Chapter 32: Cleaning up

It was a long walk back to Charlotte's, made even longer by the ache of a strenuous week of physical exertion and emotional stress, and the throbbing of my first ever real hangover. The hot shower helped. A couple of extra-strength painkillers helped. A hot breakfast helped. And the walking itself helped. Actually getting up and moving around in fresh air cleared my head and soothed my mind somehow. It was a beautiful morning.

Amy had a worse time of it of course. She was sort of limping, and flinching every couple of steps. But each time she'd put on this phony smile like nothing was wrong at all and she was just out for a casual stroll.

"What are we gonna tell Charlotte?" I asked.

"Hello, first of all."

"I mean about you. About this."

I pointed at her crotch as she stumbled a bit and flinched again.

"It's not that bad. It just stings and aches. I'll be fine."

"But she's gonna figure it out. She's not stupid."

"Well I'll just tell her the truth. Knowing her, she'll probably just laugh."

"I hope so."

That's about all she said. We walked on in silence listening to the birds chattering and the breeze in the trees.

When we got to Charlotte's we found the place completely spotless. Spic and span even. There was not a dish out of place or a single crooked picture. Everything was exactly as it had been, except for a note on the counter:

"Wow. Those two are awesome," I said, looking from the note to the room around us. The place was honestly immaculate. Amy and I had expected hours and hours of cleaning and such, but apparently it was already done.

"They probably stopped to fuck every five minutes while they were doing it," Amy answered.

There was no longer the same edge of revulsion in her voice though. If I'm not mistaken, I detected a new hint of understanding and camaraderie. She now knew what it was like to want something so badly that nothing could stop you from dropping everything and going after it.

We headed upstairs to find Charlotte. My insides were all tangled and anxious of course. I so badly wanted to see her, just to look at her, see her hair and her eyes, hear her voice again, hear her giggle. On the other hand I was horrified about seeing her. What if she was passed out with three guys in her bed? What if she freaked out about Amy? What if she was pissed off?

Charlotte wasn't upstairs though. Her room was empty. The bed was made, clothes were put away in the laundry hamper, even the wastebasket by her dresser was emptied. There was absolutely no sign of the wild sex party that had gone on up there a mere six or seven hours before. Where was she?

We went by the Lawsens' room. That was clear and clean too. And Amy's room was as clean and tidy as a hotel suite as well. Everything was quiet, like a museum. The whole place had a creepy feeling to it. Not a floorboard creaked. All was still. You could hear the sound of your own breathing, and that was it. Amy sniffed in the doorway beside me. You couldn't really smell anything either. Everything was clean.

"Hope nobody fucked with my stuff," she said.

"I just hope somebody changed the sheets."

"Ew." Amy's nose wrinkled again. Her mouth twisted into a scowl. She wasn't really mad though.

"'Someone's been fucking in my bed!' said the baby bear," I said.

"And they ate that Goldilocks slut for dinner."

"Easy. The only Goldilocks around here is Charlotte."

We checked out in the back yard, via Charlotte's patio. Nobody home. Finally we went down to the basement. If Sheila wasn't there working on the movie, we definitely had stumbled into the Twilight Zone.

Shelia was there, working on the movie. Except she wasn't alone. Charlotte was in the sound booth, sitting on a stool, waiting for a cue.

"Hold on, Char. Anthony and Amy just walked in," Sheila said into a microphone, clicking a button that activated Charlotte's headphones.

"What's happening? Where is everyone?" I asked.

"Everyone went home."

"Mick and Janine cleaned the whole place up?"

"Apparently. God bless 'em. What a freakin' disaster when I woke up this morning!"

"Were you still passed out on the toilet?" Amy asked.

"You saw that, did you?"

"I was gonna wake you, but you looked absolutely exhausted."

"Did you sleep at all, Sheila?" I asked.

"I curled up on the bed for a while. It was hard to sleep with ten different couples fucking in every direction, but I was tired enough. Some guy tried to have his way with me too. I had to kick him in the nuts. Asshole."

"I'm kinda glad I went with Anthony."

Charlotte popped her head out of the booth. I'd been watching her through the window. She sat on the stool, staring down at the floor, fiddling with her nails and her headphone cord, looking so damn beautiful it was killing me inside. She finally got up and came to say hi to us. I suppose she normally would have done that immediately, if she hadn't been feeling as awkward as I was, or more so That comforted me a bit.

"Morning, Aims! Hey, Anthony. How are ya?"

She came in and hugged Amy. I so badly wanted to kiss her. The fact that she didn't come up and kiss me drove burning hot daggers of reality back into me all over again. She was feeling the same way though, no doubt. She glanced up at me and then looked away again, avoiding my eyes.

"Um, guys?" I said. "Amy knows about the movie. She wandered in here last night. She figured it out."

"Uh oh," Charlotte said. Sheila just looked away at the control panel again.

"Don't worry. I'm not gonna say anything. I think it's kinda cool actually."

"This from the girl who thought kissing was gross twenty-four hours ago," I said.

"We're just cleaning up some audio here. Turns out this girl can sing too," Sheila said, nodding at Charlotte. "I heard her singing in the shower this morning and I had a revelation: this movie needs music."

"You sing too?" I said.

"I've been in lessons for 3 years. Daddy insisted."

It was yet another reminder of how little I knew about this girl I was head over heels in love with. It was yet another reminder that we'd only actually met a few weeks ago, and had spent more time fucking than actually talking to each other about ourselves.

"The girl's got some pipes on her," Sheila said. "Yet another reason to be jealous."

Charlotte giggled. My tummy did a back flip.

"So how much longer til the whole thing's done?"

"I don't know. I um, actually had to re-work a bunch of things that weren't working out."

"She won't let me see what she's got so far, Anthony! Make her show us!"

I looked at the fierce gaze Sheila gave me and shook my head.

"I know that look. Nobody's seeing this thing until the whole thing's completely done."

"Well, back to work then. The sooner she gets this done, the sooner we can see it. You guys got plans for today?" Charlotte asked us.

"Well we were planning on cleaning up all morning, but somebody beat us to it."

"I know! Isn't it amazing!? I frickin' love those two! I swear to god!"

"They've saved our asses a few times this weekend."

"Did you see how drunk she was last night!? Oh my god, she was so funny!"

She giggled again. Stop giggling, Charlotte. Oh please, stop giggling. You're breaking my heart.

There was an awkward pause, and I think Sheila saw the way Charlotte and I were just sort of staring at each other in a confused daze.

"Well, back to work," she said.

"We'll be upstairs. We'll watch a movie or something."