Chapter 6

At 5:00 a.m. my phone played a long series of waking rings, getting louder each few seconds until I woke and went across the room to the dresser to turn it off. I had slept the whole night without getting up once to pee. That’s when I knew I was tired, because that NEVER happened. I washed up, brushed my teeth and shaved, put on the clean clothes I put out and gathered my first trip to the car. I glanced out the slider to the ocean sunrise and it was just getting ready to peek from the orange and deep purple horizon and I was sorry to be leaving that all behind. I got the hockey bag strap over my shoulder and the chair in my other hand and opened the door to leave.

I nearly tripped over a beach chair filled with Melody who must have been a sleeping sentry for at least part of the night. My lurching, almost fall, over her with a foot kicking her leg or knee woke her and she raged at me with fire in her eyes.

“Where the FUCK do you think you’re going?” She asked as she burst into tears.

“I came down during the night to straighten things out with you and looked through the slider and saw you packed with your stuff by the door. Why? Why would you break my heart like this and run out on me like a drunken one night stand?” She asked as she buried her tearful face with the towel she had to keep warm with over night.

“Shhhh, you’ll wake the whole building and get thrown out of here! Come inside” I said as I got my footing back and set my things down and helped her inside.

“Break your heart? I thought I was easing your heart. You could no longer trust me, I let you down. Our bubble had burst and I could not last another day being here and not being close to you. I thought if I stayed it would only cause you more heartaches.” I said in a whispering holler.

Melody only looked to me and began crying all over again sitting on the edge of the hassock. She seemed inconsolable; I didn’t know what to do.

“You see? THIS is what I wanted to avoid, breaking your heart. I wanted to wake up, get out, and have you find I was gone. You could start fresh all over again.” I said as she fell deeper into her sorrow and I stood back with my hands on my hips, feeling so mad that I was too lazy to get up and dim the light from the bathroom last night. She wouldn’t have seen anything and I would be gone by now.

“I should just go. It kills me to see you like this. If you can...” I began to say as I moved to side-step her and she sprung to her feet and drove a finger into my chest.

“YOU AREN’T LEAVING! I NEVER wanted you to LEAVE!” She said with absolute fire in her eyes.

She began to turn away and then suddenly she turned back and her right hand came from nowhere and slapped me right across the side of my face.

“I love you and you’re not going to rip me up and throw me away like that!! I SHOULD SLAP YOU SILLY!!” She said slapping me two more times before I fell back turning and tripping over the hassock and falling onto the sofa.

She was on me like a pit-bull and pressed both of her hands onto my shoulders getting right in my face.

“I didn’t know your assignments were already set when you talked about 2 weeks off. I never would have agreed to two weeks off anyway. We could have rested a week and I could have met you in Florida. I still can, but nowhere ever did I say I didn’t want to see you again. We had a misunderstanding where I thought I was right to be pissed off and I wanted some think time. I wanted to give you time to think. I saw you didn’t agree to the work just to make your two weeks easier than mine. HOW COULD YOU THROW ME AWAY SO EASILY?” She said breaking down and crying and hugging her head to my shoulder.

I was trying to avoid embracing her because it would have made it harder to leave. It was tearing me apart already and I didn’t need more drama and emotion.

“You thought I was dishonest with you and made a situation where I couldn’t be trusted. You can’t love someone you can’t trust. I broke that bond when I didn’t tell you I was booked for work anyway. It was an oversight and not a ploy, but I should have thought it through better.” I said as my mea culpa in hopes of getting out of there.

She began to sit up off of me and I saw her arm recoiling to pounce on my face again. I reached up and caught her open handed swing.

“I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU SLAP ME AGAIN! I may have had one of those coming but my face burns already and I don’t need any more convincing about how big a fool I was to not tell you up front about my assignments.”

