Normal
by Mandy
Prologue
Miss Parker sat in front of her
television. There was broken glass
on the floor, from where she had
dropped her vodka and lime. It was a little
past six in the morning, and she
was still in her pyjamas. The sun was barely
up, the paper hadn’t arrived yet,
the sky was falling in on her, and all before
breakfast.
On the news they told her about the
FBI bust on a major corporation
known as the Centre located in Blue
Cove, Delaware. She watched her brother
refusing to comment as he was
pushed, handcuffed, into a car by some FBI-type
suit. She watched members of a swat
team milling about in the background as a
man explained to a reporter that
the corporation had been under investigation
for some time, and it was only with
the leak of some new information that they
had been able to break the case
wide open. At the bottom of the screen, a line
of text scrolled across, reading,
“FBI busts Delaware Corporation guilty of
human rights violations”.
It went on. It was the biggest
conspiracy scandal in American
history, it seemed, and every
spokesperson from every organization that thought
they might have something to say on
the subject was interviewed, from Amnesty
International to the Salvation
Army. As the day unfolded, so did more and more
horrific details – of multiple
subterranean levels, of children and adults who
appeared to be being kept
prisoners, of laboratories and doctors and weapons,
of a horror show being housed in a
guileless building on the shoreline.
The media was all over it. They
swarmed over every available inch
of the building, and Miss Parker
could hear the hovering choppers. She watched
boxes of evidence being carried out
the front doors, children and adults
emerging blinking into the
sunlight, frightened by the noise and activity.
They had been the prisoners, and
they were put hastily into ambulances and
driven away.
The Centre’s staff was escorted out
also, corralled for questioning, heckled by
reporters. No arrests were being
made, reporters said earnestly, beyond those
of a Mr Robert “Lyle” Bowman and a
Mr William Raines, who had been implicated
as key powers early in the
investigation.
Her phone rang constantly. She
screened, and Broots left several frantic
messages on her machine. He wanted
to know if they should flee the country.
Sydney, calmer, left messages
enquiring if she was all right. Most times, the
caller hung up before leaving a
message. She knew whom they were from.
At four in the afternoon, Parker
swept up the broken glass from the floor, ate
a piece of toast and went to sit
back in front of the television. She drank
vodka straight from the bottle,
getting steadily drunk. It was horrendous.
Every new scrap of information
notched up the media’s frenzy. The President
made a statement from the
Whitehouse, promising that all those responsible
would be brought to justice.
At six pm, Miss Parker held her gun
on her lap, and took her phone off the
hook. She wondered when they would
come for her, and decided she’d rather die
than go to prison.
Chapter I: The Sky Is Broken
The knocking at the door finally
broke through her alcohol-induced
daze. Miss Parker sat up on the
couch, disorientated. The television was
still flickering silently, and the
room was dark. It was late, she realised,
looking at the clock on the mantel,
almost midnight. The bottle on the coffee
table was almost empty.
She staggered to her feet,
half-surprised to realise the gun was
still in her hand, but she hadn’t
shot herself yet. She managed to stumble
over to the door and squint through
the peephole, although she knew whom it
was. She could see nothing. He
probably had his finger over it.
Clenching her gun even tighter, she
wrestled the chain off, flipped
the deadbolt and flung open the
door. She trained her gun on Jarod, who was
standing humbly on the welcome mat
that didn’t say ‘welcome’. Her aim wavered,
but her intentions did not.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,”
she said.
“Because I’ve done the right
thing,” he said. He seemed so sad. He had pity
in his eyes. She hated him for it.
“Given me a death sentence? Ensured
a life in prison? Will you visit Sydney
in gaol and pass him little red
notebooks through the bars?” she asked, and
slurred only a little.
Jarod reached out, and placed his
hand over her gun. He tried to
take it from her, and her finger
slid over the trigger, with just a little
pressure. “The safety is on,” he
told her quietly. It was too, she realised.
Miss Parker considered ways to get
it off and still shoot him before he took it
from her.
“How much have you had to drink?”
Jarod asked. He stepped forward, forcing the
gun down, pushing her back into the
house. They grappled for a moment, and
then he prised the weapon out of
her grip. He discarded the clip, dropping it
on the floor.
“That’s none of your fucking
business,” she said. There was a heavy brass lamp
on the console beside the door, and
she eyed it as she said, “My whole life is
none of your fucking business, and
you’ve ruined it.”
Jarod kept moving forward, so
Parker was forced to back up. She
brushed the coat rack, knocking it
over, sending her tripping backwards. He
reached out a hand to steady her as
she hit the coffee table and almost fell,
and she slapped it away. “I haven’t
ruined your life,” he said, “I don’t think
you had a very good one to begin
with.”
Miss Parker sidled away from him,
past the television and towards
the fireplace as he followed. She
snatched up an iron poker, but he wrenched
it away before she could get it
anywhere near his groin, heart or face, and it
clattered on the floor. She hissed
with frustration, scrabbling across the
mantel for the antique mantel
clock. Jarod grabbed her wrist, and jerked her
towards him.
“Listen to me,” he said; quiet and
angry, “You’re safe. You’re free. You
won’t be implicated; I’ve cleared
anyone who remotely deserved it. You’re
free, Miss Parker, so quit it with
the martyr act!”
The crack of her hand on his face
echoed in the silent room. He
turned his head aside, his face
shadowed in darkness. A brief, strangled sob
escaped her, and one tear tracked
down her cheek. When he looked up, she could
see the stinging red mark on his
cheek in the eerie light of the television.
He still gripped her wrist tightly.
“How dare you,” she said, her voice
taking on a hysterical edge, “Goddamn you,
how dare you!”
She pulled her arm free and lunged
at him, almost managing to get a
stranglehold in his throat before
he deflected her aim. Parker launched
herself bodily at him, and he
stumbled back, sprawling on the couch. She
landed on top of him, pummelling
his chest with her fists, pushing him to the
floor. She heard his leg crack on
the side of the coffee table, his soft yelp
of pain, and ignored it. The vodka
bottle rattled, tipped and rolled off the
far side of the table, smashing on
the floor. She cried and beat at him, and
he grabbed both her hands and
rolled her beneath him, pinning her with his body.
“Parker…” he sighed, so quietly she
thought she might have imagined it.
Weak, tired and distraught, Parker
finally stopped fighting him,
breaking down into wrenching sobs.
When Jarod shifted his weight off her, she
curled away from him, onto her
side, tucking up into a ball and weeping into
her hands. She felt his hands on
her shoulders, an attempt to comfort her, and
ignored them, ignored everything
but the terrible fear and emptiness inside.
Finally, blissfully, she sank into
darkness, and passed out.
****
The grey light of dawn filtering
through the window woke Miss
Parker, accompanied by a pounding
headache. She was in her bed, under the
covers, with all her clothes on,
facing the window. She shifted slowly, and
promptly hit warm male heat. She
craned her head to see; Jarod was under the
covers with her, also fully
clothed, sleeping like the dead.
She slipped out of bed, creeping
around to where her gun rested on
the dresser, fighting nausea. She
eased out of the bedroom door, zeroing in on
the clip that lay on the floor. She
loaded the gun, clicked off the safety,
and turned back to her bedroom.
Jarod lounged in the doorway, watching her
with dark eyes.
“What are you going to do with
that?” he asked. She held it out in front of
her, aiming for his heart. He gave
a brief, bitter chuckle, “Take me back to
the Centre? I can introduce you to
the Agents who are tearing the place apart.”
Miss Parker’s grip on the gun
faltered, and he strode forward
angrily, stopping when the muzzle
hit his chest. He put his hand over hers on
the gun. “It’s over. Don’t you get
it? You owe them nothing, now. I don’t
have to run, and you don’t have to
chase,” he said. His gaze softened, and he
slid his hand up to hold her wrist,
gently. “It’s over,” he whispered, “It’s
over now.”
Miss Parker dropped the gun. It
clattered to the floor between
them. Her hand, her arm, her whole
body, began to shake. Hot tears flowed
down her face, and Jarod made a
soft noise, drawing her into his arms. She
wept against his shoulder, and he
made shushing noises, stroking her back,
holding her close.
“What am I supposed to do?” she
asked between shuddering sobs.
“You can do anything you want,”
Jarod murmured against her ear. One hand slid
down to her lower back, smoothing
across the line of her waist, and then
travelling back up her spine. His
lips brushed the shell of her ear. “You’re
free now. We’re all free now.”
****
Jarod sent her into the bathroom.
Miss Parker stood under the hot
water and tried to wash the last
thirty hours away. When that didn’t work, she
got out, wrapped herself in a robe
and braved her kitchen. Jarod was cooking
eggs, humming to himself.
“You’re awfully cheerful,” she
said, feeling drained in light of his energy.
He pointed at the television, which
was muted. It was the same as yesterday –
the Centre, evidence, scandal, and
the FBI. She gave him a quizzical look.
“The world is ending,” he said,
with a little smile. He passed her a cup of
coffee. She took it to the liquor
cabinet, and put scotch in it.
“Am I going to be arrested?” she
asked. Jarod shook his head, and she frowned,
“Lyle will squirm. My name will be
coming out of his mouth.”
“You’re dead,” Jarod said, with a
small shrug, “For all intents and purposes,
Miss Mina Parker and Dr Sydney
Hallet died in a car accident six months ago.”
His use of her first name rolled
over her like a slick chill. She
could not remember the last time it
had been said aloud. She put more scotch
in the coffee, and took a swig for
herself. “We’re a part of the Centre. We
knew what happened there, even
participated. Why not punish us for our sins?”
she asked.
“I think you’ve been punished
enough,” he said. He held a pan over two plates,
scraping fluffy scrambled eggs onto
fried toast. He sprinkled cheese over the
top, and took them to the table.
Miss Parker eyed the domestic
scene. Sitting down to breakfast
with Jarod seemed intrinsically
wrong. Her hand itched for her gun. He did
not look at her, but said, “You
must eat, Miss Parker. I’m sure you can get
over who with.”
Ungracefully, she sat. The eggs
looked wonderful, but she had no
appetite. She pushed the food
around her plate, and tension hung heavily
between them. She dropped her fork
with a clatter, and went back to the bottle
of scotch. “Why now? Why not when
you first escaped?”
“It has taken this long to gather
evidence,” Jarod said, gathering up both
their plates, even though he had
not finished yet, “For the FBI’s investigation
to get off the ground, to make sure
the wrong people wouldn’t be notified of
their progress, and the right
people were being involved.”
Miss Parker looked at the
television as he spoke. The line of text
scrolling across the bottom
announced that several members of congress were
being arrested or investigated in
connection to the Centre’s dealings. She
personally knew a few senators who
would probably end up in prison.
“I guess you’re finally free, once
and for all,” Parker said. She knotted her
fingers together, still uneasy.
“As are you,” he said
She skirted the carnage in her
lounge, and went back to sit at the
dining room table. Jarod followed,
sitting opposite her. She did not want to
look at him, in her home, at ease,
stirring his coffee in a figure eight. It
felt so normal she wanted to be
sick.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“What can I do?” she said bitterly.
“You’re independently wealthy, you
have an education, training…”
“Excellent references?” Miss Parker
said with a smirk. Jarod smirked back.
She looked away, and the silence
dragged between them.
“I expect to find my family soon,
we can come out of hiding now,” Jarod said,
“I’m sure Ethan would like to see
you.”
The silence stretched on again.
Miss Parker finished her coffee,
and stared at the bottom of the
cup. “Where will you go?” she asked. Jarod
sighed, and shrugged.
“I don’t know. Funny as it seems, I
have considered living here, in Delaware,
maybe even Blue Cove. After all
this time, it still feels like the closest
thing to home I have. The only
place I’ve ever belonged,” he said, and
chuckled without humour.
She considered reaching out and
taking his hand, but didn’t know if
she could bear it.
“I want to… to choose a profession,
I guess. Settle down, quit the nomadic
life. Make some friends I can keep
for longer than a couple of weeks,” he said
quietly.
“Picket fence and the
two-point-five?” she asked dryly. He grinned, strangely
self-deprecatory.
“Maybe. Steady job, a wife, and
kids, an SUV. Can you imagine it?” he said,
and shook his head.
“What job?” Miss Parker asked after
a moment. He shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s funny, despite
all the jobs I’ve had over the last five
years, I’m not actually *qualified*
for anything. It would feel like cheating,
to walk into a job with fake
papers,” he said, and shrugged. He gave her a shy
look, “I was… thinking about going
to college. Doing it the old fashioned way.”
“Jarod, you could teach at college.
You *have* taught at college,” Parker
said, disbelieving. She gave a
delighted chuckle, “You’d be bored stupid
within a week!”
He grinned at her, and reached his
hand across the table, taking
hers, stroking his thumb across her
knuckles. She looked down. It felt so
unnaturally natural, as though it
had always just been a matter of time until
she and Jarod could hold hands
without fear. As though the last five years had
just been a dance until now. In
that moment, she realised he had done it all
for her, and hated him.
He drew his hand away, sensing the
change in atmosphere, and stood
up. “I’m going to take a shower, if
that’s okay,” he said. She stayed at the
table as he went out the front
door, drinking her scotch from the bottle. He
came back a moment later with a
black bag slung over his shoulder. She said
nothing as he disappeared into her
bedroom, taking yet another hit from the
bottle.
When Miss Parker felt pleasantly
buzzed, she stood up and wobbled
her way into her bedroom. The
bathroom door was closed, and she could hear the
water running. She opened the door,
slipping into the clouds of steam. She
could see Jarod through the clear
glass of the shower door, his back turned to
her, water sluicing over his long,
lithe golden body. His head was tipped
forward, and at first she thought
he was standing still. After a moment of
admiring his broad, muscular back
and tight ass, she realised his arm was
flexing rhythmically, his hand
hidden in front of him.
He was jerking off, she thought,
with mild amazement. In her
bathroom, in her shower. Most
likely, her mind hazily concluded, he was
thinking about her.
She must have made a noise, because
Jarod froze, and turned around.
He looked at her through the glass,
making no apologies for the fact that his
hand was still wrapped around his
erection. Miss Parker let herself look, let
her eyes wander down his sculpted
chest, down the hard plane of his abdomen,
following the thin trail of hair
that lead from his bellybutton to the thick
curls that surrounded his erection.
