Mouse Bk. 05 Ch. 03

<8 Distance

Melanie hadn't seen or talked to Michael in three weeks. She hadn't expected anything different, and she only had herself to blame. If she'd destroyed her relationship with him, it was her own foolish, childish fault.

She and Dan weren't talking either, right now, the result of another of many recent arguments. Melanie started them all, which was foolish, because it had been Melanie that had cheated on Dan, not the other way.

She hadn't had a drink in three weeks, either.

Melanie was tense. She felt like a terrorist, waiting for her turn to explode in a crowd. She knew she had to give Michael space, but it was getting to be too much. It preyed on her. She had to find a way to talk to him.

She'd tried to call a few times, but he wouldn't answer. She even tried to trick him once, using the phone from the bar where Kate worked, so he wouldn't recognize the number.

He'd hung up on her as soon as he'd heard her voice.

Melanie considered calling Mouse, but that frightened her, too. She hadn't talked to Mouse since that night, either.

She wondered what Michael had told her, if he had told her anything.

Everything was a mess.

* * *

She'd taken to carrying the list with her. She pulled it out again, and grabbed a pen.

     Tried, and failed, to seduce a strange, young woman.

     Cheated on husband.

     Made brother cheat on his lover.

     Raped a man.

     Committed incest.

     Raped my brother.

     Loved it

She considered it all for the umpteenth time.

She put a check mark next to number 2, then crossed the whole line out. That had nothing to do with anything. She loved Dan, but more importantly, this didn't have anything to do with him.

She crossed out number 1 and number 3. They had nothing to do with it, either.

Same with number 4. A thick black line went through it.

That left only three on the list. She crossed out the word "raped," but left the rest of the line. She underlined the word "committed," twice, then crossed that word out, too.

Incest. Brother. Loved it.

She folded the list up more tightly than necessary and buried the scrap of paper in her purse.

* * *

"How did you quit before?"

Mouse made certain that her tone was soft, but she couldn't hide the fact that she was incredulous. She'd never heard Melanie cry. She still couldn't quite figure out why she was crying.

The whole conversation so far was very, very weird.

"It just happened. The kids came. Life got crazy. I barely had the time or privacy to put a tampon in, let alone have sex, let alone get drunk and have wild sex. And I was always so exhausted, I really didn't even want to."

"So you quit by default."

"I didn't quit, obviously. I just went to sleep."

"But it's been so long. More than twenty years. What happened?"

"I don't know. I mean, I just woke up. It woke up. You woke it up."

Mouse didn't like Melanie turning it all on her, even if it was probably true. Mouse wasn't good at accepting responsibility. She knew that about herself, and she actually took some pride in it.

"So you woke up, or I woke up, your darker side. A fun side. So is that entirely a bad thing? So you're experimenting. You're having adventures again. It should make you feel young. Go with it."

"I'm not young, Mona, no matter how hard I try to pretend otherwise. And it's going to get me into trouble. It's getting me into trouble. It's gotten me into trouble."

That didn't sound good, but it couldn't be that bad, not with dear, old, Melanie. She was over reacting. But she hadn't yet said what type of trouble. The whole, twisted, confusing conversation was driving Mouse nuts.

"So back off on the threesome with Dan, Mel. Just stop rushing. Just take it easy a bit. You don't have to quit having sex and join a convent."

"You don't understand, Mona. I've already messed things up."

Melanie sobbed almost imperceptibly. She stifled it, and the connection wasn't good to begin with. Mouse hated talking on cell phones. She liked to see a person's eyes when she talked. She certainly didn't like having the emotion washed from their voice by random static and a tinny little speaker.

Especially during conversations like this, she thought. This whole thing was becoming very unsettling. Melanie was never out of control like this.

"Is Dan mad? Jealous? Did he catch you with someone? Is your marriage in trouble? Give me a hint."

Mouse listed the obvious, simple, likely and therefore unlikely things. She knew, or rather she wholly suspected, that it would be something out of the ordinary. Her worst fear was that it had to do with Michael.

She'd already told herself that an encounter between Melanie and Michael was likely, but it wouldn't hurt her relationship with him. She had a real, loving, strong relationship with their brother. Anything that happened between him and Mel would be transitory, and would probably just drive him more strongly back to Mouse.

