that set the phone onto the speaker audio function and the sound of a phone ringing filled the kitchen.

The second ring had barely started before being interrupted by the sound of someone picking up the phone.

"Lyric!?! Is that you!?!" Darcy's normally staid and calm voice was clearly elevated by worry and haste.

"Hi Darcy," Lyric began; trying to sound positive, he still sounded like the human equivalent of a kicked puppy.

Evelyn turned her head and smiled behind her hand. "Teenage boys. No. Young men." she corrected as she thought to herself. So bad at hiding how they really feel. Wouldn't life be simpler if all men wore their hearts on their sleeves like most young ones did?

"Oh Lyric! Thank you for calling back so quickly. I owe you a huge apology," Darcy continued before being quickly cut-off by Lyric.

"Darcy, I need to tell you that you are on speaker, and that I am not alone." Lyric wasn't sure why he felt like he needed to tell Darcy this, but it felt right, "I am here with Evelyn Chambers. Evelyn won't say anything. She's here because she came over this morning to ask me to help with something, and she saw I wasn't in a good place. She's been really kind and supportive, and right now she's just going to listen."

"Okay. Are you sure? Some of what I can share with you is personal and might be embarrassing to others, not just to me." Darcy shared, "Hi Eve."

"Hi Darce," Evelyn responded, "I'm just going to sit and listen. You know I can keep my mouth shut. Nothing here is going beyond the three of us without permission. Lyric was a mess when I came over today." She turned away from the phone and nodded at Lyric.

"Darcy, for most.of the last twelve hours I have been either really sad or super scared, or both. For most of the last three minutes I have been trying hard not to let those feelings boil over into anger. I like you and I love my job. I think having Evelyn here will help me listen without saying something which we both might regret." Lyric was candid with Darcy, and she could tell he meant what he was saying.

This was a Lyric that neither Darcy nor Evelyn had seen much. A more direct, more confident, Lyric.

Evelyn, however, had only really ever seen Lyric as the teenage boy next-door who struggled to make eye contact with her. Something that she had enjoyed teasing him about to no-end over the years.

"I'm so sorry about how the last twelve hours have been for you, Lyric." Darcy began. "If I could rewind and take it all back I would. But I can't. What I can do is tell you how we got here."

She went on, "Last night just after close, I received a series of texts from Chelsea. The texts were explicit, shocking, and in the thread she accused you of sexual assault."

Evelyn gasped, and Lyric fumbled the phone, nearly dropping it, catching it on the second bounce off of his palm before it could hit the tile floor of the kitchen.

"What!?! Why!?! Why would she do that? That never happened, Darcy! We had a normal close shift! She left with her boyfriend Eric just before I locked up and started walking home..." Lyric began running through the events of the night before verbatim.

"Hold on a sec, Lyric, I'm not done." Darcy offered, "About forty minutes ago, Chelsea texted me and then we talked on the phone. She is mortified. She didn't send the texts. Her boyfriend sent them from her phone."

"What!?! Her boyfriend!?! Sent texts to you, from Chelsea's phone, accusing me of sexual assault!?!" Lyric was stunned. Looking across the kitchen at Evelyn Lyric saw a look of confusion and shock which must have mirrored his own.

"Why would he do that, Darcy? What's in it for him to get me fired, or arrested?" Lyric was lost now.

On normal days Lyric found people confusing, irrational and a little scary. This was SO FAR from a normal day.

"I don't know why, Lyric. Chelsea has some ideas, but those are hers to manage with Eric. Although, I have it on good authority that they are no longer girlfriend and boyfriend." Darcy said.

"Lyric," Darcy continued, "I am so, so sorry for hurting you, for causing you to be sad and afraid. I was working from information I thought to be true and was trying to help someone I thought had been used in a most horrible way. You and I were both used. I am sorry."

Evelyn's eyes had hardened as she looked at the phone, and then softened as she shifted her gaze up to Lyric. Lyric, who looked like he didn't know what to do next.

She could almost see his reptilian brain firing on all cylinders and trying to take over his response: fight, flight, freeze.

"Lyric honey," Evelyn started, "I know I said I wouldn't say anything, but I'm going to renege on that right now. Darcy, you're going to have to forgive me, but our young man here looks like he's just taken a hit to the head."

"Lyric," Evelyn went on, "Look at me, Lyric." His eyes transfixed on the phone broke their gaze and looked up to Evelyn, "Good. Eyes on me, Lyric. You did nothing wrong. The only people involved are you, Darcy, Chelsea and her boyfriend. All four of you know that you did nothing wrong."

"It's true!" Darcy's voice exclaimed through the phone speaker.

"I don't feel so good," Lyric said, "I think I'm going to be..."

Lyric whipped around quickly, leaning over the sink, and threw up.

"That's your body finally catching up to your brain, Lyric." Said Evelyn.

