Mary and Alvin Ch. 26

“Show me the upstairs,” she whispered.

At the top of the stairs, Seth stepped into his bedroom, but Charlotte glanced into a room on the opposite side of the hall.

“What’s in here?” she asked.

“That’s my media room.”

“Media room?” Charlotte walked into the room. “Jeezum, that’s the biggest TV I ever saw,” she exclaimed, “It’s like a fucking movie screen.”

Two large recliners sat side by side facing the huge television. The other walls were lined with shelves of DVDs, video tapes and vinyl records. Charlotte squeezed past the chairs and flopped down into one of them.

“Oh, shit, this is comfy,” she said. “I might start coming over here every night to watch movies.”

“I think I’d like that,” Seth said as he sat down in the other chair. He picked up a remote control and the screen came to life.

“You think you’d like it?” Charlotte knelt in the chair and leaned across the armrests. With her face close to his, she asked, “What would it take to make you sure?”

Seth fumbled with the remote and loud rhythmic music filled the room. “What’s this?” Charlotte shouted over it.

Seth turned the music down. “The soundtrack to Black Panther.”

Charlotte nodded her head in time to the music and climbed over the arms of the chairs and straddled Seth’s lap. She draped her arms around his shoulders and began to sway her hips. When she pressed down she could feel him growing hard beneath her. He placed his hands on her thighs and she ground harder.

Seth closed his eyes and bit his lip.

“You ever have a lap dance before?” she asked.

“Well, um, once, uh, at this bachelor party...”

She leaned back and unbuttoned his shirt. She spread it open and ran her hands up and down his body. He was firm and taut. “I think I like that daily work out routine,” she said.

Seth caressed her breasts through her blouse. She took the hem and pulled it up over her head. Tossing it aside, she removed her bra, then leaned forward. Seth held her breasts, kissing and sucking them. She ran her fingers through his hair and wiggled against his crotch. She pushed her breasts against his face and shook them. He buried his face between them, then came up, gasping for breath.

Charlotte laughed and slipped down off his lap, kneeling between his legs. She roughly began to tug at the waist of his slacks, until he raised his ass from the chair and helped her slide them down. He was still wearing his shoes, so she pulled them off.

“I don’t fuck guys with their socks on,” she said, peeling them off his feet.

“Well, a girl has to have some standards,” Seth said.

“You can make jokes!” Charlotte laughed as she yanked his slacks from around his ankles. She scooted forward and took his cock in her hand.

“Let’s get a good look at this thing,” she said as she lowered her head toward it. She wrapped her lips around it sucked for a minute, then raised her head and looked at it. “Pretty nice,” she said, looking up at Seth and nodding.

“Glad you like it,” he muttered.

She returned to his cock, licking its length and twirling her tongue around the head. She moved down and took each of his balls in her mouth in turn. Seth gave out a long moan and grasped her head.

“Oh, you like that,” she said, and licked back up the shaft. She enveloped his cock again, and he began to rock his hips. She moaned in encouragement as he fucked her mouth. When she felt like he might be nearing a climax, she pulled back, sat on her heels and wiped her lips with her thumb. Seth was breathing hard.

“You best be holding on, bub,” she said, “I’m not through with you.” She stood up and stepped out of her pants and underwear.

“Wow,” Seth said, “you have a beautiful body.”

She thanked him as she climbed into the chair. She placed her knees on either side of him, took hold of his cock and slowly lowered herself down on it.

“Oh my god,” Seth moaned.

“Goddess, baby,” Charlotte laughed as she began to move, riding his cock slowly at first, but quickly increasing her tempo. Seth held her hips and rose to meet each motion. She lowered her breasts for him to kiss.

“You like those tits, don’t you?” she panted.

“I like all of it,” he replied. To her surprise, he pushed her back. She stood and he rose as well. He took her arm and guided her into the chair, where she kneeled and leaned against the back cushion. When she felt him kneel behind her and grab her hips, she arched her back. His cock slipped between the cheeks of her ass.

“Don’t be sneaking into the wrong hole,” she laughed.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, you will,” she said, “But only when I’m ready for it.”

“Jesus, Charlotte, I can’t believe you are for real.”

“Well, fuck me and see if you’re convinced.”

