“If you want to be exclusive you only needed to ask. I’ll drop Craig and Bret for you.”
“Oh shit. Listen to me. Craig is married and Bret is a douchebag. Don’t go passing out favours to guys like that.”
Her hands went to her cocked hips like she was arming herself. Ready. Aim. “I like to fuck, is that a problem for you?”
He frowned. Was that how he was coming across, like some judgemental, sanctimonious prick? Fuck this. He dropped the bucket. He put his hand to Melissa’s head and kissed her. She went instant cling wrap and stuck herself to him. He let the kiss go deeper and willed it to grant him any kind of forgetfulness he could live with. She moaned and he cut the contact. He felt nothing for her except sympathy.
“You’re so hot. Fuck me hard, Drum.” She said that like she’d rehearsed it. There wasn’t a real emotion in it, other than desperation.
He put both hands on her shoulders and held her away. “You’ve never even asked my proper name.”
“You’re a private guy. I get that.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you. I don’t want to be part of your family.”
She folded her lips into her mouth. She was trying to choose a reaction. She could be insulted and call him every foul name there was, she could throw herself at him, or she could make him wish he was back in the cave. Given he’d never stopped wanting that, it wasn’t much of a contest.
She put her hands over her face and cried.
Oh shit. Crying, he’d made her cry. And now he thought about Foley and wondered how much, how long he’d made her cry leaving her like that, so fucking cold and brutal. Colleen Adderton, Harold Ameden, Swen Aslog.
He got Melissa to sit. He got her to talk.
“I don’t know what to do. This is too hard. I knew you didn’t want me. You’d have been in my bed that first night I cooked for you. That’s what they’re all like. I thought you were different. You were worth it. My boys need a father figure or they’re going to end up dead or in jail. I need work and there isn’t any. All I have is my body. I’m just trying to get by and it’s not good enough.”
He’d learned everything he could about the three hundred and eighty-seven, but he’d done nothing to help their families; the law, the board prevented him from creating that kind of liability.
He’d hung around with other homeless and kept himself ignorant of their circumstances. He didn’t know why Clint slept rough and couldn’t get enough to eat. He hadn’t wanted to get involved, to care. He’d been so focused on not doing anything to cause anyone any harm, shutting himself away, making himself Foley’s hermit squatter, he’d ignored his personal capacity to do good.
He could change Melissa’s life for the better in an instant. All he needed to do was hang around, support her, nudge the boys in a better direction. He could hardly do a worse job than Alan. He could be like Benny. That was a worthy thing to do, and it was better than running.
He sat on the grass at Melissa’s feet and when she touched his shoulder he let her. “We could barbeque the fish,” she said. “I’ll make potato salad. The boys will love it.”
He was agreeing to more than dinner.
They barbequed at the beach and she talked about saving to move to a bigger town where there was a better chance to get work and more for the boys to do. When it came time to go home, she looked at him with such hope and expectation it was difficult to say no to her hot coffee and her warm bed, but he needed to sit with this decision, to work out what his new rules would be. He went back to the tent.
Sometime in the night while he slept, she came to him, softly creeping, invading his space. She didn’t speak, but she touched him, and before he could protest she was kissing him and fuck, fuck, he was kissing her back and he wanted her, missed her like she was thought and reason. And she wanted him too, like he’d never rejected her. He wouldn’t run anymore. He would do something good. He would stay, stay and make her believe he loved her.
She touched him all over, hands in his hair, on his face, firmly stroking his dick, and he let her have her way, let her tongue lick and teeth nip. She was hot and naked and so was he and she felt so wet he knew this would be quick. He could smell her soap and shampoo and there was wine on her lips. Without opening his eyes he could see her, the swell of her hips as she straddled him, the tip of a breast, a glint in moonlight. He put his tongue to it, tugged it with his teeth and felt the hard metal in the soft, tight point.
He woke with a start, alone, disoriented from the dream. He thought he’d heard someone sobbing. The after-effect of his vision was sticky on his belly. And if there was crying it was his own.
Colleen Adderton, Harold Ameden, Swen Aslog.
He left the tent. It was too clunky to carry, too hard to disassemble in the dark. He left Melissa an envelope of money. It wouldn’t solve her problems but it would help her relocate, rent her a nice house for a few years, give her a new start.
He got on a train, he’d go further up the line. Like Melissa, he needed a bigger town that was easier to get lost in.
The carriage was empty until a seniors group got on. Mostly women, a school of grey hair, sensible shoes and glasses. He was surrounded. They had hot drinks in thermoses and sandwiches and fruitcake in plastic containers. One of them offered him an Anzac biscuit and it was still warm from the oven. His quiet was gone but it was amusing to listen in. They were full of chatter. Mostly it was grandkids, bad hips and dodgy knees. Occasionally some scandal or worries about the super running out. He could hear the two directly in front of him best.
“Bill had another affair you know, at his age, and Ellen took him back.”
“Why did she do that? Was it the money thing, too hard to separate?”
“She says she loves him.”
There was a pause, appropriately weighty for the proclamation then, “It’s humiliating. I can’t imagine.”