"Darcy, Lyric's going to have to call you back later. He won't be coming to work today. Are the rest of his shifts back on track for the rest of the week?"

There was an audible sob from the other side of the phone connection,"I am SO sorry, Lyric." Darcy apologized again. "I truly am. Yes, Eve, Lyric's shifts are all good to go for this week. Assuming, that is, that he still wants to work for me."

Lyric hadn't thought that far ahead. He wasn't sure what he wanted.

In that moment, as he looked at the contents of his stomach slowly filtering down and out of his parents' kitchen sink, Lyric was only present to his body.

He was flashing cold, and then hot, he had broken out into a thick and cloying sweat, making him feel clammy and unclean, even though he had showered only an hour ago.

"I don't know what I want." Lyric was brave enough to say.

"Darcy I will call you later today, and let you know about this week. I love working at the Shack, but the idea of going back there right now, the idea of seeing you, of seeing Chelsea..." Lyric drifted, "I don't know. I'll call you later."

"Okay, Lyric, you do"

*click*

Lyric disconnected the call. Cutting Darcy off mid sentence.

Looking back into the sink, Lyric turned on the warm water and switched on the garbage disposal, rinsing the rest of his puke down the drain and away.

Evelyn pulled a tea-towel off of the oven door and dampened it slightly with warm water from the tap using it to dab the sweat off of Lyric's brow.

Lyric took the cloth from her hands and turned the water up to hot before drenching the towel and then using it to wipe his whole face from forehead to chin. Wringing it dry, he wiped his face again before leaving the towel in the bottom of the sink.

Lyric took a deep breath, held it, and then let it out in a steady stream. Controlling his breathing was one of the ways that Lyric had taught himself to fight panic as he was growing up.

He took another deep, calming breath, holding it again before releasing it at a controlled pace.

Finally, looking up at Evelyn, Lyric said, "Thank you."

Evelyn scooped Lyric up in another hug and held him, as he put his arms around her and rested his head on her shoulder.

It was then that the sobs came.

Some strange melancholic mix of fear and relief, sadness and anger and shock all whacked together and the result was this young man ugly crying on her shoulder.

'What kind of fucked up person plays a practical joke like that on a person like Lyric?' Evelyn wondered to herself.

Out loud she said, "The texts Chelsea's boyfriend sent from her phone must have been damned convincing."

Lyric just held onto Evelyn more closely, the sobs ceasing after a minute, with him reverting to deep breathing interspersed with loud sniffles, before he finally pulled out of the hug and wiped his eyes with his hands, and his nose with his t-shirt covered shoulder, leaving a visible smear of snot.

"Oh kid. You're a hot mess." Evelyn went on. "Let's get you downstairs so you can get a shower and a fresh change of clothes." She turned Lyric around and marched him towards the basement stairs.

Lyric and Evelyn were halfway down the stairs before he noticed that his bedroom door was open, and the magnitude of how much worse his day was about to become began to dawn on him.

Over half of the scattered sketches and drawings in Lyric's apartment, including the fresh one he had scratched out last night and which still remained illuminated on his drawing table, featured Evelyn.

All of them nudes.

There was no explaining this away.

As evident in his drawings, he knew his subject matter too well for Evelyn to ever think that he was sketching from imagination.

Lyric froze, mid-step, causing Evelyn to bump into him heavily.

While this had the delightful knock-on effect of Evelyn mashing her beautiful breasts against his shoulders while wrapping her arms around him to keep both of them from falling down the stairs, it also meant that he had to think quickly about what he was going to say to keep Evelyn from coming into his room.

He turned around quickly on the step and, now staring straight at her chest, looked up before saying, "Wait. You needed help with something! Something about technical support? We should go do that!"

Lyric tried to start walking up the stairs, but Evelyn wasn't budging.

Placing one hand on each side of the stair railing, she looked down at Lyric and raised an eyebrow to precede her question.

"Really Lyric? You just puked in a sink, and you're wearing at least two additional body fluids on your shirt. You're not going anywhere until you get cleaned up." Evelyn took another step down the stairs, forcing Lyric to back peddle.

While taking a quick glance behind him to keep from falling, Lyric paused to see what was visible in his room from the bottom of the stairs.

His heart started hammering in his chest, time seemed to slow down to a crawl, as Evelyn advanced one more step down into the basement and one step closer to Lyric's ruin.

Lyric's cursory glimpse of the state of his door and room had shown remarkable insight into the housekeeping standards of an 18 year old male artist.

"Okay! Okay" Lyric started, "I'll get cleaned up, and changed." He stopped again, halting Evelyn's progress down the stairs.

"But you can't come in!" Lyric stated emphatically, with only a modicum of cracking voice.

A wry smile appeared on Evelyn's face, but she stopped coming down the stairs. "What are you afraid of, Lyric? Me seeing how messy your room is, or is it just having me all alone in your bedroom in general?"