He pressed his cock into her pussy and began to fuck her, hard and fast. She hugged the chair and closed her eyes. In a few minutes, she started to babble, “Oh, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, yes, yes. Yes!” A surge of pleasure rolled over her. She made a squealing noise and pushed back, coming again.

“Oh, my god,” Seth wheezed, “I’m going to, I’m going to...”

Charlotte looked back over her shoulder. “Cum on my ass, baby,” she urged.

Seth pulled out of her. His cock slid between her cheeks. His hips bucked twice and spurted, his cum spattering across her lower back. She collapsed into the chair and he lowered himself on top of her. They took a minute to collect their breath, then she wriggled out from under him and they lay side by side, their arms and legs tangled together.

“That was really nice, Charlotte,” Seth panted.

“It was,” she said, nestling her head against his chest, “Better than I expected.”

“Really? You had low expectations?”

“Well, you seemed a little uptight, honey.”

“Just until I get to know somebody.”

“When was the last time you had a girlfriend?” Charlotte asked.

“Well, I mean, I have dated a few women, but since my divorce...”

“Wait. You were married?”

“Yeah. Sadie. We started going out in college, got married right after graduation.”

“So what happened?”

“She left me for this guy, Felix.”

“Your wife left you for a guy named Felix?”

“It’s not funny.”

“No, I know it’s not, but still...Felix?”

“Turned out, she was fooling around with him the whole time, even before we got married.”

“Whoa, that sucks.”

“Yeah, what about you?”

“Well, I’m not fucking Felix, so don’t worry about that. I was seeing this guy Scott, but he was an asshole. Hung like a fucking racehorse, but an asshole.”

Seth chuckled nervously.

“Don’t worry, you measure up fine,” Charlotte said. “Before that was Jake. That was pretty serious. He played hockey for the Pirates, but he got cut and went to try out for some pissant league in North Dakota. So that was that. Before him, well, I have dated a lot of guys.”

Seth was quiet for a minute, then asked, “I know it’s not really my business, but, um, do you have sex with everyone you date?”

Charlotte laughed. “Here’s my thought on that. Why would I date somebody I didn’t want to fuck?”

She sat up and leaned over to pick up her blouse from the other chair. “I’m going to get ready to go,” she said.

“Oh. I thought you might stay.”

“I don’t like to sleep over until, you know, things are serious. It’s just a thing with me, don’t take it personal.”

“Oh, okay, but you have to come back to watch some movies.”

“Of course I will,” she said, leaning down and kissing him on the nose, “I really like you.”

Looking back later on that first night, Charlotte realized that it was not merely a question of liking Seth. In hindsight she realized that when he had tucked the orchid in her hair, she had fallen in love.

***

The second night of terror was worse than the first. When the initial panic began to subside, Charlotte rolled into a fetal position. She laid there for several minutes, sobbing and clutching her stomach. She was nauseous, and thought that she ought to take the precaution of moving to the bathroom, but she felt frozen in place. God, she thought, Julia would probably rescind her offer in a heartbeat if she saw me like this.

She had carefully rehearsed presenting Julia’s offer to Seth. And yet it had gone so badly.

She sat at one end of his couch with her legs curled under her, while he sat at the far end and listened. She expected him to respond with some suggestion as to how their relationship could work long distance, or by presenting a case as to why the whole thing was a bad idea, or even with an outburst of anger. She had not anticipated his silence.

He leaned forward when she finished speaking, his elbows on his knees, his head hanging low.

“Talk to me, Seth.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me what you think.”

“I think you’ve already made up your mind, and it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“It does matter, Seth, I want to figure out how this works out for both of us.”

He finally sat up and looked at her. His eyes were wet with tears. “You want to know how it works out for us if you move eight hundred miles away?”

“Lots of people make long distance relationships work, Seth.”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “but that takes commitment. More commitment that I think you’ll make. No wait, that’s not fair. More commitment than either of us will make.”

“We’ve been going out for four years.”

“Yes, going out. We have not moved in together. We haven’t even talked about...about making it permanent. Obviously, that’s not what either of us want.”

“I don’t think that true, Seth. I just think we got comfortable with the way things are, and inertia took over.”

Seth looked at the ceiling and did not speak for several minutes. When he did speak, there was an edge of anger in his voice. “We broke up twice, Charlotte. That should have told us something.”

“I never saw it as breaking up, I just thought we were, I don’t know, on vacation from each other for a while.”

“How many guys did you fuck on your vacations?”