Yet as much as she'd convinced herself that it was inevitable, and that it might actually be good, now she cringed. If something had happened, she didn't want to know.

She'd kill Michael for it, and she didn't want to know about it.

"No," Mel said, after a long silence. "Maybe. I don't know. I can't talk about it. I thought I could, but I can't."

"How's Michael?"

Mouse tried to make it sound like she was just changing the subject. Melanie's extended silence let Mouse know the question was too transparent, and also that she may be right in her fears.

"We haven't spoken in a while. Weeks."

Weeks. Michael had been acting strangely for weeks, too. It all clicked.

"Look, Mel, I'm sorry, I know you need me, but I have to run. Can I call you later?"

"No. Maybe. Yes. I'll call you."

"Okay. Relax. Whatever it is, it's not as bad as you think. Take it from me. I get into trouble all the time, because I know it's never as bad as it seemed it would be. And lots of times it turns out to be fun."

"Not this time."

"Maybe. You never know. Trust me."

"Yeah. Trust."

Melanie accented and lingered on that last word like it was something that had never existed, something mythological. That settled it.

"Okay, gotta go. Bye."

"Bye."

Mouse was seething with anger before she had set the phone down. Weeks. Michael should have been the one to tell her, and a lot sooner.

She left a curt message on Michael's voice mail, then immediately regretted it.

* * *

Melanie could hear the change in Mouse's tone as soon as she brought up Michael, as soon as she'd very obviously figured it all out. Mouse was never subtle. She couldn't hide anything. Obviously Melanie couldn't, either, she thought sourly to herself.

By the end of the call, Mouse was obviously furious.

She had every right to be. Melanie had fucked everything up, badly. The tears started to come back.

A door slammed downstairs as Rick came home from school. Melanie composed herself. She had to. She strode into the bathroom to erase all physical traces of her traumas, then glided down the stairs to greet her young son.

* * *

"I just got off the phone with Melanie. Fucking call me. Bastard."

Even swearing in anger, and digitally distorted on voice mail, Mouse's voice was musical. Michael tried to think of any number of ways to avoid returning Mouse's call. He had none.

* * *

His voice sounded the whole time as if it were coming from a distance, as if he were trying to hold the phone away from his face, in fear, as he talked. Mouse knew she was probably imagining it.

Long before Michael had finished the story, Mouse had forgiven him. Melanie had obviously really, really lost it. The whole thing was way more crazy than whatever Mouse had really been expecting all along. In a way, she only had herself to blame. She had merrily started everything, then made it worse, playing sinful games with everyone.

It would have been so easy to just keep her relationship with Michael a secret. It should have stayed their secret.

Surprisingly, none of it scared Mouse, now that it had happened. Melanie didn't scare her. Her big sister was harmless in all of this. If anything, she'd suddenly become a victim. She was married. Her morals and righteous attitude and her own self image tied her in knots.

She could never actually do much more than this with Michael. Mouse was a little shocked that Melanie had found it in herself to go this far, this abruptly.

But in the end, Michael belonged to Mouse, and Melanie knew it.

Mouse was actually more than a little ashamed to admit, too, that the whole, sordid story was something of a turn on. She wondered how Melanie had experienced it, how she would tell it. She also wondered how Michael really felt, what he'd left out, how much he'd enjoyed it, and which parts. She'd find that out eventually, she knew.

The image of Michael fucking Melanie, of Melanie riding his cock with abandon, was shockingly arousing.

For now, though, she mostly felt sorry for them both, but not so sorry that she was going to let Michael easily of the hook. He still had to pay a heavy price.

"So this is all a reason to treat your sister like dirt. Pig."

Mouse made her voice sound disgusted with him. She pictured his spirits dropping from simply anxious and depressed to mortified and resigned.

"I'm sorry, Mouse, I really am. I didn't..."

"Not me, shithead. Mel."

"Mel? Mel?" he asked, his voice rising by a decibel and an octave each time.

"Mel?" he repeated.

"Yes, Mel, your sister, your big sister, the one that feels like shit right now, the one that is struggling with a horrible problem that you're making even worse and more hurtful because you're selfish and self centered and cowardly."