As she watched, his hand travelled
up in another stroke, and then
pumped down again. Something inside
her tightened, and she forced her gaze
back to his. It was dark, aroused
and measuring. He pushed the shower door
open, stepped out from under the
stream of water, and reached both hands for
her.
In panic, Miss Parker turned and
fled.
****
It took him almost three hours for
him to find her. Miss Parker
was sitting in her black boxster,
parked on the side of a long, lonely road
with an excellent view of the
Centre. He didn’t ask before he sat beside her
in the passenger seat. She was
still wearing her robe, her hair dried soft and
curly.
“You shouldn’t have been driving,”
Jarod said quietly, “You probably have a
blood alcohol level high enough to
kill a cow.”
“What happened to my office?” she
asked. From far away and up high, the Centre
looked small. There were people and
cars swarming all over it. The
helicopters were gone, for now.
“Cleaned. Yours, Sydney’s and
Broots,” Jarod said. He fished some photographs
out of his pocket and passed them
over, “I saved these.”
There were three photographs. One
of her mother and her as a girl,
one of Tommy, and Miss Parker
paused on the last one. “Why did you save this
one?” she asked, her voice filled
with pain.
“He was your father,” Jarod said
stiffly. He didn’t like it, but he had saved
it. Miss Parker gazed at him
curiously, and he went on, “Not your biological
father, and he was never a decent
parent to you, but you loved him. You loved
him as your father, and it’s
probably the closest you’ll get to one.”
The silence dragged between them.
Miss Parker put the photographs
on the dash, and didn’t look at
them again. Finally, she said, “What’s
happened to my baby brother?”
“He’s been taken to a safe house,
like all the other children,” Jarod said. He
gave her a searching look, “Do you
wish to take him?” He knew her answer was
no, she didn’t have to say it. He
shrugged, after a moment, “He’ll be placed
with a good family. I’m sure you
can petition for access.”
She huddled deeper into her seat,
her robe gaping a little at the
front. Jarod looked away, flushing.
“I’m sorry for what you… you saw, in the
bathroom,” he said softly.
“I walked in on it,” Miss Parker
said nonchalantly.
“I didn’t want to- I mean, it’s not
like I-” Jarod closed his mouth. A
helicopter went overhead.
“It’s really over, isn’t it,” she
said finally. He nodded.
“The children are free, the bad
guys are caught, the nightmare is gone,” he
said warmly.
“What am I supposed to be now?”
Miss Parker asked, and looked at him for the
first time, “What am I supposed to
do?”
Jarod clasped her hand. “You can
have a normal life, the one
you’ve always deserved. You can be
anything you want. I will help you. I
will give you anything you ask
for,” he said earnestly.
“Anything?” she asked, measuring.
“Anything.”
She took her hand out of his, and
looked straight ahead again. “I
want you to leave me alone. If it’s
really over, it’s over,” Miss Parker said,
and folded her hands, “I don’t want
to see you ever again.”
For almost a full minute, Jarod
waited for the punch line. Then he
got out of the car and walked away.
I forgot to mention, this whole
thing is classified as NC-17, even though not
every chapter could earn that
rating. It's because it's not really worth
reading one of these - although I'm
posting in individual chapters, it's all
related. Therefore, the whole thing
gets a big red NC-17 stamp on it. If you're
not big enough to read, please
don't tell your parents you're doing so.
But on with the show, and feedback
would be most appreciated.
[/speech]
Title: Normal: Chapter II, The
American Dream
Author: Mandy
E-mail:
kitty_amazon@y...
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah
blah, no infringement intended, no profit
gained.
Normal
Chapter II: The American Dream
Miss Parker’s drinking binge lasted
around two and a half months.
Almost every day was wasted in a
haze of cold glasses of whatever was on the
menu, eating junk food and watching
television. She only ever watched the
news. Her whole world was being
graphically dissected.
The CIA stepped forward, as did the
DOD and the ATF. They all had
various hands in the national and
international, internal and external
investigation of the Centre. More
horrific evidence floated to the surface
everyday. Blue Cove was polluted
with reporters and tourists, eager to catch a
whiff of the scandal.
Footage of heinous acts was shown,
prefaced by warnings from grave
newscasters. The footage of Lyle on
a killing spree that she had viewed not so
many years ago made it to CNN, an
exclusive. The faces were blurred, but they
all died the same way. Allegations
of numerous rape and murder attempts by him
came forward, along with evidence
that several murders he may have been
involved in were covered up.
The horror backed up, day after
day. The FBI held press
conferences every morning,
detailing how far, how wide, the Centre’s cold hand
had reached. There were tearful
scenes of children finally being reunited with
their parents. Theirs were stories
of fear and betrayal, of running for their
lives and never losing hope. The
good and the bad seemed to come forth in
alternating waves, but never did it
stop.
She saw Jarod on the news one
morning, standing on the steps of the
Centre in a suit. He was behind the
reporter, talking to several other men.
He looked up, and straight into the
camera. She knew it was deliberate. He
was letting his family know where
he was, that it was safe to come out. She
saw him many times after that.
Sydney and Broots visited. Sydney
diagnosed her with depression.
She figured he just barely managed
to keep from dropping the word ‘alcoholic’
in there too. She let him sit on
her couch and attempt conversation while she
drank. Broots brought Debbie once
or twice, knowing Parker wouldn’t want to
appear drunk before the girl. But
that meant she had to lock herself and the
bottle in her room. She despised
herself for avoiding Debbie. Sometimes
Broots came over without Debbie,
without a word. He just cleaned up a bit,
opened the curtains, brought her
food and cooked up some meals. She left one
of her credit cards on the bench
for him, but he didn’t take it.
On the worst morning in two and a
half months, Miss Parker was
drunk by eight am, mainly because
she’d been awake all night. Her head
pounded, and she switched off the
television, but the sunlight still hurt her
eyes. She and the bottle waltzed
into the bathroom. She wanted a bath. She
stared at the mirror for a long
time, and forgot the water was running. It
overflowed, the water running
across the tiles. Unbalanced, she tried to
hurry, but slipped, the bottle
hitting the mirror and shattering it, the broken
glass falling with her.
When she regained consciousness,
she was naked on the bathroom
floor, bleeding from a long gash on
her arm. The water was still flowing, her
balance was still off. It took
several tries for her to sit up, and by then
she was crying, holding her aching
head with her bloody hand, catching her
reflection in the shards of mirror
beside her.
For the first time in her life,
Miss Parker looked nothing like her
mother. It was then she knew things
had gone too far.
****
Boutique grocery stores on the
Upper East Side were not safe from
trolleys with squeaky wheels, and
Miss Parker had the eerie impression she was
being followed by Raines. Which she
was not. She attempted to ignore it,
strolling along at a serene rate
with a serene expression on her face, serenely
taking bland over-priced items off
of cutely arranged shelves and dropping them
in her non-squeaking trolley, doing
her best to maintain her state of absolute
serenity. That was her goal for the
week. Maintain serenity. It was
difficult with the grating squeak
following her up the aisle.
Parker sped up, ignoring tender
hearts of artichokes being
marinated in an elaborate dressing,
packed pleasingly in shapely jars. The
squeak behind her stayed regular,
so she tore around a corner, narrowly
avoiding knocking over a pyramid of
gourmet dog food, and high-tailed it to the
other end of the store. There she
resumed her serene pace, and paused over
several blends of coffee. She
didn’t look up as someone trundled up beside her
and paused too. If they wanted
coffee, they would have to wait until she was
done.
A long arm reached over her cart to
retrieve a jar right next to
her. Parker bristled, looking up to
well and truly lose her serenity at the
offender, and almost dropped the
jar she was holding. Jarod gave her a faint
smile. She put the jar in her cart,
and shoved off, heels clicking. He kept
pace beside her, and she did her
best to ignore him. She put sugar in the cart.
“Not even a hello for an old
friend?” he asked hopefully.
Miss Parker put flour in her cart,
although she had no idea what
she would use it for. She tried not
to look at him, but gathered details all
the same. He was wearing blue jeans
and a red top. She could see that out the
corner of her eye. He pushed his
trolley out of the way, and gripped hers.
She stopped, reluctantly meeting
his gaze.
He looked good, better than she had
ever seen him. He was as fit
and strong as usual, the tight red
sweater emphasising his broad chest, the
jeans showing off his narrow hips.
His hair was longer, almost past his jaw,
tousled and half in his eyes. He
looked relaxed. That was the difference, she
decided. He looked relaxed for the
first time in his life.
“What?” she demanded. He sighed.
“Your line is, ‘Hello Jarod, how
are you?’”
“I don’t do small talk,” she said
scornfully. She went to push the trolley
past him, but he blocked her.
“Sydney says you’ve been in New
York for almost a month,” he said. She tried
to abandon the cart and walk away,
but he stepped in front of her, “I’m
surprised you crawled out of the
bottle long enough to-”
She slapped him, hard. Several
customers turned to stare. Jarod
nodded. “I deserved that,” he said.
He touched his hand to his cheek,
grimacing ruefully, “If you ever
decide to really hurt me, I’m in trouble.”
“If I ever decide to really hurt
you, you’ll be dead,” Miss Parker said
dangerously. He smiled.
“You sound like your old self
again.”
She turned back to her cart,
reclaiming her serenity, clicking
along evenly. Jarod walked beside
her, curiously studying the contents of her
cart. He wrinkled his nose in
distaste, snagging some designer candy off a
shelf and dropping it in beside the
tofu and yoghurt. She took it out and put
it back on the shelf.
“Where are you staying?” he asked.
“An apartment near here,” she said
noncommittally. He probably already knew.
“I’m staying in-” he began.
“The Village,” she finished for
him. He regarded her with surprise.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“Just figures,” she said idly. They
rounded a corner, starting another aisle.
She peered at some potato chips –
baked, not fried.
“I know you asked that I- that I…
not see you,” Jarod said carefully, “But I
wanted to make sure you were okay.
Sydney said you were hitting the bottle
pretty hard, and then abruptly
decided to come here. He hasn’t heard from you,
and I…”
“I’m sober,” she said softly, still
staring at the potato chips, “I’m not
taking twelve steps, but I’m as
sober as I need to be.”
“How sober is that?” Jarod asked.
“I only drink at night to help me
sleep.”
“Miss Parker-” Jarod began,
sounding horrified.
“I’m kidding,” she said, smiling to
herself, and finally met his gaze, “I
stayed dry the first two weeks I
was here. Then I went to a bar, to test
myself. I had one drink, and then
went home. It’s not an addiction.”
They walked in silence for a little
while, finishing two aisles.
Miss Parker was back where she had
begun, and she, Jarod and the cart lined up
at the checkout. He studied the
magazines on the rack, and then helped her
load the contents of the cart onto
the conveyer belt. She saw some expensive
cookie dough ice cream emerge from
her cart, and wondered when he had snuck it
in.
Jarod paid. She was happy to let
him, and they stepped out into
the cold afternoon air. Miss Parker
was glad she was wearing her jacket, as
they strolled in the direction of
her apartment block, and snuck glances at
Jarod. He didn’t seem cold, just
content, juggling three bags of her groceries.
“Did you find her?” she asked after
a while. A smile appeared on his face.
“Yes. I haven’t met her yet; I’ve
been making some preparations. She’s coming
to Christmas. They’re all coming to
Christmas,” he said.
“Here?”
“No,” he said, and gave her a
slightly embarrassed look, “Blue Cove. It kind
of feels safe.”
“With that many FBI milling about,
it ought to,” Parker said.
“You’re invited, you know. You,
Sydney, Broots and Debbie. It’s going to be
kind of big – there’s my dad, and
mom will be coming, and Emily, who’s bringing
her partner, and Ethan and Jem-”
“Jem is the clone?” she broke in.
“Yes. He’s decided his full name
will be Jeremiah, and Jem, J-E-M, for short,”
Jarod explained hastily, “So Jem
will be there, and Sydney said he may come, to
make his peace, and Broots and
Debbie said they’d love to, and-”
“And I’m sure Lyle and Raines and
even my dead pseudo-father would be delighted
to come, and we can sing carols and
be one big happy family,” Miss Parker said
sarcastically. Jarod lost his
enthusiasm, his jaw tightening. They walked
along in silence for a few moments.
“You could at least pretend to be
happy for me,” he said quietly.
“Why?” she asked scathingly,
“Because I should be glad your life is turning out
so swell whilst mine is going down
the drain? Because we were bestest buddies
when we were kids, and now the
Centre is gone, we should just take up where we
left off?”
“Your life isn’t going down the
drain,” Jarod said.
“Isn’t it?” she asked, “Does this
look like the embodiment of all my hopes and
dreams, Jarod? One step away from
alcoholism, clinically depressed, jobless
and alone?”
“I destroyed the Centre to set you
free, to set all of us free,” Jarod said.
She laughed.
“Some freedom. I more a prisoner
now than I ever was at the Centre. I always
knew it would be you or me who lost
in the end, Jarod. Hell, I always knew it
would be me,” Parker said. They had
reached her building, and she beckoned the
doorman over, shoving her grocery
bags into his arms and taking the ones Jarod
held. He looked crestfallen, like a
whipped puppy.
“You haven’t lost, Miss Parker,” he
said softly.
“Haven’t I? I’ve lost my mother, my
father, Tommy, everything I’ve ever known,
loved or understood. And in the
process you’ve gained your freedom and your
family. That feels like losing to
me,” she said. She shook her head slowly,
unable to keep the sadness from her
eyes, and turned away from Jarod, from all
that had gone before.
“Miss Parker…” he said, but she
walked away, the doorman trailing after her.
“Goodbye Jarod,” she called over
her shoulder, tears trailing down her cold
cheeks “Have a nice life.”
****
Jarod was in her kitchen, making
her breakfast the next morning
when she emerged form the bathroom.
She watched him dunking bread into an egg
mix near the stove, and considered
beating him to death with the fire
extinguisher that hung near his
head.
“A view of the park, nice. This
apartment must be costing you an arm,” he said
without looking up, unintentionally
shortening a colloquialism.
“Do you *ever* consider etiquette?”
she asked.
“I do,” Jarod said, and gave her a
small, sly smile, “That’s the only thing
that stopped me from wandering into
the bathroom when you were taking a
shower.”
Parker flushed, and he laughed.
“You wish,” she muttered,
tightening her robe about her. She
went to sit at the kitchen bench, as Jarod
poured her some coffee. He leaned
forward over the bench dramatically.