Her arm went limp in my hand and she exhaled deeply and snuffed up some of the blubbering she had done and looked at me sanely and calmly. She poured her heart out to me;

“Wherever you got the idea that I couldn’t trust you is beyond me. I thought I caught you in a little deception and you proved to me that while you knew of your work it wasn’t the reason you said we spend two weeks with no interaction. I just wanted to give you some time to think and then come down and work things out. You blew things out of proportion. I trust you and believe you are a truly honest and good man. I would consider letting you walk out of my life right now to be one of the gravest mistakes I’ve ever made. I hate saying this out loud to you because you may think less of my better judgment, but I love you more than I’ve ever loved any man and I can’t imagine any circumstance that would change that. I know that is a foolish statement and a careless thing to admit to a person I met only 4 or 5 days ago. I have thought my feelings for you were fueled by the emptiness of losing my husband, but I’ve convinced myself otherwise. While I loved Frankie deeply, I’ve always known that I settled when I took up with him. He was the best friend I ever had and we had great times together. I coaxed a lot of good sex from him, but he was no match for my libido and I took care of that at any free moment I ever had. In you I’ve found a man who pleases me in every way I’ve tried to test. Please do NOT walk out of my life. I’m so sorry that I slapped you. I’ve NEVER slapped anyone, but that’s how insulted I was that anyone could do that to me, take my happiness away again.”

She had floored me with her words for more reasons than I could write of here. What I really took issue with was “I love you more than I’ve ever loved any man and I can’t imagine any circumstance that would change that”.

“What I think you mean to say to me Melody is that you love me as much as you can possibly love someone at this time in your life and your situation, and maybe you can’t imagine any circumstance that would change that. To commit your love to me in any other way is foolish and you’re playing tricks on yourself.” I said to her calmly hoping to keep her from raging and losing her temper again.

“Potato, potahto,” She said drawing a deep breath and showing she had calmed down. “Maybe my choice of words was for drama, but you know what I meant and I truly meant a LOT of what I said. I sat in front of your doorway for 2 hours crying before I finally fell asleep around 4 o’clock. I need you that badly in my life but I can’t understand how you could say all the things you said this week and then just walk away from me. Didn’t you say you could fall in love with me too?”

I nodded yes, but pled my case; “I thought you had rejected me! You don’t think I would have been hurt leaving you? I know the pain of losing someone so it wasn’t going to be new to me. The pain of caring for someone who doesn’t care about you was new to me, especially after all the women I strung along over the years. My chickens had come home to roost and I accepted it, not willingly, but begrudgingly.” I admitted.

“And?” She asked waiting for me to finish my point and put a cherry on her question.

“Ummm, ... Oh!, Yes, I certainly think I could fall in love with you and I dare to say it started to happen.” I said, being a little slow on the uptake.

She smiled sweetly and cuddled right into my chest and hugged me tightly. “So, you’re not going to leave?”

“No.” I said shaking my head.

“Can we say we aren’t going to stop communicating for 2 whole weeks?”

“Yes. Let’s just wait a week and get things in order at home and tell the people who should know that we’ve begun to get “out there”, OK?” I answered, hoping she would agree.

“OK, unless we find we don’t feel the way we do, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” She said, adding, “And can I fly to Tampa and meet you and spend some time on the beach with you?”

“I’m not going to be on the beach every day, but you can be, if you want. Clearwater Beach is a blast. A real alcohol beach, a lot of buzzed people.” I said as I hugged her affectionately knowing I hadn’t lost her.

We both started crying and I realized it was the first time in a year that I was crying, and it wasn’t over Piper Lee. They were tears of joy and I thought of something Piper would say sometime when I would complain about things.

“To be content, just imagine if you lost everything you had ... and then got it all back tomorrow.”

There was so much truth in that little idiom, and that moment was proof of it.

I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, but she bounced right up from the bed and dragged that big hockey bag into the room and opened it, putting everything back in the drawers.

“You’re not getting away from me again mister!” She said as she placed a handful of sock balls in the drawer and added the rest of my things before smoothing out the shirts I had folded and putting them in the next drawer.

