Table of Contents [Report This]
by
Mary Eve Parker
Rating: R (only parts)
THANKS: to Dianne like always for the great beta work
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It all started years ago when I was about 15 years old and I needed to study the famous play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.
I came home from school, “home” to the Centre with the Penguin booklet of the play. During this time Shakespeare was one of my favorite writers- nobody would believe nowadays that I once loved those heartbreaking plays and novels by the most fascinating author of the 16th Century. I really used to enjoy reading Oscar Wilde, Burns and Shakespeare – nowadays my bookshelves are filled with Jane Austen and Edith Wharton books, books without happy endings. If I find time to read at all, I spend time reading novels by the Bronte sisters, one of my favorites is Wuthering Heights, a book full of grief and loss – like my own life is and will always be. I can’t read a book with a happy ending like all the Hollywood films show us anymore. You will not find one of those happy ending books like Danielle Steele writes or Rosamund Pilcher on one of my shelves.
Right now, I am sitting here at the kitchen table reading the Sunday paper, drinking a cup of fruit tea and enjoying the lovely winter sun shining through the big windows.
I was thinking of the day I wanted Jarod to play the part of Romeo and practice the play with me because I wanted to get the role so that my Daddy would be proud of me and for Momma up there and also a little for myself. So, I went with two textbooks to Sydney and asked him if I could “use” Jarod for a little while to practice my role, Sydney welcomed this little change in Jarod’s time schedule. I can still remember his smile.
The practicing wasn’t doing well, mostly because of the fact that Jarod hadn’t heard of Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet before. I was a little shocked when he told me that he’d never heard of it before. I told him the plot of the play and we started to practice. We really messed the play up with a lot of laughing because of reading mistakes – Shakespeare is easy to read silently, but reading it aloud can be hard. But, we were allowed to spend time together and that was the most important thing for me – being with him.
Then the kissing scene came up. I hadn’t thought about it before. The air had been tense a lot during the time we practiced the play, but when that scene showed up, it was even tenser. I felt a little uncomfortable, having to share a kiss with him – I always told myself that it was because of the play and not because I was falling for him. Yeah, falling for him, little Miss Parker in love with Sydney’s science experiment, the boy with the most incredible chocolate brown eyes she’d ever seen.
So we kissed, but it was not just a kiss between two actors, it was a hungry and passionate kiss between two teenagers. For the first time in ages, I felt loved when his soft wet lips touched mine and we shared the hungriest kiss I can remember. I could never forget that moment. It was the most wonderful moment for a long time.
Now I am sitting here, in my kitchen, trying to read an article in the paper about Evita Peron – the 50th anniversary of her death. I couldn’t believe that this icon had been dead for so long now. She was one of the most fascinating females I have ever heard about and she was strong and played the game of life by her own rules. She was her own ruler, no person over her, nobody pushing her into roles – she pushed people into scenarios. But reading an article like that wasn’t right at the moment – I couldn’t get those pictures out of my head.
Those pictures of Jarod kissing me, touching me all over – like the day I got the last free bedroom in a small motel in Texas because the other beds were broken. I never asked how that happened, but I was sure that the people that were there before we got there had had some fun. Because of the damage, the room was free and being the only one available, Sydney and Broots had to stay in another motel on the other side of town. I appreciated this turn of events because I could check out the little town without them watching me. I hate it when people watch me.
That night was unforgettable. I came up from the bar, where I’d had just two vodkas with orange juice, at around 10pm, but I really wasn’t sleepy. I intended to search for the book I was trying to read, Jarod and the Centre don’t give me a lot of time to read a book or much free time to do anything for that matter. I found the book – “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. It was a wonderful book. I was in the middle of it and I had started to hate Frank’s parents, not only his always-drunk father, also his senseless mother. I always thought that my childhood was bad, but Frank’s and Malachy’s was absolutely sad. The loss of many siblings and stuff like that – nothing to eat or to heat the house with, a toilet to share with the whole street… It was a book about the faith and hope of a little boy, who wasn’t a boy at 12 anymore – he was more a man than his father would ever be. I felt somehow connected to this little boy, like him, so many things were taken from me, also the disbelief in God. Because we, Frank and I, knew that if there was a God, not all those people would have been taken from us. I was really looking forward to reading a little more of the book. Frank’s younger brother, Malachy, had just started school… the whole story almost made me want to burst into tears, their life was just so sad.