“Would I have seen anything
interesting?” he whispered, and waggled his
eyebrows at her.
“My bad karaoke,” she retorted.
“Heard that,” Jarod said, nodding,
“Not the kind of show I was after.”
“All you’re getting,” she said,
sipping her coffee. Jarod turned back to the
stove, flipping two slices of fried
French toast onto a plate and slapping
another two soggy slices in. He set
the plate and a knife and fork in front of
her. She eyed him warily, “I’m
going to tell you right now, I’m not looking
for a chef or a maid.”
“Not even live-in?” he asked, and
winked.
The idea of Jarod living with her
rolled through her thoughts, met
with mixed emotions. She nibbled on
the edge of the toast, refusing to admit
it was good. Jarod was in her
sanctuary, temporary as it may be, and this was
unsettling in the extreme. He shed
unwelcome light on her still too raw edges.
“You have to stop invading my
privacy,” she said quietly, “You’re living in the
real world now, without need for
secrecy and conspiracy. You can’t go around
breaking into someone’s home every
time you want to visit.”
“You wouldn’t let me in otherwise,”
Jarod said. He turned, flipped the toast,
and then faced her again, “I tried
to leave you alone but I can’t. I can’t
accept that I’m not in your life,
or that you’re not in mine. And now that I
know how unhappy you are…”
“You want to fix me?” she asked,
without malice, “You can’t fix all the world’s
ails, Jarod, and you can’t fix me.
I won’t let you.”
“Why not?”
“What do you want from me?” Miss
Parker asked abruptly.
“I don’t want anything-” he started
to deny, but she cut him off.
“Bullshit, everybody wants
something. What is it that makes you want me in
your life?”
Jarod turned away. He flipped two
pieces of French toast onto a
plate, but did not turn back to
face her. “I’ve known you most my life,” he
said softly, “You and Sydney.
You’re the only past I have. Just because I’ve
found my future, doesn’t mean I can
abandon all that has come before. I
couldn’t separate myself from the
Centre, not truly, because you were both
there. Because it would be like
cutting off a limb. You two know me better
than anyone. And I don’t know
anyone like I know you.
“Sydney is a father-figure, I’ve
always known that, which makes it
particularly difficult now – I
already have a father. But that’s something I’m
willing to work through, in order
to keep him close. After all this time, I
need to forgive him, finally,
without prejudice. And I need to begin again.”
He turned around, finally, and his
heart was in his eyes. “And if
I need to spell out what you are to
me… well. Maybe I’m not that brave a man,”
he murmured, “I just know I need
and want you in my life, now more than ever.”
“And what about what *I* want?”
Miss Parker whispered harshly, “Did you ever
stop to consider what I want?”
“Yes,” Jarod said, then shook his
head, “No. Maybe… maybe in relation to what
I thought you *needed*.”
She pushed her toast away, half
eaten. Poured herself another cup
of coffee, and longed for a
cigarette. Jarod studied his hands. She sighed.
“I’m not… I’m not okay with what’s
happened, Jarod. It was sudden, too sudden,
and I wasn’t expecting my life – my
world – to be interrupted so. I don’t know
if I can go on without a clean
break. I don’t know if I can survive, knowing
all that has gone before and
pretending it never happened.”
“You don’t have to do that,” he
said quietly.
“Don’t I? Every time you’re in my
sight, I have this driving urge to slap a
pair of handcuffs on you. What do
you want to happen? You and I hang out, go
out, I be your girlfriend and you
be my boyfriend? I don’t even know if I can
*like* you,” Parker said.
“You haven’t tried. You’ve never
tried,” Jarod said, “You’ve been filled with
their lies so long-”
“And didn’t it ever occur to you
that I *let* them do it?” Miss Parker
interrupted.
“Did you?” he asked.
“I’m not stupid,” she said. She
shook her head ruefully, her damp hair
clinging to her neck, “It wasn’t
that I couldn’t see what was going on, it was
that I blinded myself to everything
that was happening.”
“Why?”
“To maintain the status quo,”
Parker said. Her fingers looked long and white
on the deep blue of the bench, and
she stretched them out, her mind ticking
over, “To hold onto my reality. It
may have been the worst reality in the
world, but at least I understood
it.”
“Even when they killed Tommy?”
Jarod asked angrily, “Did you understand when
they put a bullet in his head?”
There was a drawn out silence. A
tear dropped on the bench, and it
took Parker a moment to realise it
was hers. She looked at her ring finger on
her left hand. She had found a ring
amongst his things, a diamond in a simple
setting. She’d never had the
strength to wear it. “You can bring yourself to
accept anything with time. He died
for me, nothing I do can ever change that.
Should I die with him?”
“Haven’t you already?” Jarod asked
sardonically.
She threw her cup at him. Jarod
ducked, and it shattered on the
tiled wall behind him. They stared
off. “Is that my cue to leave?” Jarod
asked. She nodded. He seemed to
hesitate for a moment, regarding the mess he
had left in her kitchen, and then
her. Finally, he nodded, and let himself out.
****
He left her alone for almost a
week. Miss Parker wondered if he
had gone for good, but on a sunny
day with a cool breeze, she sat on a bench in
Central Park and suddenly knew he
was behind her. She took the cup of coffee
he offered when he sat next to her.
Nearby, a man played the cello.
Jarod was wearing a turtleneck and
a thick woollen overcoat, and
took off his black leather gloves.
One fell to the ground, and she picked it
up. They sat in meditative silence.
Miss Parker stretched the soft leather
fingers of the glove, and put it
on. It was too big and loose, making her hand
look small.
He dug several crumpled pieces of
paper out of his pocket and
passed them to her. Miss Parker
unfolded them. They were letters, one from
Broots, one from Debbie, one from
Sydney, and even one from Ethan. She scanned
them, but put them in her pocket
before reading them all. The glove on her
hand made her feel clumsy as the
too-long fingers caught against the paper, the
pocket and the zip.
“I want to-” Jarod checked himself,
paused, and tried again, “I would like to
ask you out. On a date.”
Miss Parker looked at him. He
seemed so humble, watching her
earnestly, a lock of dark hair
falling across his eyes. She lifted her hand,
the one without the glove, and
pushed it out of the way, the tips of her
fingers running across his
forehead. It was the tenderest contact between them
in almost thirty years.
“Okay,” she said softly. Jarod’s
mouth dropped open.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really,” she said.
“Well… when?”
“Now,” Parker said, and watched the
cello man.
“The day is half gone,” Jarod said,
a little humour in his voice, “There are
8,968 park benches in Central Park,
you know.”
Miss Parker laughed. “How did you
find me?” she asked, “My
apartment is near the North End.”
Jarod leaned close, his nose brushing her
hair. It was a very intimate
gesture.
“The carousel,” he murmured.
Bittersweet warmth flowed through her.
“My mother used to take me to ride
it every time we came to New York,” she
whispered. Jarod smiled.
“Then we’ll start there.”
Chapter III, Perfect Match
Author: Mandy
E-mail:
kitty_amazon@y...
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah
blah, no infringement intended, no profit
gained.
Normal
Chapter III: Perfect Match
As the carousel turned and the
music played, he followed her. Miss
Parker watched the world spinning
by and stepped unsteadily forward, against
the movement of the carousel,
moving from pole to pole, horse to horse. They
were painted, pretty, like she
remembered them, but it was dark under the
overhang of the carousel’s roof.
She saw their reflections in the
mirrored panels, and wove between
rearing painted beasts, knew
Jarod’s hand gripped whatever her hand had just
left. Exhilarated, she smiled but
did not laugh. She spun, when he had almost
caught her, shoved herself up onto
one of the backs of the antique horses,
sidesaddle.
Jarod put his hands on either side
of her. It was just them, finally, leaning
close. Jarod’s gaze dropped to her
mouth, and he drifted closer. She leaned
forward, parted her lips, and
caught a glimpse of suited men watching them.
Miss Parker’s head snapped around.
She reached for the weapon that wasn’t
there, almost falling from her
perch. Jarod steadied her, his eyes wide, and
she pushed at his chest, pushed him
out of the way, slithering to the ground.
She searched the crowd for the men,
the suited men with dark glasses. The
carousel kept turning.
“What? What is it?” Jarod asked.
She stood stock still, and finally saw the
men again. They were businessmen.
One was smoking a cigarette, while they
talked and watched the carousel.
The carousel, not her.
Miss Parker’s actions suddenly hit
her. She looked at Jarod,
biting her lip, knowing he
understood exactly what had happened. He put out
his hand, and she took it, allowed
him to draw her close. They rocked on their
feet as the carousel slowed.
“You’re safe,” Jarod said, “I
promise, it’s over. You’re safe now.”
****
They got hotdogs from a vendor, and
cans of soda, which Jarod
tucked into his pockets. They
walked, without aim, up the street. Miss Parker
turned her face to the sun, as
Jarod talked about his plans.
“Wait-” Miss Parker interrupted,
“You can’t wait for the new school year, so
you’re just going to roll up for
second semester?”
“Yes,” he said around a mouthful of
food, “There’s no use wasting time.”
“But wasn’t the whole idea of going
to college about doing it the old fashioned
way? *Not* cheating?”
“It’s not cheating… it’s just
easing the way a little,” Jarod said, gesturing
with his hand.
“Oh, first it’s easing the way,
then it’s hacking the system and altering your
marks…” Miss Parker said.
“I don’t need to alter my-!”
“You say that now,” she said
grimly, “But you’ll get caught up in frat parties
and panty raids, and before you
know it you’ll be walking into an exam with
only twenty minutes sleep in
seventy-two hours when you haven’t even looked at
a text book-”
“Are we talking about my college
experience or your college experience here?”
Jarod interrupted, “And what is a
panty raid?”
“I can see it now Jarod,” Miss
Parker continued, ignoring him, “You, your
endearing idiosyncratic behaviour
and your ID – you’ll forge that too – will be
a hit with both brains and jocks.
You’ll spend half your college life drunk,
naked, high or any combination of
all of the above.”
Jarod paused in the street. “I
would never use illicit substances.
Nor would I buy alcohol for anyone
underage,” he said gravely. His mouth got
a little quirk, “You think my
idiosyncrasies are endearing?”
“Shutup,” Miss Parker said. Jarod
grinned impishly, and pointed at her
half-eaten hotdog.
“If you’re not going to eat that…”
She handed over the dog, and took a
can of grape soda from his deep
coat pocket. They walked in
companionable silence. Miss Parker threaded her
arm through Jarod’s. He didn’t
look, or say anything, but she knew he was
pleased.
They took a cab, down Fifth Avenue
to the Empire State building.
They rode the elevator to the 86th
floor observatory deck, and looked out over
the south end of Manhattan. Jarod
had a camera slung around his neck – he’d
walked into a store and bought a
hideously expensive one and several rolls of
film. He took pictures of her and
the view. Then he stood behind her, put his
arms around her, resting his chin
on her shoulder.
“My first time in New York, I stood
up here and couldn’t believe how free I
felt… to have the sun, the sky, the
wind, the city spread out below me,” he
murmured in her ear. He shifted
closer, his arms tight around her. Miss
Parker closed her eyes. Jarod
chuckled, “After being kept underground all my
life, standing up here is like
flying.”
She opened her eyes, and saw New
York like it was the first time.
****
They rode the last ferry of the day
to the statue of liberty. Miss
Parker looked across the waves to
where the lady raised her arm in tribute to
the sky, and then back towards
Manhattan. Jarod took photographs.
“Her tablet has the date of July
4th, 1776 inscribed on it in Roman numerals,”
Jarod said, lowering his camera to
lean across the rail with her, “Independence
Day. That’s my birthday, you know.”
He was grinning. An ache formed in
Miss Parker’s chest. Something
so small as a birthday had been
withheld from him all his life. Her losses
seemed insignificant compared to
his. “Happy Birthday, Jarod,” she said
softly, “It seems appropriate.”
The sun was close to setting when
they reached Liberty Island.
They did not go to the museum, or
the observation decks. Instead, they sat on
a bench, side by side, watching the
light play across the buildings across the
harbour. It was cooler now, and
Jarod sat close, hugging her into his side.
“How am I doing?” he asked, and
Parker chuckled.
“You’re not supposed to ask.”
“I’ve never been on a date before,”
Jarod said, shrugging, “It’s hard.”
“It’s very romantic,” she said
dryly, “What’s next? Ice-skating in Central
Park?”
Jarod looked away. She sighed.
“Ice-skating would be lovely,
Jarod,” she said. He looked down at her and
smiled.
“What made you change your mind?”
he asked after a while, “About us, I mean.
You haven’t tried to attack me all
day.”
Miss Parker shrugged reflectively.
“Maybe what you were saying
about the past. You left me alone
for a few days… I tried to get on with my
life, I’m still trying, but… if I
leave everything behind, I have nothing left.
Sydney, Broots, Debbie, they’ve
become my family.”
“What about me?” Jarod asked
quietly. She took his hand, cradling it in her
lap.
“Denial is a terrible state to live
in,” she whispered.
They said nothing more.
****
Lasker Rink was not busy. Miss
Parker had her skates on before
Jarod and arrowed across the ice
with ease. When she looked over her shoulder,
he was gaining on her. She bent
closer to the ground, her arms behind her
back, her motions fluid. She’d done
a little figure skating in her youth, and
knew how to speed skate. Jarod
moved like a hockey player.
When he almost reached her, she
executed a neat little twist, and
was skating in the opposite
direction, backwards, by the time he realised what
was happening. She checked over her
shoulder, and slowed as she neared the
wall. Jarod turned, gliding towards
her, still low to the ground and fast.
She almost thought he intended to
collide, but he straightened at the last
moment, braking hard, sending up a
spray of ice.
“You’re good,” he said, short of
breath.
“Doesn’t take a genius,” she said.
Several kids, their hands joined in a
chain, whizzed by them. Jarod put
his hands on the barrier, either side of
her, and crowded in close. His head
dipped towards hers, but she turned her
face away. “Gotta earn it, lab
rat,” she whispered, and ducked under his arms,
skating away.
He sprinted after her with greater
determination and speed than
before, and they wove amongst other
skaters, going lean and hard. Jarod
touched her arm, and she swooped
away, laughing as she went. He corralled her
between the barrier and a bunch of
kids, but she scraped through the closing
gap with an inch to spare. She
watched him, from the other side of the rink,
as he slowed and manoeuvred around
them, smiling graciously at a stern looking
parent.