In the ensuing silence Mouse could hear Michael's mixed expression of shock, dismay, confusion and fear. It was a cumulative masterpiece of simultaneous performance theater. Mouse couldn't have engineered anything more satisfying.

After only a moment, Mouse immediately regretted the game she was playing with Michael's feelings. He was so damned vulnerable.

"I'm sorry," she added.

"You're sorry?"

In her mind, Mouse buried her head in his shoulder.

"Yes, I'm sorry. You're both in trouble here, you're both hurting, and I'm playing games with you. I'm sorry."

"You're playing games with me? Fuck, everyone is playing games with me. Mel raped me."

"Mel didn't rape you."

"Handcuffs don't count? Alcohol? I struggled."

"Oh, I'm sure you did. At first, or at least enough for show. And I suppose the erection was just from a wet dream about me."

She would totally lose it if Michael even tried to wriggle out of this. Mouse didn't even give him a chance to make the mistake of trying.

"Look," she continued. "Forget all that. Mel has..."

Mouse was going to say problems, but she certainly didn't like the implications behind that word. If Mel, of the three of them, had problems, then they all had big, big problems. And they did, but that didn't mean the Mouse needed to call attention to it.

"Mel has differences. Things I never suspected. I fucked her up. I fucked us all up."

"You did no such thing, Mouse. If anyone has fucked things up, it's been me. I've been along for the ride for too long. It's time I straightened a lot of things out."

Mouse's heart felt like it stopped in panic. Her blood turned to stone in her veins. She frantically looked for a way to change the course of the conversation, suddenly afraid of what Michael was going to say or do now. Maybe she wasn't as in control of everything, of him, as she thought.

"Okay, stop, Michael. Stop there. You're not a woman. You don't get it. Look, just stop ignoring Mel. You know her. She already felt guilty as hell before she had even started. She needs your support. I need your support, too. We all need each other."

Okay, that sounded weird. Mel would always have said that Michael needed her, but neither of them ever needed Mouse, and Mouse never needed anybody, before she had Michael, and Melanie never, ever needed either of them. They were a family, but there had always been a lot of fractures, and a lot of independence.

"Okay, Mouse, okay. I'll call her."

"See her."

"Mouse..."

"See her."

"Okay, I'll see her."

"But first, tell me the story again. But this time, don't pretend you didn't like it. I want to hear all the details, as if I were there."

"Mouse..."

"Please?"

So Michael told her the story again, more properly. By the end, Mouse was wishing that she'd actually been there to watch. It would only have been fair, after all.

* * *

Michael hid his anger at Mouse, which was bad, because it let the anger grow with every word of the story. Mouse had no idea how this had affected him. She said she did, she said she cared. She did care. But she didn't really understand, and she didn't seem to care nearly so much about him as simply keeping him.

She cared about having fun with him. She cared about having sex with him. She cared about her exciting, irrepressible, incestuous drives.

But Michael was starting to wonder how much she really understood and cared about him.

<8 Collisions

Michael stepped into the dark bar. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the change in lighting, as the skin of his face was struck my the cool, damp, slightly musty air. It felt good compared with the hot, dry, stifling air of the sun baked parking lot.

He stood at the door for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, looking for Kate. He finally had someone he could talk to in her, someone that made him feel at ease, and a little less lonely. He couldn't actually talk to her about his problems, not overtly. Everything had to be disguised in half truths. But she listened, and she smiled, and he relaxed.

She had very pretty, welcoming eyes, and a warming smile.

She hovered behind the far corner of the bar, distractedly washing a class while at the same time talking to a tall, curvy, seemingly attractive woman sitting opposite her. The woman finished her drink, then put the glass down on the bar. She noticed him in that moment.

It was Melanie.

Michael hovered at the door. It was too late to back out, but there was no way he was going over there.

* * *

Melanie glanced at him again, wondering how long he was going to stand there. It took all of her will power to battle the urge to run to him now, but she didn't want him to come over quite yet. Not until she learned more from Kate.

"He talks about your sister a lot. I guess he really doesn't like the guy she's dating. Michael says he's too old for her, and he thinks he'll never have the courage to marry her and make her happy."