I opened the room door intending to read a little more - and found Jarod sitting naked on my bed, hands cuffed and wearing a big smile. I was shocked and stunned, all in one. Jarod was the only person who was able to make me both at same time. Jarod. Naked. On. Bed. Hands Cuffed – I needed a couple of moments to recover. Jarod. That Body. Hell, I had missed those strong upper arms, the hairy chest and the amazing washboard stomach… when was the last time I had seen a man like that? Seemed like years… I remember standing in the doorway, not able to say a word. I don’t know how long I stood in front of him, but it seemed to arouse him and a moment later, he was kneeling in front of me, kissing my knees softly. Jarod kneeling in front of me wearing handcuffs! And naked! Oh, God!
Just remembering those images aroused me today while I was trying to read the article about Argentina’s Eva.
Jarod said nothing, he was just there, smiling and kissing my knees then my thighs and then he started to undo the buttons of my silk blouse with his mouth. Where had he learned to do that? His tongue was as perfect as when I was 15. He undid all the buttons on my shirt and then my skirt as I gave him instructions in a whispering tone. It was like the play between a slave and his dominatrix; I didn’t want to dominate him, but it happened that night. Somehow, we managed to get to the bed and he got rid of the rest of my clothes and I uncuffed him – he would need to use his hands because I needed them on me.
When he was free, we slept together. It wasn’t just sex, it was much more. It took us awhile to get the right rhythm together. Jarod was used to gentle sex and I had gotten used to hard and fast sex. I never said that I really enjoyed sex where most of the time, only the men came – at least the men I shared a bed with. But this time it was different. When he finally slid into me, we took some time and kissed long. My hands were running down his muscular back while he investigated every inch of my neck with soft kisses, moving slowly southward with his lips. He took his time, licking and sucking each of my breasts, pushing me over the edge once from doing that and when I came, he watched me like the little boy he had once been. Now that little boy had turned into the most handsome man I had ever met. He was Jarod, the first love of my life.
Making love or sex, whatever it was, was something we both enjoyed with every bit of our bodies. There wasn’t a place that went untouched, kissed, teased or tickled. It was something between just having sex and making love, it was with a lot of sweet words and long foreplay and all those little things, which made it more than sex – like cuddling up after coming together the last time. I was the one who kissed him awake the next morning. I hadn’t anticipated finding his head resting on my breast the next morning. I had expected him to be gone, but this was Jarod!
I told him that I would have to leave for Blue Cove soon. We kissed, I showered, got into my clothes and kissed him goodbye. We didn’t see each other for months.
I sipped on my fruit tea, left the article on Evita Duarte de Peron and checked the weather forecast, which seemed a little more exciting to me right now.
We didn’t see each other for months, until the day he took on the role of director of a play by homeless children in Winnetka. Don’t ask me how I found him. I can’t remember, but I found him, standing in front of all those kids, giving them their final instructions, he was also trying to get a little girl into her costume. They looked freshly cleaned up and were smiling. It was just like I expected Jarod to be with kids – friendly, calm and very gentle. He saw me, but he didn’t run away. He just waited for my reaction. I had my weapon in my waistband, like always, but I couldn’t use it – we both knew that, not in front of the kids. Not even me, the ice queen would do that.
So I just stayed there, helping out a little with the costumes – I wasn’t good with kids, but Jarod seemed to like it – I did too, spending time with him, no need to talk. When the kids started to play Cinderella in front of a small, but filled to the last standing place hall, it was time for me to leave, but Jarod held me back and pleaded with me to stay a little longer.
Even though their costumes were poor, the play was damned good – seemed to me like Jarod remembered how to study lines… it was cute seeing all those seven to ten year olds. Everything was perfect. I stood there, next to Jarod and even though my body ached for his touch, I didn’t make the first move – I was too afraid to lose what we’d had that one night we shared. The atmosphere was tense again. I knew that all the excuses I told myself were pretty bad, but should I have done it?
The performance finished and suddenly a little six year-old girl with golden hair and ocean blue eyes stood in front of me. She smiled at me. I remembered that I’d helped her into the Cinderella costume before the play. I will never forget the following dialogue.
“Are you a princess?” she asked me.
I answered softly, “No.”
“Melanie,” Jarod started, “she is my Cinderella and midnight will not come too soon this time.” He finished and grinned at me.
I tried to say something, but my voice seemed to have left me. After a couple of minutes, I managed to get out, “Soon I will have to go whether I want to or not… like Cinderella at midnight.”
We spent the evening together like old friends, eating Pizza and drinking beer – but something had changed, we weren’t 16 anymore, not even real friends anymore. Jarod was the boy I’d known, but I wasn’t the little girl he’d known anymore. So, we ended up driving the car back from Winnetka to Blue Cove, not talking much during the trip. I invited him to come in for a coffee and stay for the night, after the long drive. I hadn’t said where he’d stay – couch, guestroom or my bedroom. Suddenly I found myself pressed against my famous Jane Austen/Edith Wharton bookshelves and he kissed me like neither Jane nor Edith could ever write about. I relaxed as he pressed me between books, the wall and his gorgeous body. What more could I want? His smell, hell he smelled like every wonderful thing I could imagine – the usual male skin smell, shower gel, deodorant and expensive Ralph Lauren cologne. God, he smelled like Amour, Zeus, Odysseus, Ares, Hermes and the little Romeo I still saw in him – like a god.