"Uh, uh, uh," Lyric gapped a response, not sure which outcome scared him more, knowing that either eventuality was something he hadn't prepared for this morning.

"Or is it the sketches of all the naked ladies you have on your walls?" Evelyn doubled-down.

Lyric's eyes bugged out of his head, and his heart literally stopped.

His shock must have been apparent on his face, because Evelyn kept right on talking.

"Oh Lyric, do you think that your parents and I don't talk? We've been neighbours since before you started drawing, and it is one of the things your folks' are most proud of you for!" Evelyn went on.

"Frankly, I would like to see these for myself." she began to get pushy and proceeded as if to continue down the stairs.

"Not today, Evelyn," Lyric stated firmly.

Surprising both himself and Evelyn, Lyric locked one hand on each railing and took a step up the stairs.

He had been a passenger for too many of the last thirteen hours, and this was where he decided to make his stand.

"I am too ragged, too tired, too raw to share my unfinished works with you today, and I sure don't want your first look at my sketches to be while stepping over my dirty underpants and half-empty pizza boxes" Lyric painted the picture of the typical teenage male domescile.

"Tell you what. You go home. I'll be over in thirty minutes, and I'll bring some freshly brewed coffee and a sketchbook for you to enjoy while I figure out how to be your own personal version of Geek-Squad." Lyric took another step up towards Evelyn, his eyes now at the level of her chin, while never breaking contact with her baby blues.

Evelyn could tell that Lyric wouldn't be dissuaded, and when she made that discernment her eyes softened, and she raised one hand from the stair rail to cup Lyric's chin tenderly. "Okay Mister. Have it your way. But that's the first time someone has actively tried to keep me from their bedroom in a LONG time."

Lyric's face flared to bright pink with embarrassment and he stammered unintelligibly.

"Gotcha, kid." Evely said, as she turned around and sashayed up the stairs, clearly giving Lyric more than an eyeful of her well formed ass as it swung cheek to cheek, up the stairs.

Half-turning at the top to catch him looking, Evelyn tossed her head back with a belly laugh as she turned the corner into the kitchen.

Lyric waited until he heard the storm door slam shut at the front of the house before he turned back around and retreated to his apartment to shower and change, locking his door behind him.

-

Late summer was a wonderful time of year in Maple Ferry. Cool mornings gave way to warm days and crisp evenings. Perfect jeans and t-shirt weather, so long as one had the requisite hoody, cardigan, over-shirt or jacket to wear into later hours of the day.

This afternoon was no exception, being a Sunday, the river walk was well populated with the people of Maple Ferry out and about, catching as much sun as they could.

Kids were trying out homemade boats in the Mill Pond, partners and lovers strode up and down the path past the ruins of the Old Mill and its traces before coming into the boutiques and eateries of downtown Maple Ferry.

The Sugarshack was doing a roaring trade, with customers packing both the patio and the seats inside the Shack itself. Chelsea walked out the back door of the Shack thumbs-flying as she responded to several chat threads with her friends.

Mortified by what Eric had done to her, she had spent much of her last two hours at the Shack one-word responding to messages from her BFF Courtney.

Rodrigo and Tariq didn't know what had kept Chelsea from coming back from her break on time, but they could tell that something was wrong.

"Chelsea! There you are! You okay?" Tariq had shouted as he bagged up a toasted bagel and handed over a gigantic 20oz coffee to a customer.

"Yeah, girl, you sure took your time on that break. Thanks for coming back!" Rodrigo teased as he lined up another three iced lattes to be made on the espresso machine.

Chelsea had slid back into the barista role without a word, and just started slinging drinks until her shift was over, and mumbling, "See you guys," to the boys as she walked off the bar to change at the end of her shift.

Now, she was in la-la-land as she answered texts from Courtney, and tried to (unsuccessfully) delete the images from her text thread with Darcey. Chelsea wasn't looking forward to what she had to do next.

Continuing her walk down to the river, Chelsea sat down on a large piece of limestone which served as both retaining wall and bench overlooking the river right behind the Shack.

Opening the control centre of her phone she clicked the microphone and the record button, then she clicked the phone icon and the call button next to his image in her recent contacts folder.

She called Eric.

"Hey babe," Eric answered before being immediately cut-off by Chelsea.

"You sick, fuck! You sent our private lewd pictures to my BOSS!?!" Chelsea started

"Ah hahahahahaha, your boss is a chick, she won't care. What did stupid Lyric think!?! Did he enjoy being fired!?!" Eric was unbelievably smug.

"That's all you have to say for yourself? My boss is a woman, so it's okay for you to send pictures of me sucking your dick to her? What the fuck!?!" Chelsea tried not to draw too much attention from passers-by as she hissed her reply to Eric.