Parker saw him looking for her, and
she hunkered down beside a
little girl who was skating
cautiously forward. “Hi,” she said, and the little
girl smiled slightly.
“Is he chasing you?” the girl
asked.
“Yes he is,” Parker said, “I’m just
going to hide here with you for a minute.”
They edged forward, the girl
craning her neck around to see. She
whipped back to Miss Parker with
exaggerated fear. “He’s coming!” she crowed.
Parker made a sudden dash for
freedom, but Jarod was too fast, stretching out
his arms, wrestling her in a bear
hug. Their skates clashed, and they went
down, sprawling across the ice.
“Ow,” she said, lying flat on her
back. Jarod lay half on top of her.
“Got you,” he said. She pulled his
head down and kissed him. It was chaste,
at first, his mouth brushing
lingeringly over hers. Miss Parker felt something
akin to an electric shock. She
threaded her fingers into his hair, parting her
mouth against his, felt his tongue
touch tentatively at hers.
They were interrupted by nearby
giggling. Jarod raised his head to
look gravely at the bunch of
children and the now horrified parent. “She
needed mouth-to-mouth,” he assured
them. Still giggling, they skated on. “Do
you think they bought it?” he
whispered loudly.
“Lock, stock and barrel,” Miss
Parker said, unable to contain her smile, “Now
get off me.”
“I like it here,” he said, and
touched his mouth to hers again, just briefly.
She sighed.
“After five years, the one thing I
was always chasing fell into my lap.
Literally.”
Jarod smiled, well aware of the
multiple meanings behind her words.
He scooted off her, helping her to
her feet. They collided gently, her palms
resting on his chest, his on her
waist. Jarod’s expression was of enigmatic
tenderness. They floated, like
that, he skating backwards and towing her along.
“I could fall in love with you,” he
said, “I could love you forever.”
“Nobody can love forever,” Parker
said, without bitterness.
“Then I will love you today,” Jarod
said.
His words cut deeply. Again, she
had the sensation that fate was
drawing them towards a time and
place they had always been waiting for. It
scared her. “Can you cook?” she
asked. Jarod flashed his trademarked 100-watt
smile.
“Debatable.”
“Come on,” she said, and led the
way off the ice.
****
“I was a chef once. Well, not
really a chef, more like a cook. Flipping
burgers, really,” Jarod told her,
“Big greasy lumps of meat. I put cheese in a
can on them.”
“Ah,” Miss Parker said knowingly,
“So there was no actual *food* involved.”
Jarod threw a tomato at her from
the other side of her island
bench. She caught it, dropping it
on her cutting board. She picked up a
knife, flicked it around her hand,
and then sharpened it on an iron. He took
his knife, and used it to slice
another tomato. He went so fast his hand was a
blur.
“You use a knife like a chef,” she
said. He shrugged.
“I saw it on TV. They were using
this knife to cut a leather shoe,” he said
enthusiastically, “I bought the
whole set.”
They worked in silence for a
moment, pulling things out of the
paper grocery bags on the bench.
They were making pasta, fettuccini matriciana
and bruschetta. Jarod had shed his
jacket, slung it over the back of the
sofa, and was wearing a soft blue
sweater. She watched his hands, how quickly
he manipulated the food he was
slicing. Such clever hands, she mused, and
briefly pictured his hands on her
naked breasts.
“Will you come to Christmas?” Jarod
asked. She stilled.
“Why?”
He gave her a faint, confused
smile. “Because I would like you to
be there,” he said. He took a half
cut onion out of her hands, and finished
dicing it. She put her knife down,
and turned to the sink to wash her hands.
“All your family will be there,”
Miss Parker said. She dried her hands, her
back still to him, “I’m not-. This
is just one date, Jarod. I’ve made no
promises.”
“I know you haven’t. But haven’t we
progressed?” Jarod asked, sounding
frustrated, “You’re not telling me
to get out of your life anymore. Today was
– *is* – a date.”
“A date, not a lifetime commitment.
Not forever.”
“So come as my friend,” he said,
coming up behind her. His chest bumped her
back, his hands threaded under her
arms, to the sink. He washed his hands like
that.
“Your family will be there,” Parker
whispered again, “How can they not hate me
for what I’ve done?”
“They will accept you because I
do,” he said quietly. Her hands joined his
under the water. He nuzzled her
ear, saying, “We’re having Thanksgiving and
Christmas in one. Turkey dinner and
presents and everything – my first family
event. Let me be your family. I
don’t want you to be alone again. No
pressure, no commitments, no
forever. Just a day.”
She clenched her hands over his.
“Okay,” she said, “Okay.”
****
At the end of the night, after food
and too much wine and a
pleasant haze, Jarod kissed her
goodbye at the door. His mouth was warm and
still sweet from the wine. They
were both holding back, Miss Parker knew.
Keeping themselves in check.
She closed the door behind him, and
banged her head on the solid
wood panel.
****
He ended up having to leave her for
over a week. There were some
last minute repairs on his house in
Blue Cove that needed his attention. They
didn’t talk on the phone, or make
further arrangements before he left. It
didn’t occur to him to leave
details for her to reach him on. It was an
oversight that Jarod only realised
later.
He came back to NYC in the middle
of the night. He stood over her
bed as she slept. Miss Parker lay
in the middle, the silk straps of her
nightgown glowing ivory in the
moonlight. Silently, Jarod lifted his sweater
over his head and dropped it to the
floor. He toed off his shoes and socks.
He dropped his jeans, and shivered
in the cool air, wearing only Calvin Klein
cotton boxers. He lifted the
covers, and slid into bed with her.
Miss Parker tensed instantly,
rolling away from him in an
instinctive defensive reaction. He
aborted the motion by sliding a hand across
the sheets to touch her belly. She
stilled, and let out a heavy breath.
“Christ, you scared me,” she said.
They lay side by side, facing each other.
Jarod wanted to pull her close, but
didn’t.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she said, “Are you naked?”
“No.”
“Just checking,” Miss Parker said,
amused. He smiled.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” he said.
“It’s Thanksgiving today?”
“Today. This morning,” he
confirmed.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Jarod,” she
said softly.
Pause.
“Are you still depressed?” he
asked. She waited longer than was comfortable
before answering.
“Yes,” she said.
The knowledge made Jarod feel
strangely guilty, and intensely
curious. He had never known
depression in his life – he had gone through
terrible grief, anger and
bitterness, but never serious depression, as he
understood the meaning of the word.
“Everything is black,” Miss Parker
said, “Sometimes I feel like dying.”
He knew she was lying. It was far
worse than that.
“Would you…?” he trailed off,
unable to say it.
“No. Never.”
She rolled to him suddenly, across
her belly, pushing him back and
landing on his chest. She found his
face with her hands, zeroed in, her mouth
meeting his, almost missing.
Surprised, he caught her by the waist, his mouth
opening. Her tongue slid against
his. She kissed him hard, deep, and it felt
frighteningly thrilling and erotic.
Her soft breasts were pressed against his
chest, and she surged, rubbed
against him, made him feel hot and aroused.
“I want to feel alive,” Miss Parker
panted, breaking the kiss, “Make me feel
alive, Jarod.”
Jarod knew he should do the right
thing, say no, put her away from
him and discuss her depression. But
he wasn’t feeling like her therapist, he
was beginning to feel like her
lover. His own desire for physical intimacy
gripped at his heart, made him
choke on a rejection. Instead, he smoothed her
hair back from her face, kissed her
cheek, and rolled her beneath him.
He took the lead, and Miss Parker
seemed satisfied with that. He
kissed her, at first, intent on
discovering the depths of her warm, sweet
mouth, unbelievably turned on by
her moist mouth moving against his.
“More,” she demanded after a little
while, and he was happy to oblige.
He peeled her silk nightgown from
her, unsatisfied with the
darkness and unwilling to turn on a
light. He made do with his hands, learning
the plane of her stomach, the
gentle curve of her breasts. He memorised her
shape, feeling gleeful and not
wanting to communicate it.
“You’re beautiful,” Jarod said, in
darkness. She sighed, and her small hands
slipped up his chest to his
shoulders.
He kissed her throat, her
collarbones, moved down her breastplate.
He wanted everything. He wanted to
give her everything. He kissed her
breasts, moulding them with his
hands, and moved his mouth down, lower, lower.
He kissed the tender skin between
her bellybutton and pubic bone. He ran his
finger along the top edge of her
panties, stroked his other hand down her
thigh. She lifted it, stacked her
foot flat on the bed, and lifted her hips
when he tugged down her panties.
There was a strange anticipation in
Jarod as he tenderly licked her
thigh. Some part in the back of his
mind was terrified at not being able to
please. Performance anxiety, he
thought. He had read multiple sex manuals.
Success would be achieved by making
sure she reached orgasm before he did.
“Jarod,” Parker said softly.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Stop thinking,” she said.
Amused, he did as he was asked,
lowering his mouth to her heat.
She gave a soft sigh as he nuzzled
into her moist folds, catching a drop of
moisture with his tongue, and then
going back for more, and more, finding her
clitoris and feasting on that. She
moaned when he slid one finger deep inside
of her, shifting restlessly as he
began to stroke. He crooked his finger and
she bucked, crying out hoarsely.
Bingo, he thought, g-spot. He thrust another
finger inside of her, lifting his
head to watch her in the shadowy darkness.
He stroked the spot again and she
moaned, grinding down onto his hand.
He began to crawl up her body,
still stroking his fingers inside of
her. Jarod kissed her hip, her
shoulder, the delicate skin below her ear, and
then met her mouth with his own.
She kissed him hungrily, one arm twining
around his neck, the other hand
sliding across his hip, caressing the bulge in
his shorts.
They shuffled around hurriedly,
losing his boxer shorts in the
process, until he lay between her
parted thighs, his hands sunk low beneath her
hips as he eased inside of her.
Miss Parker moaned low in her throat, curling
her legs around his waist. He
moved, almost crazy with want, thrilled to the
base of his spine at the feel of
her, the taste of her. He felt awkward,
almost rough, but ignored it,
encouraged by her hands scraping across his back.
She came fast, but not hard,
shuddering around him in release. He
thrust into her, again, again. But
the little sounds she was making became
wrong. He slowed, filled with
dread, stilled inside of her, clutched her close
in his arms. She was crying, and
not from joy or release. She was really
crying, breaking down in violent
sobs, her body shaking with emotion that
trembled right through her and into
him.
“Parker? Christ, Parker, I’m
sorry,” Jarod said. He tried to will his
erection out of existence, but he’d
gone too far, was still aching for release.
He withdrew carefully, rolled to
his side, pulling her against his chest. He
reached out, hit the lamp. Light
flooded the room.
He felt insanely dirty, then. It
all seemed so sordid, Miss Parker
sobbing her heart out in his arms,
her hands covering her face, her breasts
half exposed by the rumpled
blankets. The room reeked of sex. He should have
known better. He should have been
more sensitive.
He prised her hands away from her
face, disturbed by the blotchy
red misery there. He attempted to
pull her close, needing to comfort her and
not entirely sure how. She tried to
roll away from his embrace, and there was
a short scuffle. She made it
halfway off the bed, got both feet on the floor,
stumbling away as he lunged for
her. He caught her by the hand, and didn’t let
go.
“Please, please, Parker, not like
this,” he said desperately, “Please. Please.”
She crumpled to the floor, away
from him, still crying. He climbed
down next to her, no longer turned
on but still hard. He pushed the hair out
of her eyes, hating the pain he
saw. He cradled her jaw with his hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, “I’m so
sorry.”
“Fuck you,” she said, her voice
wavering, “It’s not about you. Don’t you dare
make it about you.”
Jarod flinched, but didn’t turn
away or register offence. Finally,
she caved, slumped against him,
still crying. He tugged her half onto his lap,
rocking her in his arms. Her tears
were staining his neck. Self-doubt and
recrimination set in. He hated
himself for taking advantage of her.
Eventually, sniffing and
hiccoughing occasionally, Miss Parker
crawled, still naked, into bed.
Jarod followed, turning off the light. She
curled into his side, clinging like
a child. He soothed her with his hand on
her forehead, stroking. When she
fell asleep, he felt incredibly relieved.
He did not sleep that night. Close
to dawn, a nagging thought
invaded him. He had not worn a
condom. He didn’t think she was on the pill.
He had not ejaculated, either, but
knew that did not mean they were entirely
safe from pregnancy. Jarod refused
to consider the possibility of a child, not
when the hypothetical mother was so
torn up.
Still, he did not sleep a wink.
****
Morning came, bearing reality. Miss
Parker procrastinated in the
bathroom for as long as she could,
knowing Jarod was already up, possibly
waiting for her, possibly not. The
thought of each terrified her. She was
tempted to wear one of her suits,
don her armour of makeup and disdain, but
couldn’t bring herself to it.
Instead she wore her bathrobe, left her hair wet
and her face clean.
Jarod sat drinking coffee at her
kitchen bench, perched on a
barstool. He was reading her paper,
and looked up when she entered. They
regarded each other awkwardly. The
night’s activities weighed heavily in the
air.
“Good morning,” Jarod said softly.
His hair was damp too, although she must
have slept through his shower. He
had lines of tension around his mouth, and
circles under his eyes.
“Morning,” she said. She crossed,
and poured a cup of coffee. She didn’t meet
his eyes.
“Miss Parker-” he began, but she
silenced him with her hand in the air.
“Please Jarod, I can’t-. I don’t
know if I can… deal with this now. I’m
sorry, it was wrong of me to-” she
stopped. Wrong of her to throw herself at
him to stave off the emptiness.
“It wasn’t nothing,” he said,
staring into his coffee, “Maybe ill-timed, but
not… nothing.”
It hit her again. She’d had sex
with him last night, breached some
impossible barrier that had stood
between them for years. It hadn’t been
brilliant sex, really rather
tragic, in a way, but still sex. She’s had sex
with him. There was some unspoken
commitment there, an agreement that things
would progress between them.
“No. It wasn’t,” she said.
Jarod seemed pained, and touched
the cell phone at his belt. “I
have to go. I don’t want to.
There’s more trouble at the house in Blue Cove,
and I need to be there. I’m sorry,
I’d stay if I could,” he said. She nodded,
feeling relieved.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I-”
“No. Don’t. I really need some time
alone,” she said, and his face fell. She
shook her head, “Not-. I’ll be
there for Christmas, I promise. Leave the
address, I’ll be there.”