His tongue invaded my mouth within seconds and I reciprocated. Why was he fumbling with the buttons on my blouse so long this time? Thank God, he finally managed to get the buttons open and he sucked the fabric of my bra into his delicious mouth. God. I will never forget the way he tortured my nipples. I was breathing heavily, eyes closed, head thrown back against the cold wall. My fingers massaged Jarod’s scalp as his hands worked my bra off then unbuttoned the black jeans I was wearing. I realized the last fact when his fingers touched my sex. How did he do that? Well no time for thinking. And there was no possible way for me to stop him, mostly because I didn’t want to. I was too concentrated on staying upright and breathing. As I tried to catch my breath, I found him staring at me and then he told me that if I wanted him to stop, I should tell him now and that there would be no morning after regrets. I smiled at him and nodded then I kissed him. We kissed tenderly. This time it was definitely making love. We landed on the sofa, me on my back. I’ve missed this since Thomas died –somebody lying on me before and after sex is just what I have always missed with one-night stands. We held each other for a couple of minutes then he stripped his tee off and I, my clothes. We made love without many words this time, but I could tell that it meant a lot to him. Jarod was always so tender and soft, his sex was big so he was even calmer than most of the frantic little guys I had met during my life. He moved slowly and the rhythm became more like a slow waltz, our mingled breaths like the sea’s mist.
I wasn’t able to finish the third article based on the UN convention in Berlin so I tried to read the book critics, one of my favorites lately. A new book I had read was being recommended and I was surprised how good it was – the book “Atonement” by Ian MacEwan was brand new, but somehow I had managed to find the time to read it.
I always have to think about the red-faced man who was sitting by the fountain in New York, because the first scenes of the book are also about a fountain and stuff like that.
I was on a trip chasing Jarod or privately said, to find him, make love and miss him badly afterwards. It was always the same. We’d played that game on a more or less regular base since the Cinderella performance. Sometimes we saw each other only once a week, sometimes nearly daily and once we broke a bed in two pieces because we fell on it a little too hard – I missed him badly because the Sweeper team showed up and I was just dressing when Jarod was out of sight. But he came more frequently to my house and we made love in my bed or we met at an old cottage of his in the mountains. It was need and pleasure and it became more and more often that one of us spent the whole night in the other’s bed.
So, I was still trying to read the article by one of the book critics when the front door opened. I knew exactly who it was – Jarod and Joey.
“Here we are.” Jarod said with a huge smile on his lips.
I was standing in the doorframe in my robe, smiling back. “How was church?” I asked him.
“Oh, fine I guess,” he answered.
“Good. Don’t I get a morning kiss?”
“You got one hours ago,” he answered then he pulled me into his embrace.
“But…” I wanted to protest, but he started to kiss me passionately.
“And how is little Joey?” I asked when we pulled apart, looking down at the baby in its buggy. She was sleeping, holding the little blanket in her fists – like she usually holds my hair while she’s nursing.
“She was an angel and we can get an appointment next Wednesday to baptize her, that is if you want to,” Jarod told me. “Father McAndrews told me that he would have time whenever we’re ready.”
I just nodded, smiled and got a little more of my morning kiss.
Moments like this were normal now, lifting her out of the buggy gently so as not to wake her then hugging her tightly in my arms.
I will never forget the evening when I told Jarod that I was pregnant. I can’t remember which night it had happened, but it had happened. We had never used any protection because of the fact that I was told that it was nearly impossible for me to have kids – besides, with a partner like Jarod, betrayal was impossible, who needed attention from other men. He loved to play little games, no torture, just trying out a little from every corner of sexual amusement.
At first, I wasn’t sure if I should tell him at all, but I missed him when I had to sleep alone in my bed two nights in a row – and in time, he would have figured it out anyway. I started to show early because I hadn’t eaten properly during the months before the pregnancy happened. I had spent the whole afternoon in the kitchen, cooking a nice dinner – chicken in white wine sauce and pasta. When we sat down and he asked me what was the reason for my cooking, I just told him straight out that I was 5 weeks pregnant. From that moment, we knew that our lives would change completely. We knew from the beginning of our affair that life would change, but not in that way. I think neither of us had thought about becoming parents.