I smiled as I watched her and when she finished she came to me on the bed and straddled me, her hands on the top of my arms and her face close to mine.

“You know you can leave whenever you want to, but I think we both know, you don’t want to. I know what we are doing and feeling is foolish, devil may care, and on the surface may be setting one or both of us up for heartbreak. But, I’ve thought this through many times from any perspective I imagine and I think the reality far outweighs the risks. I’ve felt like an empty glass for a long time and sexually I’ve been a half full glass for a long time. When I was married and happy, I was still masturbating 7 to 12 times a week. After I lost Frankie it went up to 14 or 20. Orgasm was my release; it’s always been my release. I’ve never been with a man that satisfies me fully where he can fall asleep beside me and I’m not playing with myself to complete my satisfaction. But, it’s not just the sex. I know there’s going to be a time when my libido will wane, I hope it’s not for another 50 years, but it happens. Now I know I’m basing some of this on just a few days and limited situations, but when we’re alone we can talk, have conversations, and you really listen to me and care about what I have to say. You don’t seem to get in that “veg-out” mode. Even relaxing on the beach you’re reading and when you’re not reading you’re doing a crossword and then your eyes look up and take in everything around you. You take your binoculars and look out for something you see on the horizon and study. Your mind is working all of the time. Then I see your eyes catch some female form, or maybe a couple and that camera comes out. You focus and wait until the right turn is made, the right moment, the second that interests you and you snap. You don’t even stop and check your shot. You just drop it and whether that’s self-confidence, or you want to hide the fact you just snapped someone, I find that so intriguing. I see the art in your pictures. When you first showed me your credential and told me what you did I took you as a voyeur. But looking at the things you’ve shown me, I know you’re not. Those shots of couples staring off into the horizon seems so simple, but when you edit the surrounding and get just them in the shot it softens and I understand what they might be thinking and they’re always holding hands, or arm in arm, or hands on each other’s butt. You can feel the affection and love they have.” She said pouring out her heart to me.

“Wow, you given “us” more thought than I imagined.” I started to say in response to her lengthy evaluation of me, of us, but she interrupted my thought process.

“What’s that I feel behind me, pressing between my ass.” She said reaching behind her and grabbing my erection through my thin cotton “driving pants”.

While stroking the head of my cock through my pants between her thumb and first two fingers she continued. “Yes, I have given us a LOT of serious thought, and not just about what’s between my fingers. Those nights when I came back to bed after you had already fallen asleep? I sat up looking at you and thinking about everything that putting you in my life would mean. I know it may have sounded like I was playing down Frankie, and I want you to understand, he was my best friend in the world, he treated me like a queen, but he just wasn’t the perfect lover. I made him extremely happy and he made me pretty happy. He never understood the attention I needed and actually no man ever did, well a couple did, but they were assholes that I could never be with. I can’t believe I’m confessing so much to you,”

“Then STOP,” I pleaded, “It’s not necessary!”

“NO, that’s how close I feel to you and I WANT you to hear this so you know I really thought this out. I told you I had two one night stands before I met Frankie, and both were with biker guys who treated me like a piece of meat and left me so satisfied, but I could barely walk and I had to wear long sleeves and long pants the next few days until the bruises went away. I knew I couldn’t let myself get that low again, so it was playing with myself after sex to get totally happy and that of course left me guilty, which only led to more self abuse. Bart, with you, you make me crazy without abusing me. You make sure I’m happy. But, it’s not just the sex. You listen with interest at everything I say. You WANT to talk to me, discuss things with me, and ask my opinion of things.” She said still squeezing my dick head to make her points, but she welled up again and began to stream tears as she fought back a good cry.

She kept her hand working and locked her eyes on me as she fought off bawling and then looked me square in the eye and just before she began bawling and drawing her hands up to her face she blurted out, “I think you love me and act like you love me when you’re with me. That’s why I couldn’t let you leave!”

She cried hard for another minute as she (I think) waited for a response from me. When she calmed down I smiled at her and said “I think you may be right and I do want to be with you.”