Jarod scribbled on paper while she
went and got dressed. When she
came back, it was sitting in an
unsealed envelope on the bench, her name
scrawled across the front. Mina
Parker. He took her in his arms, seeming
afraid, devastated and resigned. He
kissed her goodbye, tenderly. She knew he
thought it might be the last time.
She knew he thought it was over, and did
not have the strength to tell him
otherwise.
After he left, she sealed the
envelope, and put it out of sight.
****
Coming soon:- Chapter IV, Unreality
Check
Chapter IV: Unreality Check
un·re·al·i·ty
n. pl. un·re·al·i·ties
The quality or state of being
unreal.
Something unreal, insubstantial, or
imaginary.
A lack of ability to deal with
reality.
On the eve of Christmas Eve, close
to midnight, Miss Parker broke
into Jarod’s house in Blue Cove.
There were multiple cars in the driveway, and
the huge house was all but dark. In
a spacious living room, she found Jarod
asleep on a rug in front of a
glowing fire, a book cast aside on the floor
beside him. His camera was sitting
on the sofa. She stepped around his
ankles, held it up, turned off the
flash, and took a picture of him – golden by
firelight, sprawled in graceless
beauty, peaceful in sleep.
In the 23 days since she’d last
seen him, Miss Parker had had a lot
of time to think. She’d done close
to nothing in his absence, asides from
following the Centre investigation
on CNN and perfunctory things, like eating,
showering, sleeping. Occasionally
she had gone to the park, watched the
carousel or the skaters on Lasker
rink. She wore her loneliness like a shroud.
Miss Parker knelt beside him,
warmed by the fire, and hovered above
him for a moment. He was turned
mostly towards the hearth, his long lashes
curled against his cheek, half of
his face lost in shadow, and he breathed
through his parted mouth, deep and
even. She reached out to touch his face
with the tips of her fingers,
brushing them along his cheekbone.
Jarod breathed in sharply, snapping
his hand up to grip her wrist,
his eyes opening. They stared at
each other for a moment, before he let out
his breath and loosened his grip on
her wrist, but did not let go.
“Still got your edge,” she said
softly.
“Never lost it,” he said. He sat
up, and she edged backwards, keeping the
distance between them. He still
held her wrist, and she tugged. He smiled
faintly, “I didn’t think you’d
come.”
“Neither did I,” she admitted. He
swung his legs under himself and rose to his
knees, mirroring her position. His
hand on her wrist created a current between
them. She could not forget that
they’d been joined more intimately, not so
long ago. Nor could she forget that
it had ended badly, creating the tension
between them. She knew she
shouldn’t have done what she did, but he shouldn’t
have, either.
“Why did you come?” he asked. She
backed up again and he followed, a strange
dance.
“There’s no place like home,” she
said flippantly. Jarod’s gaze narrowed.
“This is *my* home,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered. His hand
slid up her wrist, to capture her hand, and
he kissed her palm gently.
“I’m glad you’ll be here to meet my
family,” he said softly, and held her palm
captive against his cheek. His five
o’clock shadow rasped against her skin.
“Yeah, well, the Parker family
picnic was cancelled this year,” she said
sardonically. His tongue flickered
against her middle finger, and her hand
clenched convulsively, her nails
digging into his cheek.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about
you,” Jarod said thickly, his dark eyes
hooded with desire. His words
tugged at her, pulled tight in her chest.
“What do you want from me?” she
asked. He pulled her close, wrapped his arm
around her waist and tucked her
against him. They were chest to chest, thigh
to thigh, his erection pressed
against her belly.
“This,” he said, “Us. You.”
“Picket fences and SUVs?” Parker
asked with a faint smile.
“Whatever comes.”
She straightened her fingers
against his cheek, rubbing over the
half-moon marks she had left with
her nails. Her first instinct was to run, to
leave him and her past far, far
behind. But she couldn’t deny the need that
coiled in her. “What if I can’t
give you what you want?” she asked.
“Whatever you can give me is
enough,” Jarod assured her. His eyes seemed
golden in the light of the fire.
Miss Parker felt sadness settling
in the pit of her stomach. He
said that now, she knew, but a time
would come when the only things she could
give him would not be enough. “I
don’t want to think about tomorrow,” she said.
“I won’t make you,” Jarod assured
her. He kissed her, closed mouth and
lingering, as if they were sealing
a pact. When the kiss broke, he rubbed his
nose against hers. “Eskimo kiss,”
he whispered, and smiled. Another discovery
he had made. A tear trickled down
her cheek, and his smile faded. He kissed
the tear away, and the next one.
“Are they all here?” Parker asked,
pulling away from him, wiping her cheeks,
quietly furious with herself.
“All except for Sydney and Broots.
They’ll be coming for Christmas dinner, but
spending the rest of the time with
their families,” Jarod said. She realised,
quite abruptly, that she would be
marooned with Jarod’s family without an ally.
“I probably won’t stay the whole
time,” she said quickly. Pain flared briefly
in his eyes.
“Okay,” he said, “Your house isn’t
too far away. It’s an easy trip.”
Silence drew out between them,
thick and awkward. She rested back
on her heels, watching the fire
leap and flicker. She knew he was watching
her, but didn’t have the energy to
respond. These days she never seemed to
have any energy. She spent most of
her time sleeping and reading, never fully
absorbing her surroundings.
Depression seemed such a terrible weakness after
all she had survived.
“My doctor put me on
antidepressants,” she said after a long time, “And I’ve
made an appointment with a
therapist here in Blue Cove, for after New Year’s.”
“That’s good,” Jarod said warmly,
“Recognising that you have a problem is the
first step.”
“I know,” Parker said curtly. She
shook her head, “I hate this.”
He took her hand, twining his
fingers with hers. “Do I make things
better or worse?” he asked quietly.
It was a question she had not expected,
nor considered. She shrugged
helplessly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know
anything anymore.”
Jarod tugged her towards him again,
and she went, albeit
reluctantly. He cradled her against
his chest, even though she lay stiff and
awkward, and buried his face in her
hair. They stayed in this awkward,
hurt/comfort position for a few
moments, and she wasn’t quite sure who was
consoling whom.
Somehow their quiet, self-indulgent
grieving shuffled them both to
the floor, and Parker fought a
sense of distance as Jarod hovered over her,
concluding that, no matter how
surreal it seemed, what was happening between
them could potentially affect her
life. Dramatically. It was what she wanted,
she reminded herself. What she had
invited.
His long hair created a curtain
around their faces as he leant
down, and she turned her mouth up
to meet his. This kiss was not chaste or
lingering, but hard, sharp and
passionate. His tongue slid against hers, his
teeth teased her lips, and then it
was over, and he drew back, watching her.
“I meant what I said,” he murmured,
“I could fall in love with you. Is it a
mistake?”
“Everything is a mistake,” she
whispered back, “You can’t predict the future.”
“Can you at least rewrite history?”
he asked. His hand flitted across her
sweater, over her ribs.
“The only moment you can control is
the one you’re living in.”
“They’re over so quickly,” he said
with a bittersweet smile, “I feel I’ve
barely had time to look, let alone
make decisions.”
“C’est la vie,” she said. She put
her palms on his warm neck, threaded her
fingers into his hair, and wished
he’d stop talking.
Jarod sank against her, enveloping
her in his warmth. Their mouths
met, gentle and sweet, and she
sighed, pulling him closer. He made a line of
kisses along her jaw, touching the
lobe of her ear with his tongue, and Parker
tilted her head back to give him
access. She pushed her cool hands under his
sweater, finding his warm skin,
running her hands across his abdomen. He was
solid and warm and male, and she
traced the ridged muscles of his washboard
stomach.
“Your hands are cold,” Jarod said
softly, his muscles tensing under her
fingers. She said nothing, and he
lowered his head again after a moment,
taking her mouth again in a long,
sensual kiss.
With gentle sighs, they peeled
layers from each other, Jarod
removing Miss Parker’s sweater and
the shirt she wore underneath, leaving her
in her bra and pants. She found he
was wearing nothing beneath his dark
woollen sweater, tossing it aside
and rubbing her bare skin against his, the
dark hairs that were scattered
across his chest rasping pleasantly. His golden
skin was a direct contrast to her
fine, alabaster complexion, and she twined
her arms around him, so they seemed
swirled together.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Jarod
whispered hoarsely, and she pulled him closer,
tighter against her. This felt
good, natural, and she kissed him hard, moaning
as his hand crept down to cup her
breast. She arched, pressed against him, and
his fingers slipped under one strap
of her bra, easing it down slowly, slowly.
There was a discreet cough behind
them, and they both stilled
suddenly. Jarod lifted his head,
searching the darkness, and then flushed.
“Mom,” he said in a strangled
voice, obviously embarrassed. He sat up,
attempting to hide his erection by
turning away slightly, and helped Miss
Parker up.
Parker watched curiously as the
slight woman with greying red hair
came further into the room,
watching them with an amused smile. Jarod’s finger
caught the strap on Parker’s arm,
pushing it back into place on her shoulder,
and she shrugged into the shirt he
passed her.
“I wasn’t going to interrupt,”
Margaret said softly, “But I figured you could
make out any time. I wanted to meet
Catherine’s daughter.”
“Uh, Miss Parker, my mother,
Margaret. Mom, this is Miss Parker,” Jarod said,
standing hastily and pulling on his
sweater. Parker rose to her feet slowly,
taking the hand that was offered
and shaking. Margaret’s grip was warm and
firm, her smile benign. Parker was
fairly sure she was in the twilight zone.
The two women regarded each other
for a moment, while Jarod
fidgeted nervously beside them.
Finally, Margaret nodded slowly, and smiled.
“I was going to get a hot drink,
would you care to join me?”
Parker nodded silently, and
followed her through the dark lounge,
down a short hall and into a
kitchen, Jarod trailing after. Everybody winced
painfully when the lights were
turned on. Margaret turned towards the fridge,
but Jarod stalled her. “I’ll make
some cocoa, Mom, you sit down,” he said.
Parker and Margaret sat on bar
stools on either side of the island
counter, regarding each other. In
the light, Miss Parker could see that
Margaret had weary lines on her
face, but soft, smiling blue eyes. Margaret
studied her too, as though
measuring her similarities to her mother.
“Your mother was a beautiful woman.
You look just like her,” Margaret murmured.
“Thankyou,” Parker said. She
flicked a glance at Jarod, who was heating milk
on the stove. He had his chin
against his chest, looking down and murmuring
something she could only just hear.
He was talking to his penis, she realised,
saying, ‘Not now, go away.’
“How did you-” Parker stopped,
uncertain. She was desperate to know how
Catherine and Margaret had known
each other, but wondered about her timing.
The last thing Jarod probably
wanted at his first family Christmas was to talk
about the Centre. He turned,
watching them intently as he set three cups on
the counter and divided the cocoa
between them. She gratefully took a sip of
hers.
“We’re sisters,” Margaret said.
Parker choked on her drink, a
mouthful of milk going down the wrong
way. She coughed, and Jarod gave
her a slap on the back, apparently
undisturbed by the notion that he’d
slept with his cousin. She gasped for
breath, and Margaret shook her
head. “Not blood,” she said, and gave a quick,
impish grin, “Sorry to scare you
like that.”
Miss Parker’s gaze narrowed,
knowing that Margaret had shocked her
intentionally, obviously amused by
the knee-jerk reaction she’d garnered.
Jarod grinned too. Mother and son
shared the same smile.
“We grew up together. Your mother
was fostered with my family at eight. She
stayed with us until she was
fifteen – we grew up as sisters. She left us to
begin her studies at the convent,”
Margaret said. She became distant, smiling
at memories, “I met Charles and we
moved to Michigan. She wrote when she found
out she was pregnant with you… she
was so happy.”
Guilt twisted in Miss Parker like a
knife. Margaret and Jarod both
seemed to be conveniently
forgetting that it was she who had kept them apart,
drawn Jarod away from his past and
chased him away from his family. How could
she forget everything she had done?
“But it’s late,” Margaret said,
finishing off her cocoa, “And I’d better be
getting back to bed.”
She kissed Jarod goodnight, smiled
at Parker once more, and
disappeared into the darkness.
Jarod stared after her, his expression hungry.
He turned back to Parker. “I met
her for the first time today,” he said
quietly, “I met my mother and she
held me just like mothers should.”
His eyes glittered, and he swiped
at his eyes fiercely.
Self-loathing rose in Parker and
twisted around her throat. She had no words,
no apologies, that would ever be
enough. And she wasn’t sure she could say
them if she did.
“Will you stay here tonight?” Jarod
asked softly.
“Yes,” she said, and touched his
cheek.
“Come on,” he said, standing, “I’ll
show you your room.”
****
Turning off the light behind him,
Jarod emerged from the bathroom
and took a moment to adjust to the
darkness. He crept, barefoot, up the
hardwood hallway, and went to stand
in front of Miss Parker’s bedroom door,
directly opposite his own. The
light was off. She had disappeared in there
right after telling him the
bathroom was free. He contemplated knocking, and
then thought about simply opening
the door and climbing into bed with her. He
wondered if their next attempt at
lovemaking was bound to be a disaster like
the last one.
“Are you going to stand out there
all night?”
Startled, Jarod spun around. Miss
Parker was standing in the
doorway of his bedroom. She’d
obviously been in there for a while now – she
was wearing one of the white
business shirts that hung in the wardrobe, and
nothing else. Her long, bare legs
had never looked better than emerging from
his shirt, he thought wryly. And he
could see her nipples through the sheer
cotton, dark rosy tips.
“Well?” she asked, arching an
eyebrow. She flicked her hair over her shoulder
provocatively.
Dry-mouthed and speechless, Jarod
followed her into his bedroom,
shut the door behind him and locked
it.
****
Miss Parker awoke to an elephant
thumping up and down the hallway.
She lay still, and listened.
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump. It stopped
outside the bedroom door. The knob
rattled. The key was on their side, and
the door was locked. She heard a
loud, frustrated sigh, and the elephant went
away again;
thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump.
Parker glanced at Jarod. He was
sleeping like the dead beside her,
arms flung up around his head, his
face mushed into the pillow. He snuffled
contentedly as she watched,
snuggling deeper into the blankets and pillows.