So today, Christmas Eve, I am sitting here in my cottage in the middle of nowhere – the Scottish Highlands. Not far from Aberdeen, but further north. During my pregnancy, I had started University again, just some courses in Gaelic Philology and some about Medieval Architecture. When Joey was old enough, I was hoping to teach law and American History there, but Joey was just a baby. This Christmas would be the first one spent with a family since mom died more than thirty years ago. It’s the first time I will be able to celebrate Christmas in the proper way – and with lots of snow.
Naturally, we have bought tons of gifts for Joey, one of which was a stuffed penguin. Don’t ask me why we bought some many, she isn’t even old enough to unwrap them on her own, but we didn’t care.
The day we arrived in Scotland, more than six months ago. I saw the penguin sitting in a small shop at the Royal Mile in Edinburgh and I fell in love with it. We stayed for two nights in the hostel there, we couldn’t get any other room because of the festival, but I didn’t care. All the punks and younger men sharing the dorm with Jarod were so cute. Normally, gender dorms are strictly separated, but this time the boys accepted me as soon as it got out that I was pregnant and that it was my first time here in Scotland. The last time I had slept in a dorm was during my boarding school years. The boys were so cute and allowed me to share a bed with Jarod, even though it was absolutely prohibited.
Now I am used to the colder temperatures, but in the beginning, it was pretty hard for me to run around in more than just a normal outfit. My expanded belly hidden under two warm pullovers was normal from about August. Now we had tons of snow and a really white Christmas, like in the Bing Crosby song.
So, little Joey will get the penguin and alot of other things. She is 4 weeks old now, but not yet baptized. The town nearby is Catholic and my mum was, so she will be Catholic too. Mom’s family were Roman Catholic and so was I and so that’s what Joey will be, Jarod doesn’t care about religions. She should be in raised with the real Scottish faith in God and not a religion established by a selfish king. Too many people died in the 16th Century during Henry VIII and Elizabeth I to destroy Catholicism in Scotland, so only a few towns are Catholic now – and I wanted Joey to be raised Catholic. Somehow, it seemed important to me.
“Do you want to nurse her now?” Jarod asked me when Joey awoke. I nodded with a smile and the three of us sat down on the sofa next to the fireplace. Nursing was also something I’d never thought of until one evening in October …
Jarod was painting my toenails with pale pink nail polish and he asked me if I wanted to nurse our little baby. I had a sleepless night thinking about it and now it was the most wonderful thing for me, except sex with Jarod – but for the moment, it was the most wonderful, because sex wasn’t allowed yet.
As I nursed little Joey, the man who I had chased for years, sat next to me, one arm around my shoulder, watching how her little mouth closed around my nipple. We both watched her as she suckled.
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” Jarod asked me.
“You tell me that everyday, Jar, but you know as well as I do that there is still a little too much fat around the hips.” I added.
“Mary, you know that I like the way your body has changed.” I kissed him and finished the thought in my own head ‘and especially your breast size, which is amazing now, more for me to suckle at.’ Men! I didn’t gain a lot during the pregnancy, but I was very slim before I became pregnant, so it was like I’d changed into another woman during the 9 months of carrying a child.
Before the pregnancy, I was a brave woman, now I was afraid of snakes. Once we had one in the house, common here because its warm inside and snakes like the warmth – I completely freaked out. We also have some snakes under the house, but they aren’t poisonous Jarod told me, so I except them, with a little fear of meeting one somewhere in the future.
During my pregnancy, we had a lot of time to spend together and I realized that the world wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough of what I wanted. I wanted Jarod to be mine, only mine and that was more than the world. He was always looking for something adventurous and somebody to give a helping hand to, but I told him that he couldn’t do that when the baby got here, that I would need a hand. Now he is my world and the world is enough. I have everything I was looking for and so does Jarod.
Now I am sitting here with a new life in my arms and the love of my life next to me. We both want her to be the person she wants to be, not a person other people see in her. We want Joey to have a happy childhood even if that means that we have to move back to a city again. Joey is the most important part of our life now and we don’t want to make any mistakes – too many mistakes were made in our childhood. We really didn’t have a childhood – Jarod’s was spent doing Sims and mine ended with mom’s death.
Looking around, both loves of my life have fallen asleep and I know that this time will not last forever – but for now the world is enough, maybe in the future the world will be not enough anymore, but at this moment the world is enough.
feedback: ms.parker@gmx.at
Author’s note: I have constructed this story during my trip to Scotland. So well it’s a little Scottish maybe, at least my thoughts
Idea: Ficlite’s Challenge Nr. 6
A broken bed – check
Free hotel room – check
Nail polish – check
Snakes – check
Cinderella – check
Romeo & Juliette – check
Red faced man – check
Chicken in white sauce -check
Badly made playbill – check