“Say it?” she said through waning tears.

“I think I may be in love with you, Melody.” I said as she fell on me and cried again before sitting back and reaching back to feel the prong she was leaning against again.

“Bart I am sincere, just as I think you are, that love is a great possibility and I fully understand, as should you, that tomorrow may open a door that could change that. This happened fast, and I know it could crash as fast, but I just can’t think of the situation that might cause that.” She said before lifting the elastic waistband of my pants over my cock so she could put her hand directly on it.

“I just have to ask you one question whose answer could color things for me. It’s personal, but since you brought it up, it’s open for discussion.” I said as she stopped fingering my dick and looked at me worried.

I wondered aloud, “What question are you afraid that I might ask? I see the fear on your face. Are you hiding something?” I said in response to the look on her face.

“Sort of.” She said her eyes welling up.

“Come ON, Mel! You can’t cry at every turn here. IF ... it’s to get your way with me, can’t you see it doesn’t work?”

“I’m sorry, and I wouldn’t do that. I’m no drama queen. It’s the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on for the last 9 months and I feel so close to the end of the ride. I want to be the me that I am when I’m with you, not this one... (drawing a deep breath) ... My two one night stands were with 2 guys at once. Was that your question?” She asked frightened on how I would react.

“That isn’t what I wanted to ask, and it makes no difference. Were those one night stands while you were married, did you cheat?” I said as I gripped her arms firmly.

“NO, NO, NO! I’ve never cheated on any boyfriend and certainly NEVER with Frankie. I was shit on once and I know how it feels. NO!”

“Thank you.” I said adding, “Now where were we?” I asked as she looked at me confused before smiling and blurting out, “Oh!”

Her hand reached around and grabbed my cock by the shaft and began to stroke it. Then she seemed to sit up a bit and she reached down and pulled aside her little sweat-shorts and thong. She bent towards me and reached back and took my cock and put it to her pussy. I flexed my hips and sunk into her and she sat back to be sure it got all the way in.

“No man has ever filled me like this. You curve right where I curve and I can feel it all the way up!” She gasped as she fell onto me.

I gripped her tightly and may have spoiled a moment but I had to say, “Make sure you know WHAT you’re falling in love with.”

“Don’t worry,” She said in my ear, “I’m a sexual person, but I’m not that shallow. You’re so special in so many ways Bart.”

She sat back up and smiled that special look and began to bounce on me as I was pushing her along. Then she leaned back and braced herself up with one hand on my knee and her other went to her pussy and she came almost instantly upon touching herself. She turned bright red and her eyes looked like she stuck a finger in the socket and then she fell on me, exhausted.

“Ohhh,” I groaned, “Two or three more and I would have cum too.”

She pulled herself off me and spun around to bend over me and take my cock in her hand. Her juices were enough to lube her stroke and true to my words, on her fourth stroke I shouted out and shot a load high in the air onto my chest. She pulled 3 more little shots and then watched the dribbles roll over her hand. She ran her hands up over me to squeeze out my last few drops before she put her mouth over me and ran her tongue around the head knowing I would get sensitive easily. I lasted a few licks but quickly squirmed away.

“I would have loved to have eaten that, but a big load of cum in an empty stomach doesn’t work to well.” She said with a smile.

“Are you comfortable with how you’re dressed to go to breakfast?” I asked. “We have some things to talk about.”

“Can I borrow the one sweatshirt I put away for you? I don’t need my titties bouncing under my t-shirt.” She asked.

“Grab it and we’ll go.” I said as I went to the bathroom and wiped the cum off my chest and used a wash cloth on my junk.

I turned around and she was standing there smiling. “We can shower together when we get back, OK?”

“It’s a date.” I said.

We got to The Big Maine Diner right at 7 a.m. as they opened and we were shocked there was not the usual line. I don’t think either of us had realized how early in the day it was. We purposely took a 2 person side booth to be close to each other and we held each other’s hands and talked over coffee for 20 minutes before actually ordering food. Any problems we had with semantics and understanding intentions were ironed out then and we got into family stuff as well as lots of little personal details, habits, and quirks. It was like a cram study course on each other.