His yellow pyjama bottoms had been
flung across the room, as had the shirt
she’d been wearing. She felt
pleasantly sore in all the right places.
There was a backwards clock hanging
on the wall, all the numbers
reversed and ticking backwards,
like a mirror image. It took Parker a moment
to figure out that it was after ten
in the morning. She smiled a Cheshire
smile. She’d worn Jarod out.
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thump.
The elephant, or very noisy
person, was back again. She tucked
the sheet around her bare breasts, and
watched as a piece of paper was
slid halfway under the door. The lock rattled,
and the key fell out, onto the
piece of paper. Both were withdrawn back under
the door. The lock rattled again,
the knob turned, and the door opened.
“Jarod- Oh!”
Jeremiah, the clone, stood in the
doorway, brandishing his key,
looking very, very surprised. And
embarrassed. He’d grown since she’d last
seen him – he had to be at least
seventeen, and was almost as tall as Jarod,
his shoulders not quite as broad.
He had the same innocently cheerful look
about him, currently startled, but
Parker instantly noticed that they looked
alike, but not the same. Clones,
she remembered, were like identical twins –
not everything was the same.
“Jem?” Jarod asked sleepily,
raising his head. He stared at Miss Parker for a
moment, as if wondering what she
was doing in his bed, and then looked at
Jeremiah and the stolen key.
“Jeremiah!” he roared. The kid dropped the key,
and fled.
Jarod tumbled out of bed, getting
halfway out the door before
remembering his nakedness. He
settled for closing the door, and looking at
Miss Parker. “He knows he’s not
supposed to try and bust in here,” he said
lamely, “He broke a window last
week. He was throwing stones at it, trying to
wake me up.”
“I don’t think he’ll be doing it
again,” she said, trying not to smile.
“He really likes having me around,”
Jarod admitted, seeming half-fond,
half-concerned, climbing back into
bed, “I mean, *really* likes it. I think it
may be a manifestation of
post-traumatic stress syndrome. I rescued him, gave
him freedom and a sense of
belonging, and so a lot of his sense of self and
well being is dependant on me and
the stability I represent.”
“You’re his family,” Miss Parker
said, feeling obligated to defend the boy.
“I know, but he’s getting
obsessive,” Jarod said, frowning. He shook his head,
as though to clear it, and looked
at her, “I’ll think about it later. Other
things to do.”
He smiled, a sexy grin that
threatened to melt her all over,
leaning over to chart her neck with
his mouth, his hand wandering up and down
her hip. Parker gave a murmur of
appreciation, leaning into his
administrations. She burrowed her
fingers into the hair on his chest.
“Jarod?” a voice boomed from the
hall, “Jarod, are you up?”
Jarod gave a soft groan, dropping
his head forward. Parker placed
the voice after a moment – it was
Major Charles, Jarod’s father. “Charles-”
they heard a softer voice,
Margaret’s, call.
“Hold on Maggie,” the Major called
back, interrupting her. He was right
outside the door now, “Jarod, what
happened to Jem? He ran right out of here,
red as a beetroot.”
“Charles, don’t open the-” Margaret
called, but it was too late, and the door
swung open.
“Morning Dad,” Jarod said weakly,
and checked to make sure the sheets and quilt
were keeping everything modest. The
Major flushed, taking in the scene – Jarod
and Parker, obviously naked, in bed
together.
“Good morning honey,” Margaret
said, poking her head around her husband. She
nodded at Parker, “You too, dear.
We’ll be going now.”
Margaret steered the Major away,
giving Jarod a wink and pulling
the door shut. Jarod groaned,
mortified, and threw himself back on the bed.
“That’s the worst moment of my
life,” he said.
“Congratulations, Jarod, you’ve now
passed the final test of adulthood,” Parker
said cheerfully, “Being caught in
bed by your parents.”
“It’s awful!” Jarod said, covering
his hands with his face. She leaned in
conspiratorially.
“Just be thankful *they* caught
*you*, and not the other way around,” she
whispered. Jarod’s eyes widened
further.
Amused, Miss Parker climbed out of
bed and began to dress. And so
begins Jarod’s family Christmas,
she mused to herself; may things start as they
intend to go on.
Chapter IV, Unreality Check
The next day was an exercise in surrealism. Jarod had decorated his house in the kind of kitsch Christmas cheer that was straight out of the Brady Bunch. There was conveniently placed mistletoe in just about every room – his way of randomly jumping her with a justifiable excuse.
His house was crammed with people from her past, a little Centre reunion where she was the only bad guy marked present. His family seemed content to ignore the little discrepancy in her past – the one where she had been on the wrong side of the fight – and just absorbed her into their neat little family unit as though she had grown there naturally. There was a difficult moment when Emily met Parker for the first time, when the younger woman stared at her, hard, and asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Margaret had quietly led her daughter aside for a brief rundown, while Parker had made strained conversation with Emily’s partner. Said partner had turned out to be a tall, willowy Japanese/American woman named Lia, and Miss Parker was quietly amazed at how easily Jarod’s family had accepted Emily’s sexuality. But then, she reflected, anything was easy to come to terms with after you had welcomed your son’s clone into your midst.
Presents were piled high around the garishly over-decorated tree, and Miss Parker added her own collection of artfully wrapped gifts to the pile. Jarod was overjoyed when it began to snow lightly, refreshing the layer outside, and led Miss Parker out into the winter wonderland so he could eat snow and throw balls of it at her. This resulted in a wrestle deep in the copse of trees behind his house, and ended with him pinning her to a tree, whispering softly as he fucked her. She curled one bare leg around his waist, and he made her be very, very quiet when they heard Jeremiah calling Jarod’s name through the trees. The chance of being discovered seemed to excite Jarod even more.
They sat at the piano, and she taught him to play Heart and Souls with her. He played the melody, and added in his own elaborate constructions of sound. Some mistletoe appeared above them magically, and he kissed her until his mother and Ethan brought them some cookies, freshly baked, and he became otherwise engaged. Ethan sat beside her, but did not play piano. He called her by her first name, even though she had never told it to him.
Jarod produced the evening meal; a gourmet savoury cobbler with caramelised onions, with a vegetarian section for Emily and Lia, scalloped potatoes and a Greek salad. He confided to Parker that his father had been teaching him how to cook. Jeremiah was eager to add that he had helped. He looked at Miss Parker with stars in his eyes.
There were eighteen varieties of ice cream for dessert, eggnog and monopoly in front of the fire. Jarod was the top hat, Miss Parker was the car, Jeremiah won after Margaret, losing gracefully, donated her funds and property to him. Miss Parker won at poker, intimidating Jarod and bluffing her way to victory. He refused to play anymore, but watched as he hung stockings on the mantle.
Late that night, Jarod crept downstairs to fill the stockings with candy, and found Miss Parker reading by the fire. Not a soul was stirring, not even a mouse, and Jarod made love to her on the rug in front of the fire. She felt worshipped by him, felt renewed by him, and they moved together to the tempo of his heart. When climax came, she stifled his name against his throat, and washed it away with tears. He shook as his own release, shuddered, and collapsed against her. Their skin was hot, melded together, and she licked the trail of salt from his neck.
“I love you,” he whispered, “I’ll love you forever.”
“Nobody can love forever,” she said, and led him upstairs.
****
Christmas morning came with a supreme sense of contentment for Jarod. He bounded down the stairs at a quarter past seven, dragging Miss Parker behind him. “This is a ridiculous hour to be awake,” she grumbled, and he flashed a smile at her, tugging her through to the lounge room. It all looked so beautiful, he thought, the tree and the presents, the tinsel and the lights. The fire was still glowing coals, and he strode over to it, stoking the embers. He pointed at a little felt stocking marked ‘MP’.
“Santa filled your stocking,” he said to Parker.
“I know,” she grumbled, dropping to the couch, “I watched you jam it full of candy last night, right before you jammed me with-”
“Morning!” Jeremiah called from the doorway. He trotted into the room cheerfully, gave Jarod a hug and snagged his stocking from the mantle.
“Morning Jem,” Jarod said softly, although he didn’t take his gaze from Miss Parker. They had come downstairs at a quarter past seven, but he had actually woken her up at six-thirty to make love to her again. He wondered if she was tired already of his constant affections, or simply… uncomfortable.
Jeremiah began to chatter cheerfully to Miss Parker, keeping half an eye on Jarod, as he always did. Jem was often clingy and over-affectionate, constantly needing attention and reassurance. He did not know where he had come from, Jarod reflected, and needed to hold onto the family he had. I am his family, Jarod said to himself. I am his father now.
The family trickled downstairs in clumps. First his mother and father, then Emily and Lia, and finally Ethan. His family sat gathered around the tree and fire, passing gifts, laughing smile. It was so much more than he had ever expected, so much better than he had ever imagined. He became choked up, filled with bittersweet joy – for all that he had lost, and all that he had gained.
He didn’t care about the gifts. They were small, and sweet, and meaningful, most likely, but he stopped thinking about them the minute they left his hands, gathered in a pile. Instead he watched his family open the gifts he had bought for them. Watched their joy and teary smiles and hugged them, in turn, with love.
His mother sang carols as she helped him prepare the food, Miss Parker sat on stool, eating the horribly expensive chocolates he had hidden in the bottom of her stocking, telling him she was going to get fat. She was wearing the present he had given her – a simple band of rose gold with their names elegantly entwined into the etched design. She wore it on her right hand, without question, as it had no diamond and no weight of proposal with it. He smiled secretly. She didn’t know it yet, but it was going to be her wedding ring, one day.
Lunch was sandwiches and people wandering in and out to make snacks. Ethan seemed largely content to sit with Miss Parker in silence, and Jarod was happy to have him close. Jarod’s father and Jeremiah were constructing the model plane that Margaret had gotten Jem in the den, Emily and Lia playing chess nearby. Jarod’s home and heart was full, and he could forget the dark shadows of his past as the day went by.
When the afternoon was half gone, Jarod missed Miss Parker’s presence, and went to find her. She was sitting on the sofa before the fire, curled up with a book, the wan sunlight her only illumination. He curled up beside her.
“Mistletoe,” he whispered, and she looked up, to see he was dangling it above their heads. He’d been carrying it in his pocket.
“You’re sex-crazed,” she murmured, but leaned in to kiss him anyway.
He pulled her onto his lap, delighted that he was allowed to hold her, kiss her, that these things were okay now. He slanted his mouth across hers, stroking his tongue against hers, crushing her against his chest.
“Miss P?” a voice called. They broke apart, both swivelling to look. Broots was braced in the door, looking shocked. Debbie pushed past him a moment later, bolting around the sofa to fling herself at Miss Parker.
Jarod extricated himself somewhat gracefully, and went to shake Broots’ hand in welcome. They both turned to look at the two women on the couch – Debbie was a woman now, at fifteen, blossoming into a beautiful creature. She chattered excitedly with Parker, who was smiling.
“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,” Broots murmured, his gaze never leaving his old boss.
Jarod looked at his face, and believed him.
****
Sydney arrived at six on the dot, looking debonair and tense. He’d had lunch with Nicholas and Michelle, he explained, and couldn’t stay long. He and Major Charles faced off over delicate glasses of port, father-figure versus father. Jarod didn’t seem to notice the tightness of the air in the room, but Parker did. She found herself stepping away from his possessive arms, avoiding his pleasant smiles. She was betraying her life, here with him.
Dinner became a diabolical affair. All seated around a deceptively large dining table, Jarod carved turkey with the precision of a surgeon. He sat at the head of the table, lord and master of all he surveyed, superhero and rescuer. He had brought his world and family together, carefully dismantled hers and glued her to his side. She felt a prisoner.
Conversation flowed, as did wine. Parker poured herself a glass, and another, and another, and it was this that finally caught Jarod’s attention. He frowned over her fourth, her glassy eyes, her fifth, her stoic silence, and her sixth, the one to break it all. The conversation became stilted as everyone realised she was becoming steadily drunk.
She had to give them credit. They turned a blind eye as best they could, even Broots, for the sake of peace. But Debbie stared, and Jeremiah fidgeted at her side, temporarily distracted from his hormonal interest in the girl. Sydney made a gallant attempt to ignite a discussion, but it was too difficult, even for him. Silence fell. Miss Parker was bitterly pleased that she had shattered the illusion of wellbeing, and painfully guilt-stricken that she had ruined things.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Jarod said coldly, when she reached to pour a seventh glass. She considered bottling him.
“Just keeping the good times rolling,” she muttered quietly, but everybody heard it. Jarod stiffened.
“What is this?” he whispered fiercely, “Some crude attempt to draw attention to yourself? Are you jealous? Do you want to sabotage your own happiness?”
Miss Parker rose to her feet ungracefully. “Yes, Jarod,” she said loudly, “I’m *so* happy, thanks for noticing. My life has come up roses. Excuse me while I go dance around a maypole.”
Jarod rose too, dragging her from the room forcefully, into the next room, the lounge. She knew everybody was straining to listen, and didn’t care, shrugging out of his grip. “This is ridiculous,” he growled, pushing one hand through his hair.
“No, you are ridiculous. This whole farce of a holiday is ridiculous. You put *Sydney* and your *father* in the same room together, and expect them to make friends? Your mother and I? I fucking chased you away from her with a gun! Are you blind?” she yelled.
“No I am not,” he said, furious and shocked, “I just didn’t think it would be too much to ask for a little courtesy on Christmas! But you hit the bottle, as per usual. I don’t know why I expected you to-”
“Well, gee, why don’t we just screw and make it better. Jarod’s little problem solver, sex and commitment. I just didn’t think it require giving up my soul,” she said sarcastically.
“I am *not* asking you to give up your soul. Is it too much to ask that you at least pretend-”
“I cannot pretend anything, Jarod,” she said, weary and tearful, “I cannot pretend that my life did not exist, that I didn’t do the things I did. And you should not be asking it of anyone else, either.”
She left then, stumbled away through the maze of his obscenely large house. She found her keys by the front door, her car in the driveway, covered in snow. She drove away, knowing the roads were icy and she was drunk, and shouldn’t be driving, but unable to contain the urge to escape.
****
Jarod stared after her, shocked and hurt. There was a quiet murmur from the dining room, and Sydney and the Major entered, seemingly both surprised by the other’s instinctive urge to provide comfort.