“Seth, you don’t need to go there.”

“But it’s relevant. Should I think that you’ll go to Pittsburgh and not hook up with someone there, even while we are still supposedly a couple?”

Charlotte stood up. “Okay, I don’t need this shit. I came here to talk to you because I love you, and I wanted to figure out how we could stay together. But I guess you’re right. There’s plenty of dick in Pittsburgh.”

She picked up her purse and crossed the room to the front door. With each step she expected to hear his voice, calling her back, but there was only silence. She gripped the doorknob. Count ten, she told herself, give him one more chance to say something. Ten came and went, and then twenty. She turned the knob and walked out the door. She was crying by the time she got to her car. Sitting behind the wheel, she hesitated to start the engine. Wait, she thought, he will come out. When he did not, she started the car and drove home. She went straight to bed as soon as she arrived. As she laid there crying and waiting for sleep to come, she knew that in a few hours, she would awake in terror again.

When she was finally calm enough to get up, she went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She took a sleeve of Ritz crackers from the cupboard and sat at the table. The water and crackers settled her stomach.

She considered calling Seth, but the timer on the microwave read 3:50. Seth is a secondary problem right now anyway, she thought. The first thing I have to deal with is this waking up screaming bullshit. Because that’s not really about Seth, it’s about moving to Pittsburgh. The night terror comes when I face big changes, and this is a huge one. How did I deal with them before? The answer came to her as soon as she formulated the question. She needed reassurance that she would be okay no matter how much things changed, that she was strong enough to deal with it and that she would always have support to fall back on when she needed it. Her eyes grew damp when she admitted that what she needed was her father.

She quickly cleaned her teeth, ran a brush through her hair and threw on some clothes. Her “go bag”, kept for the last minute trips the firm would send her on to Bangor or Augusta, was in the hall closet. She pulled it down off the shelf and stuffed a few more items of clothing inside.

The city was eerily silent when she stepped out on to the street. As she walked the half block to her car she thought about how much she would miss her neighborhood, with its tree lined streets and converted Victorian mansions. I guess that means my mind is made up to go, she realized.

She stopped at the 7-11 on Congress Street to top off her tank and buy a large coffee. She cut through Deering Oaks Park on her way to the Interstate, and remembered all the times she and Seth had walked there. Goddamn him, she thought. She took a sip of her coffee. It was awful. But nothing else was open, so it would have to do until she got to the Gardiner toll plaza. There was a Starbucks there.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when she reached the outskirts of Londonderry. Just at the edge of town they were building a Dollar General store. Those damn things are popping up everywhere, she muttered to herself, not a surprise they’d put one here. There was a new KFC as well, and from what she’d heard, it was all the rage. I guess it only seems like it never changes, she thought as she drove into town. It startled her to realize that it had been a decade since she had driven off to Portland to attend Southern Maine. So why did she feel that she would miss this little town so much? Hell, she couldn’t stand living here. They had one movie theater, and it showed the new films a month after they opened in Portland. If you wanted a cup of coffee in the morning, your choices were Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds or that greasy spoon on Main Street that her father loved.

She slowed down as she passed the cemetery. Perhaps I ought to go in and see Mom, she thought, but no, she needed her father today. She would come and talk to her mother before she left.

The school and the post office and the courthouse all looked the same as they always had. Some of the signs on the stores had changed. She noticed that Mary’s friend had opened her bakery in the old shoe store. When she reached the waterfront she stopped. Faulkner’s Wharf was right in front of her. A memory came to her, of playing there when she was a little girl, with Jennifer and her cousin Andy. They made a game of running down the boat ramp, touching their feet into the water, then racing back up again. On one turn, when she pulled her foot from the water, a long strand of sea weed clung to it. It scared her and she screamed. It seemed like her father appeared magically, in an instant, wrapping her in his arms and telling her there was no reason to be frightened, it was just grass that grew underwater.

She sniffled and wiped her nose. Goddamn nostalgia fucks with your head, she thought. It traps you in the past. She turned and headed out toward the farm.

The sun had illuminated the fields as she turned into the driveway, but it was still dark in the shadows of the buildings. She saw movement near the alpaca barn and stopped before she reached the dooryard. As she got out of the car, she saw Jennifer and a tall black man walking toward her. Fang trotted along beside them, stopping every few paces to sniff the ground.