"He said that."

As she so often did, Melanie delivered the question as a statement.

"Yeah. I don't know about the too old part, though, myself. I love older men."

Kate held Melanie's eyes with her own, twinkling mischievously.

Melanie could hear her thinking what she thought went unspoken, that she liked older women, too. It made Melanie uncomfortable now. She wouldn't look shyly away, not immediately, but after staring back unblinking into Kate's eyes for a few beats of a song, she conveniently used a glance over at Michael as an excuse to look away.

She didn't know how to tell Kate that she'd lost interest, at least for now. She didn't want to blow Kate off, and Kate was turning out to be a surprisingly good friend. But the sexual tension had to end. Melanie was in another place, now. Kate was the last complication she needed.

She turned toward Michael as if concerned.

Michael was looking right at them, still hesitating at the door. The poor boy was really trapped. Three voracious female vampires had him at every twist and turn, two sisters and a woman that acted like she should be at least a close cousin.

One vampire, Melanie corrected to herself, just one sister-vampire. Kate and Mona were lovable, vibrant women. Melanie was the only monster in the brood.

* * *

Michael finally settled on a strategy, purposefully sitting on a stool at a tall round table, along one wall. At first he'd intended to turn his back to Melanie, but he realized he wanted to watch them talking, and to see her approaching, when she ultimately did.

He realized belatedly that he still had to get a drink from the bar. He went to the end farthest from Melanie

Kate came to him quickly, smiling.

"What'll it be, friend?"

Michael smiled back. He tried to disguise the smile, to keep it from seeming as warm as it felt. He felt embarrassed by his pleased reaction to Kate's greeting, with Melanie watching.

"The usual."

"One random imported beer, coming up."

Kate drew the beer from the tap, then carried it to him. She stopped short of setting it in front of him.

"Are you going to sit with your sister, or do you want it here?"

Michael grew annoyed. She must know he was avoiding Mel, even if she didn't know the reason. She was just trying to manipulate him, like all of the other women in his life.

"Thanks, I'll just take it, please."

He didn't mask his annoyance, although, for her part, Kate never flinched or lost her smile.

* * *

It didn't take long for Mel to come over. She simply sat opposite him, while he tried as hard as he could to avoid eye contact.

"I thought you would talk to me by now, but you're not."

"I will. Just give me time."

"How much more time?"

"That's hardly a question you get to ask."

"Michael, please, this is killing me."

"So Mouse said."

"Please."

Michael finally looked her in the eye, tortured into it by her tone of voice. He didn't need anything more to feel guilty about, yet there it was.

"This isn't the right place. Or time."

Michael glanced at Kate, who seemed to be obliviously scuttling around, doing meaningful bartender things that needed to be done.

"No, it's not, I agree."

"Look, I'll call you, I promise."

"No. No phone calls. I want to talk face to face."

"No."

"You don't trust me?"

Michael looked at her. It was a hard question. The honest answer was no, he didn't trust her. But he could never say that.

Michael spun his glass in circles in front of him. He took his time.

When he couldn't think of anything he actually wanted to say, he just got up and walked out, leaving her there with his barely touched mug of random, imported beer.

* * *

Mouse's wildest friend, Tania, cowered at the edge of the group, as far away as she could get without drawing attention to herself, as if it were contagious. Mouse smiled inwardly, wondering if Tania thought the attraction to a baby might be contagious, or actually having a baby itself.

At the other extreme, Alicia, the proud aunt, wouldn't surrender the creature. She embarrassed herself with idiot grins, and coos and giggles and other demeaning acts.

Mouse hovered somewhere in between, tugged in both directions.

The baby was cute. She wanted desperately to hold it, and that thought frightened her, not the thought of holding the baby, but the thought of actually wanting to hold the baby.

She'd gone for years and years without even noticing the little noise makers. So why was there a baby every place she went, now?

This was supposed to be just a quick stopover at Alicia's sister's house, a chance for Alicia to hold the baby for a moment in the midst of a road trip for the three of them to do some river boat gambling. It was an old fashioned road trip for three wild and crazy girls to get wild and crazy, in a place where Mouse wouldn't be at all tempted by any attractive man she met, because it was too far from home to develop into anything.