“She has a point, Jarod,” Sydney said quietly, “You have given her very little time to recover. Her life has changed drastically, and she is not coping. You need to give her time to grieve for the way she has lived her life.”
“Don’t *tell* my son anything,” Major Charles said bitterly, and attempted to draw Jarod away.
He pulled away, ignored both of them, and dashed out the door after her.
****
Her house felt stale, unlived in. It was three months since she had last been inside. She stood just inside the door, unsure of what to do with herself. She went into her bedroom, noted the dust and dated feeling of all her possessions. This was where she had existed Before, and it seemed a lifetime away.
Her stomach rebelled, and she made it to the bathroom in time to lose its contents. She knelt over the toilet and retched hard, tears streaming down her face. It seemed to go on forever, too much wine making her sick and dizzy, and her head pounded. She cried as she coughed and spluttered, gripping the edge of the porcelain bowl.
Gentle hands pulled her hair away from her face, and she cried even harder. Jarod held her hair up with one had, and wrapped the other around her waist, holding her steady. She coughed, retched again, misery swamping her, and Jarod murmured soothingly to her, “It’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.”
She leaned back against him weakly, tipped her head back against his shoulder. He wiped her mouth with a cloth, shuffled backwards with her, and she felt him awkwardly reach to the sink to damp it. He stroked it down her face tenderly. “There’s blood on your tiles,” he said softly. She shoved up the sleeve on her sweater, revealing a long, newly healed gash up her arm.
“Drunk,” she whispered. She had left that night for New York.
“So that’s how you got it,” he murmured, and his lips brushed her brow.
“Why do you have to care, Jarod?” she asked, “Why do you have to give a damn at all?”
He rocked her close, his embrace so gentle and careful it made her ache. “You are the woman I love,” he said simply. She shook her head.
“You don’t know what love is,” she said dully.
“And you do?” he asked.
She thought fleetingly of Tommy, and it seemed as though Jarod did too, for he stilled against her. He sighed heavily. “He loved you without condition,” he murmured, “I’ve always wondered if I could ever live up to him. The lost, tragic lover who offered you everything for nothing… do you still think of him?”
“Every day,” Miss Parker whispered.
“Sometimes I regret giving him to you,” Jarod said wistfully.
“You gave me nothing. He loved of his own free will,” she said. She felt Jarod nodding.
“I tried not to be jealous. I wanted to be happy for you. But it ate at me, you know,” he said, “The way you fell for him. The way he could reach all the parts of you that I couldn’t. Did I see more than I think I did? Was he just *there*, or did you need him?”
“I loved him with every part of me,” Parker whispered harshly, “I loved him like I have never loved anybody before.”
Jarod’s thumb caught the tear that trailed down her cheek, and he sighed. “Like you never will again,” he said, resigned.
Miss Parker said nothing, for they both knew it was true.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, after a long silence, “I’m sorry for the way I handled things. It was wrong of me to force you amongst my family and expect you to all get along. It was not fair on you, or Sydney or my father. I think I just wanted for it all to be truly over. I forgot I’d have to work to heal the past.”
“You wanted everything,” she said, “You always have.”
In her kitchen, Jarod rummaged through her cupboards until he found aspirin and chamomile tea. She was vaguely reassured when she realised he did not know where she kept everything. It would soon change, of course.
“It’s not just sex to me,” he said conversationally, boiling the kettle, “It’s not an answer to the problems. More like… an expression of past and present desires. I’ve wanted you since the day I met you, before I could even understand what it meant.”
He poured hot water over the teabag in her cup, and his. “I’m so used to living life in short sharp bursts – a week, an experience, a moment, and then it’s over – that I lost sight of the fact that you’ll be around for the long haul,” he paused uncertainly, searching her face, “You will be around for the long haul, won’t you?”
She let him dangle for a moment, and then nodded. ‘Long haul’ was a phrase that sounded new on his tongue, and she wondered who had said it. And wondered who had explained it. And wondered how many more things she would come to teach him over the ‘long haul’, because he was still so young in the world, but she forgot that sometimes.
“Are you still drunk?” he asked suddenly, and she nodded. He frowned, and pushed her tea towards her, and continued on as he could forget that fact, “I suppose when it came down to it, to be able to hold you in my arms, make love to you, wherever and whenever, overcame me. I’m sorry if I made it seem… sordid.”
She thought about the amount of sex he had managed to cram into the last two days. No, it was not sordid, she thought, just… exuberant. Like him. She stretched her palm across the kitchen bench, watched the way it moved slow, like a slug, and watched Jarod’s palm covered it. He was warm, so warm.
“Was it too much?” he asked.
Parker considered. She was slightly uncomfortable (or had been, pre-alcohol) in a body that was unused to sexual encounters of great frequency, sore breasts, from where he had suckled, sore thighs, from where his hands had gripped, and sore flesh, from where his had entered. But he was a man who had never kept a sexual partner longer than a day or three, and his initial delight in his twenty-four/seven access to a partner was sure to pass.
“No,” she said softly. Being honest with herself, she knew she had used the sex card as a weapon against him, an issue she knew he would be insecure about. But she was honest with herself, not him, and didn’t tell him what she’d done. She sipped her tea, feeling trembly, and hoped to god she’d sober.
“I should go back to my family,” Jarod said after some time. She nodded, guilt roiling through her.
“I ruined things,” she said softly.
“You brought to light some things I did not wish to see,” he said softly, and ducked his head, “I’m sorry, I am.”
Parker didn’t do things like forgive, so she curled her index finger around his thumb and squeezed. Jarod smiled. “I love you,” he said, so easily it shocked her. He looked into her eyes, as if to prove he meant it, “I know you don’t believe I can, but I do.”
He left shortly after, but helped her into pyjamas first, stood in the bathroom watching her brush her teeth and made her drink several glasses of water. When she crawled on her belly into the bed, he sat beside her and stroked her hair. When she was half asleep, he kissed her forehead. “Merry Christmas,”
Sometime around midnight, she stirred from a hazy sleep and rolled into the hard length of him. He was bare-chested, fast asleep and generating heat like a furnace. She nuzzled her way like a cat into his arms, feeling vaguely aroused and too sleepy to do anything about it. She settled for nestling against him, thinking thoughts that had previously only been fantasies and knowing, somehow, that things were going to be okay.
*****
Please note: this chapter ends in sleep, something the author is severely lacking. Please forgive any mistakes or errors. Alas, she has no Pretender to curl up with.
Mandy.
Normal: Chapter V, Life's A Gift 1/1
Chapters are going back to normal length for now. This has not had any
great amount of editing, so please forgive any mistakes. Feedback would
be most appreciated:)
Title: Normal: Chapter V, Life's A Gift
Author: Mandy
E-mail: kitty_amazon@yahoo.com
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah blah, no infringement intended, no
profit gained.
Normal
Chapter V, Life’s a Gift
The corridor was long, drab, and filled with unnatural
light that seemed to emerge from everywhere and retreat from nowhere. Miss
Parker’s heels clicked, the softer, heavier sound of male footsteps
behind her keeping time. He was checking her out. She didn’t mind. It
was pulled favours, old ties and the seam of her stockings running down
the back of her leg that had got her here in the first place.
They reached a metal grate, and she waited patiently as the
gate set into it sounded access, a long beep, and the guard reached
past to push it open for her. She stepped through neatly, and continued
on, not waiting to be lead, not acknowledging the second man posted at
the gate. He stared at her as she went by. At a solid metal door, she
stopped. She barely heard the guard’s advice, before he unlocked the
door and opened it for her. She went inside, the door closed heavily
behind her.
“I was wondering if you’d come,” Lyle said.
He wore an orange jumpsuit and shackles – handcuffs and leg
irons, chained together and chaining him to his chair. He had already
proved himself a violent prisoner. His hair was clipped brutally, in
tufts and sheared edges, and she knew he hated it. Hated the dirt under
his un-manicured fingernails, the smell of stale sweat in the room and
the shapeless, graceless uniform he wore.
“I heard the judge refused you bail,” she said, “I thought I’d come
make sure you were properly pinned to the wall.”
Parker sat down, and Lyle watched with hunger. One sleek
leg slid over the other, the too-short skirt riding up. It was still
cold outside, but she had needed the fortification of tight, short,
revealing, Ice Queen clothing. It was now an image she wore uncomfortably.
“How’s Jarod?” Lyle asked. The question startled her, but she didn’t
show it.
“Virile,” she said softly. Her two front teeth touched her bottom lip
and pressed down invitingly, an imitation of ecstasy. Lyle’s eyes
darkened.
Virile, she thought, and the word rattled inside of her.
“I could have you killed. Beaten in your home, raped as he lies beside
you,” Lyle remarked, seeming casual.
“You have nothing left, Lyle, nobody will help you now. He is too
powerful, even for you,” she said simply. His mouth tightened. It was
over, and they both knew it.
There was a long silence, as the past hung between them.
Lyle had a heavy resignation in his eyes, as though he recognised he
could not fight his fate. There were whispers that the DA was going for
the death penalty.
“How is life on the other side?” Lyle asked. She shrugged, and his
eyes dropped to the vee of her neckline. It made her want to cover her
chest from neck to knuckle.
“The Centre is gone, the families have been reunited. Jarod has
everything he ever wanted,” Parker said calmly. A glint entered Lyle’s eyes.
“And you? What do you have, sis?”
She rose from her chair, stiffly. She went to the door,
and did not turn around to his laughter. The door opened, as though the
guard had been watching and waiting. She almost ran down the corridor,
through the metal gate, and out. She didn’t stop until she was leaning
on her car in the sunshine, and found she had shoved her hand, cold and
trembling, under the waist of her skirt, so it rested on her abdomen.
Everything would be all right, she told herself.
****
It had taken Miss Parker almost five weeks to realise that
Jarod had moved in with her. And yet, one morning, cleaning the house
with the television on, she had stopped, a magazine subscription in her
hand, staring dumbly at the address. It was a colourful Mad Magazine,
one of many Jarod had lying around the house, still in its plastic
sleeve, with his name printed neatly over her address. His subscription,
coming to her house.
And everywhere she looked, there were his things. His Play
Station stacked on top of the TV, his books cramping her bookshelf, his
CDs on her stereo. His cameras and rolls of film, Pez, jackets, shoes,
text books and sheafs of paper, his laptop on the dining room table,
soy milk and ice cream in the fridge, shaver on the sink, cologne in the
cabinet, scent on the pillow, slinky on the floor and blades in the
wardrobe.
It took her another ten minutes of solid consideration to
realise that Jeremiah, who had come to stay for the weekend two weeks
ago, had moved in too. His electric guitar was in the corner of the
spare bedroom, his runners under the bed, posters on the wall and model
planes on the dresser. When she looked, his clothes were *in* the
dresser.
The whole thing did not settle easily. Jarod had not only
moved in, without consulting her, but moved his pseudo-son into the
house, too. Jeremiah was attending school at Blue Cove High, Jarod was
going to college at Wesley, and both were hyperactive, loud and social.
Jarod always had college buddies over – students half his age – drawing
Jeremiah and Debbie into a crazed world of frantic, Jarod-generated
energy.
It should have been obvious sooner, Miss Parker reflected
to herself. Jarod had not slept a night away from her house since
Christmas. He had insinuated himself into her life with a completeness that
was stunning. He woke her in the morning to make love to her, and
exhausted her at night with the same treatment. He fixed her plumbing,
broke her VCR, ate her food and could not be trusted to go shopping for
more. They watched what he liked on television, listened to the music he
liked, went where he wanted, did what he needed to.
Parker had come to realise there was a lot she didn’t know
about Jarod, parts of his life she simply hadn’t seen before. He
exercised fanatically. She had just never considered it. He got up at the
crack of dawn and did crunches and push ups and lifted weights. He
went for a run every morning and went swimming four times a week. He took
sleeping pills to help him sleep at night, something that had shocked
her the first time she’d seen him cheerfully swallowing them down, and
called out for Sydney in his nightmares.
He liked the smell of cigars and compulsively bought things on the home
shopping network. He would concentrate for hours on blowing the
perfect bubble with gum, go skydiving for thrills once or twice a week, drive
her car at breakneck speeds on empty back roads, mix and remix music on
his laptop and invent relatively useless Goldberg machines just to see
what he could come up with. He liked sex more than she considered
healthy, an interest that had not waned with time as she had expected,
built elaborate structures with playing cards, watched foreign movies and
translated them aloud, wrote letters to Congress and inhaled every
variety of junk food he could get his hands on – sometimes driving
interstate to get something in particular. He slept only four or five hours
most nights, even with tablets, occasionally crashing for a
self-proclaimed ‘exhausted’ period of eight, got shockingly drunk when he decided to
try a Hurricane or seven (and felt like he was dying the next day),
memorised every word of Baz Lurhman’s Moulin Rouge and changed his
wardrobe depending on his mood… and what he’d seen on TV.
And he was bored *stupid* at college.
Jarod’s boredom stemmed from the fact that he was taking
first-year classes in subjects he could teach. He was frustrated,
because the lecturers didn’t have the patience for a man their age who needed
immediate and extended personal attention to keep his interest. So,
like a dysfunctional child who needed to skip a grade, Jarod socialised
himself silly, and pulled stunts to keep himself amused. He took his
whole class skydiving, and turned the sports stadium into a swimming pool
– he’d seen it in a movie once – was producing a modernised production
of Cosi fan Tutte, and brought pretty young girls home to rehearse.
Parker tried to tell herself she wasn’t jealous.
The only classes that kept him amused were theatre studies
and photography, because there was no brick wall to run up against. He
excelled in each, and Miss Parker might have felt sorry for the others
in the class, if it wasn’t for the fact that he was frequently helping
them and involving them in his own projects.
She simply don’t know where he found his energy. Half the
time, she felt as though she were watching him from far, far away. He
was black and white, distant, and she knew if she could only get close
enough he would be surrounded by light and colour. But she watched in
stoic silence, unable to comment or interact. Her whole world felt
devoid of activity. She couldn’t even remember what she did all day, or
in the spaces when he wasn’t there. Mundane things, maybe.
Jarod, his family, his friends, they had taken over her
house, her life, and nothing was her own anymore. It was an easy world to
live in, one where she did what was required, made polite conversation,
exposed nothing of herself, felt even less, pulled a great sweeping
curtain of a false reality around herself, and looked neither forward nor
back.
An easy world to live in, except when something came along
to interrupt.