“Charlotte?” Jennifer called in surprise as she approached.

“Hey, babygirl,” Charlotte waved. As her sister grew nearer, she could see that she was wearing a leather apron, smeared with blood.

“What the hell happened?” she asked.

Jennifer looked down at herself, then smiled at her sister. “We just birthed a baby packy. Oh,” she gestured to the man beside her, “This is my new hand, Yusef. Yusef, this is my sister, Charlotte.”

Yusef held out his hand and Charlotte shook it. “Nice to meet you, Miss Charlotte,” he said.

Jennifer reached to hug her sister, but Charlotte stepped back. “No offense, honey, but you reek.”

Charlotte laughed. “Yeah, guess I do.” She turned to Yusef. “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep. Come back when you’re rested.”

Yusef gave a slight bow, said goodbye and started across the field. “Him and his wife live down at the Perkins place, in the apartment they made from their old stable. Jamilla is making yarn for me.”

“I hope you’re paying them well.”

“Don’t get all socialist on me, of course I pay them well. Even though Yusef refuses to help with the pigs.”

“You’ve got pigs now?”

“Yeah, me and Dad are going to build a smokehouse this winter. Now, what the fuck are you doing here at six o’clock in the morning?”

They walked over to the old house and sat down on the porch steps as Charlotte explained about Julia’s offer and the situation with Seth and the return of her night terror.

“Jeezum,” Jennifer said, “I remember after Mom died and you’d wake up yelling and shit. I would try to comfort you, but it only made it worse. You fucking gave me a bloody lip once.”

The door creaked open behind them and they turned to see Mary stepping out of the house, still in her pajamas and robe.

“Charlotte?” she asked, “Is everything alright?”

“Well, yeah, but no. I came up to talk to my Dad.”

“He’s still sleeping. Do you want me to get him up?”

“No, I guess I can wait.”

“What’s that smell?” Mary asked.

“That’s her,” Charlotte said.

“It’s alpaca placenta,” Jennifer laughed. “I was thinking about marketing it, but it doesn’t seem popular.”

“Oh, Henrietta had her baby?”

“Yep. A male.”

“Did you name him yet?”

“Nope. Any ideas?”

“Name him Felix,” Charlotte suggested.

“Sure, Why not.”

“Isn’t Felix cat in Latin?” Mary asked.

“What’s Latin for alpaca?” Jennifer asked.

“Alpaca, I guess,” Mary shrugged.

“The Romans didn’t know anything about alpacas,” Charlotte said, “and felix means happy.”

“They didn’t know anything about tomatoes either,” Jennifer mused. “What the fuck did Italians eat before Columbus?”

Mary nudged her in the back with her toe. “Jennifer, go take a shower, honey.”

“Okay, Mom,” Jennifer said, getting up and heading to her house.

“I promised your grandfather I wouldn’t let you guys call me that,” Mary said as she sat down next to Charlotte.

“I know,” Charlotte nodded. She wondered if anyone would visit her grandfather regularly when she was gone.

Mary took Charlotte’s hand. “You want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I got a job offer that is just way to good to turn down. Full partnership in a new firm specializing in women’s issues.”

“That’s great!”

Charlotte frowned and shook her head. “It’s out of state. Pittsburgh.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s a problem. What does Seth think?”

“He thinks if I go to Pittsburgh, I’ll have a new boyfriend after the first weekend.”

“Has he considered going with you?”

“Mary, he’s all set up to be city planner in a couple of years when his boss retires. It would set his career back years to go somewhere else.”

They sat in silence, holding hands and watching as Jennifer’s chickens began roaming the yard looking for their breakfast.

“Mary, did my Dad ever tell you that after my Mom died, I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic.”

“Yes, he did.”

There was a long pause, then Charlotte said, “It’s happening again.”

“It’s anxiety, I suppose.”

“You moved all the way across the country. How did you handle all that change?”

Mary thought for a minute. “It was not easy, but I knew it was the right thing to do.”

“You adjusted awfully fast.”

“Well, I wonder though. If I had not met your Dad, would I have stayed or would I have got back to L.A. after a while? But I stayed and I have a wonderful family here, and now my own business.”

“So I guess you really don’t know if it’s right until after you’ve done it.”

“Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, honey.” Mary saw tears in Charlotte’s eyes. She wrapped her arm around her shoulder.