****
Sex with Jarod always held the slight edge of déjŕ vu, as
though their whole lives had merely been anticipation for their main
event. That night it was stronger than ever.
She crept into the bedroom. It was quite light, with the
curtains open and the moon almost full, and Jarod was asleep in the bed
for once, sprawled diagonal. His hair was tangled around sharp
cheekbones, a fan of dark lashes resting on his cheeks, his broad chest rising
and falling peacefully. He gave a soft sigh as she crawled onto the
bed beside him, naked, his eyes fluttering open to watch her, liquid and
sleepy.
“Am I dreaming?” he asked.
“Yes,” Parker told him. He kicked the blankets away from his body,
enfolding his arms around her as she laid herself on top of him, her legs
between his. They watched each other like this for several moments,
warmth and desire rising between them.
“Where were you today?” Jarod asked. He stroked the hair back away
from her face tenderly.
“I had some business with the bank, I was in DC. Decided to have
dinner and a drink there,” she said. It explained the lateness of her
return, and probably wouldn’t interest Jarod, either.
“I missed you,” he said softly, and kissed her cheek sweetly.
“You missed someone to order pizza for you,” she said dryly.
“Not true. Jem missed that. I missed someone to eat it with,” he said
impishly. His hands stroked down her back, over her buttocks and
thighs. His hands were always possessive of her, searching, smoothing,
owning.
She smiled fleetingly, scrambling to curl into his side,
tucking her head against his shoulder, so he could no longer see her
face. His hand took advantage of her new position, cupping one breast.
The nipple hardened against his palm, and he played with it gently,
stroking it with the tips of his fingers. He held a circling curiosity for
her body, wanting to know every way she could possibly respond to him.
Human behaviour – and response – was the only thing he could not learn
from a book.
“Jem wants to go to college,” Jarod said softly. He found the curve on
the underside of her breast, lifted it slightly, and fitted his palm
around it.
“He hasn’t finished high school,” she said drowsily. He shuffled,
propping up on his side, and her head dropped to nestle under his arm and
beside his chest.
“But he’s bored there,” Jarod said. He rubbed her belly, watching the
flush that was creeping over her breasts. She rubbed her thighs
together restlessly.
“He needs to be around kids his own age.”
It struck her that she too was acting in a parental manner
towards Jeremiah, concerned for his future, his present, his past.
Jarod’s hand dipped to stroke the tender skin of her inner thighs, and she
brought her knees up, giving an encouraging murmur. Two fingers found
the slick folds there, parting them gently, probing and stroking. She
pressed her face into the hot skin of his side, tempted to bite, her
breathing quickening.
“He’s too socially developed. They’re trying to get him to smoke pot,”
Jarod said, sounding stern. He leant even further over, pushing her
thighs apart with his knee. He was creating a humid cave above her with
his body. His hand began working on her in earnest now.
“A little pot isn’t going to –ohh– hurt him, and he needs to
experiment,” she muttered, curling her fingers into his neck, holding him, “He
needs to get it… ah… out of his system.”
Jarod touched his lip to her forehead, rolling away for a
moment, saying, “Recreational drug use can still be dangerous, and he
could potentially turn to it more and more often as a solution to his
boredom.” She heard him rummaging in the bedside drawer, and he was
tearing at a foil package with his teeth when he rolled back. “And he takes
after me – he has an addictive personality,” he said, and grinned, his
teeth gleaming white in the moonlight. She took the condom from him,
and fumbled until she found his erection with her hand. He was so hard,
and she was surprised. She’d barely touched him.
“He’s young. And he idolises you. If you tell him he shouldn’t touch
drugs, he’ll listen,” Parker said, rolling the condom down onto him.
Jarod grunted with pleasure.
“But I don’t want to order him around,” he said. They rolled, slid and
shuffled until he lay between her thighs. He hoisted one of her legs
over his arms, and paused, “I want him to find things out for himself.”
He thrust inside of her then, covering her mouth with his
own. The kiss was long, and hot, and Jarod set a steady pace with his
hips. She twined her arms around his neck, making soft noises of
pleasure. This was normal life? Discussing ‘family’ matters in bed, making
love with conversation? It seemed alien. It seemed so ordinary, but
not nearly as boring as she had once suspected.
She lifted her mouth away from his kiss, tilted it back and
braced one hand on the bed head above her. She strained, bore down on
his thrusts, and clenched her teeth. God, he felt good, moving within
her, heat spiking down her limbs, coiling in her belly.
“I’m adopting him,” Jarod said gruffly, sweat slicking his brow. He
shoved his hands under her hips, and her leg slid up, over his shoulder,
and with every forward motion he pushed her thigh back against her
chest.
“Jesus- what?” she hissed. She scrabbled for leverage.
“I’m adopting Jeremiah,” he said again. Sweat slid from his belly to
hers.
“Oh geez Jarod –ahh– can we talk about this later?” Miss Parker panted.
He may have nodded, but she wasn’t paying attention. She
just jerked her head back, arching up to him, lost in the mounting
spirals of pleasure. Jarod’s mouth moved over her neck, frenzied. For a
moment, it was as though she rose out of her own body and looked down at
them on the bed, two lithe bodies moving together in unison, and then
she was squarely back in her own body as orgasm flashed over her like
fire.
Jarod come only a few moments later, crying out hoarsely
into her neck, her leg slipping down slowly as he went slack. He crashed
into her, relaxing all at once, breathing hard. Miss Parker held him
to her tenderly, having problems keeping her eyes open. She pressed her
mouth to his temple.
“Auuughhh,” Jarod groaned softly, the sound vibrating against her neck.
This was the part of the day she liked best. When he was
slumped, spent, against her, blessedly silent and relaxed. Parker
grabbed a handful of the thick, ropy muscle on his back in her hand, and the
slightly softer skin around his waist. So much power, she thought, he
was so strong. And yet he had only ever shown her gentleness. She
moulded thick chunks of his flesh with her hands. It was stupefyingly
masculine.
“Am I too heavy?” he asked, like he did every time he lay on top of
her.
“No,” she whispered. She kissed his shoulder gently. The small cavern
between their chests and necks and chins was a moist, warm haven. She
tucked what she could of her face into it, the bottom half of her jaw,
her mouth resting against his cheek.
“Parker,” he said softly, “I love you.”
He had said it everyday since Christmas. She gripped him,
clawing her hands around his skin. She had yet to say it back.
****
The pharmacist in Blue Cove was the kind that stocked baby
powder and makeup and had racks of pretty faux-gold ear studs with
coloured glass. It was over lit and piped with harmonious music, and
smelled faintly of cheap perfume and anti-bacterial cream. It was a chain
store, and the bored girl at the counter wore a garish uniform, ate
jellybeans and painted her nails.
Miss Parker had a basket with a few items in it. She
stood, paused, over a rack of cheap cosmetics designed for
trailer-trash-wannabe teenagers. There were fat pencils of smudgy eyeliners, for that
‘just-woke-up-hung-over’ look, overbearing eye shadows in indiscriminate
shades and some kind of shimmery blush stick that contradicted itself
by being called a ‘natural’ shade. It wasn’t these that Parker looked
at.
Her attention was caught by a single tube of crimson
lipstick. Her mind cycled through definitions for the shade. It was a cheap
colour, and would probably clot on her lips, or smear with a whisper of
touch. And it was too glossy, having a sleazy sheen like rotting
strawberries, slick and vaguely suggestive.
That was it, she thought finally. It was the colour of
menstrual blood.
****
When she got home, the house was a maelstrom of frantic
activity. Jarod stood balanced on her Italian silk sofa, one foot on the
cushion, the other braced on the back, holding a plastic sword aloft, a
book held open in his other hand. Jeremiah, Debbie and several of his
college buddies were gathered in her lounge room, holding books as
well.
“Thou, wretched boy, that didst consort him here, shalt with him
hence,” Jeremiah recited loudly, and drew his own plastic sword.
“This shall determine that!” hollered Jarod, and waved his sword
threateningly.
Then he shoved forward with his foot, tipping the sofa over backwards
and leaping off before he went down with it. The sofa landed with a
huge thump, and Jeremiah and Jarod engaged in a fierce plastic sword
fight, whilst Debbie cheered and his college buddies hooted, nobody noticing
her in the doorway.
Jarod made a great show of running Jem through, between arm and waist,
and Jem dropped his sword, clutching his belly dramatically. He
choked, coughed and staggered, eventually falling, slain, at Debbie’s feet.
Jarod let out a cry of victory, doing a little celebratory dance,
turning to see Miss Parker and her less than impressed expression.
“Hi,” he said, lowering his sword. He looked at the toppled sofa, and
at Jeremiah, who was slowly sitting up, “We’ll clean up.”
There was a breathy moment of hesitant expectation while
everyone in the room waited and watched her – waiting for an explosion,
an act of shrewish condemnation. She noted more details, the junk food
wrappers littering the floor, the papers, posters and pictures
scattered by disorganised students and Jarod, the most reckless of all. His
things were *everywhere*, she noticed yet again; he was nesting in her
house.
“Are you guys staying for dinner?” she asked. There was a silent,
collective, sigh of relief.
“If that’s okay with you,” Jarod said cheerfully. She nodded silently,
holding her bag from the pharmacy to her chest. His attention was
diverted again when one of the girls began throwing popcorn at his head.
“Pizza?” she said, “Jarod, pizza?”
One of the boys began arguing for McDonalds, with Jeremiah
loudly interjecting that he wanted burritos. Miss Parker used the
diversion to slip away, the bedroom.
****
Jarod went looking ten minutes later. Miss Parker had
disappeared, and he wondered if she was annoyed that he’d brought his
classmates over. Or if she was crying again. He found her sometimes,
sitting alone in the house, just crying. She said there was no reason, and
could not seem to recall anything that might have triggered it. It
made him more and more concerned, knowing it was yet another symptom of
the depression that was taking her like a shroud.
It registered in telling ways. Parker slept more,
sometimes ten or eleven hours. And she was always tired, listless. Most days
she seemed unable to find joy, to laugh with any great spontaneity or
even smile. She read a lot, but sometimes he knew she would sit for
hours on end, doing nothing. It was this that scared him most – a woman
who had previously been impatient, overactive and easily bored could now
waste the day doing nothing, and not even care.
“Parker?” he called, pushing open the bedroom door. He picked up his
discarded leather jacket, flinging it over a chair. The room was empty,
but the bathroom door was ajar. He pushed it open, “Parker?”
She was standing with her back to him, in front of the sink
and mirror. In the reflection, her face was pale, so pale he was
concerned, and stepped forward. On the floor, a box had fallen, a thin
sheet of folded paper next to it. There was a plastic cup on the counter,
with a small amount of amber liquid in it. Parker was staring down at
something she held, and he crept forward to look over her shoulder.
“Miss Parker?” he asked again. She didn’t answer.
In her hand she held a long, thin strip of paper, with an
arrow halfway up it. Below the arrow there were two pale red stripes,
almost an inch apart. He looked down at the box on the floor again,
which said ‘Bluedream’, and back at the strip. Stripe one for reference,
he remembered, stripe two for diagnosis.
There was a long, breathless moment.
“Is it…?” he said, and touched her hip.
“I think I’m pregnant,” she said, in a thin, wavering voice.
For a moment, he simply couldn’t understand. He looked at
the test and looked at her and looked at the test again. Pregnant. As
in, with child. Miss Parker could be carrying a baby, a little tiny
human, right now. And he was the father.
“But…” he said, and gaped, “We use condoms.”
Except, he thought, for that time, their first time, when
he hadn’t. But her period had come and gone since then. He started to
frantically count dates.
“Six days,” she said quietly, “I’m six days late.”
Her face crumpled. He turned her around, the little paper
test fluttering to the ground, and pulled her into his arms. She made
no noise, but her shoulders shook silently, her face pressed into his
neck. He could feel the dampness seeping down. She didn’t want a baby,
he thought, oh god, she didn’t want it. She hadn’t wanted to keep her
baby brother, and he knew it was because she thought she was incapable.
“Whatever…” he took a deep breath, and tried again, “Whatever you want
to do, I’ll support that decision.”
The idea of abortion stabbed at him. She couldn’t, he
thought desperately, she wouldn’t, but he knew she might. And ultimately
he knew, he could not hold her back from any decision she chose to make.
****
That night, Miss Parker lay silently in bed, waiting for
Jarod to come. She lay on her side, turned to the window. Her palm
rested on her belly, as if she could *feel* the life. She had to force
herself to remember, again and again, that the test could not be depended
on. It could be wrong. Did she want it to be wrong? Jarod had
betrayed his feelings with the light in his eyes. He wanted a baby. He
wanted her to be pregnant, despite his supportive words.
She imagined him with a baby in his arms, like a
half-forgotten dream. He would hold a child with tenderness and the paranoid
cautiousness of new fathers, afraid he would break his tiny child. And
then it would be her, Jarod, Jeremiah and baby, a complete little family
unit. They’d probably buy an SUV. She’d have to stop wearing heels
during pregnancy, give up coffee and alcohol. The whole idea itched the
wrong way.
But some small maternal instinct was kicking in. Her hand
smoothed slowly over the silk of her chemise. She imagined her body
slowly becoming swollen with life, her breasts becoming heavy, her
bellybutton popping. What would it feel like? When would the baby start
kicking?
Jarod emerged from the bathroom, turning the light off
behind him. He crawled into bed with her, spooning. His hand found hers
over her flat abdomen. “When will you go to the doctor’s?” he asked.
“When I can get an appointment. They’re all booked out tomorrow,” she
said.
“I’d like to come with you.”
Parker nodded. She felt Jarod’s mouth brush her neck. His
hand slipped under hers, so it lay flat on her abdomen. “I’ve been
thinking about it for days. But it didn’t seem real. Buying the test
just felt like a joke,” she said softly.
“What if you are?” Jarod asked tentatively.
She thought of motherhood, and all the ways a child’s life
could be messed up by the sins of the parents. She was a testament to
that. But things could work out, couldn’t they? In a life free from
fear? She had never known normal, and could not say.
But maybe it was worth the risk.
“Then we’re having a baby,” she said slowly.
She felt him tense, heard the slow breath he let out, a
long hiss. His mouth pressed against her shoulder, long and hard. A kind
of a thank you. She curled her hand around his over her abdomen. Her
heart lifted with weightless joy.
A baby, she thought. A baby.
****
Mandy.