Getting back to the condo’s I wanted to go in and change to go down and take in the low tide, because you can walk out so far at Wells when it’s low. I suggested she do the same and she seemed reticent, she wanted to go in with me as I changed. Well, I say change, it was simply shuck my pants and underwear and put on a swimsuit, all of 90 seconds. She then took my hand and wanted to lead me upstairs to be with her as she changed.

“Just go ahead and I’ll meet you at the water, I won’t go in until you get there.” I said stepping away from her while she held on to my hand.

“No, please come up with me!” She said.

“Melody, if you want sex we can diddle each other in the water, come on, there’s hardly anyone here before the lifeguards come in and the tides way out.”

“It’s not that, I just want you with me.”

“Mel, if getting clingy is going to be a new side of you, the last 4 hours have been for naught. You have my heart, you have my word, and you don’t need anything else.” I said getting short with this new sudden dimension of her.

She suddenly held her arms to herself as if a she were cold (it wasn’t even close to chilly) and said, “Are you sure you won’t just leave?”

I was dumfounded, flabbergasted, and any other word you can come up with for being caught off guard and knocked off my feet.

“MEL, what did we just spend the last 3 or 4 hours discussing? Was that an act or what?” I asked.

“Unt ... uhh, we’re back HERE now and all I can think of is looking in and seeing your stuff packed. I can’t lose anoth ... um, I mean YOU!”

“Melody, you have my heart and you have my word. Love is trust, I never want to hurt you, but you’re hurting me right now. I THOUGHT we just passed all of this by.”

“Maybe I need a good spanking.” She said in a tone that wasn’t an overture for sex play, she was just getting weird on me and it was causing me distress.

“Fuck you Melody. I’m going down to the water and waiting for you to come out in your swim suit. Stop this foolishness right now!” I said as I shook her hand off mine and turned and walked to the shoreline.

I heard her burst into tears and run up the metal stairs and heard her condo door slam. I was determined to stand there until the tide came in up to my head until she came out. I just stood there with my arms folded facing the ocean and waited. I estimated 10 minutes went by and I began to wonder if the whole relationship were up in smoke over some silly idea she may have gotten in between the end of our breakfast and the 15 or so minutes since we got back.

I had just thought that the next move was definitely hers when an arm went around me and she stood beside me saying, “Hi, I’m here, and I’m sorry. I just had a little panic attack. I’ve been off my medication for the past 3 days and, thinking I didn’t need it anymore, but I was wrong. I just sat up there thinking to myself, hating myself for throwing you away, and all the emotions you put me through before and how nothing made sense. It was then it hit me that I stopped taking it, thinking that you cured me.”

“Cured you of what?”

“I was a bundle of nerves and prone to crying jags when I wasn’t playing with myself and I got some psychiatric help and they put me on paroxetine. It’s an attitude adjuster for depression and phobia impulses. As I asked myself WHY, WHY, WHY, up there it occurred to me that I unmedicated myself.”

“Playing Doctor Mel?”

“Jesus, another from the Frankie Ostin playbook! You know all of his little sayings and jibes, I swear! He always accused me of thinking I was smarter than the doctors whenever they would prescribe something for a cold, allergy, anything. I hate taking pills and would stop taking a prescription after a day or two, as soon as I felt better, and then of course, in a day or two I would need it again and he would catch me, knowing I skipped. That’s when he would call me Doctor Mel. I’m really sure he brought us together.”

I was used to her references to Frankie, and I suppose she was used to, (I might mean sick off in both cases) references to Piper Lee, and now I really did feel we may have been pushed together. From either of our angles, it had to feel good.

“Melody, just get it through your head that I love you right now, as long as we are here. I hope the feeling continues long afterward, but we both have to realize that once back into our regular lives our feelings may change. I pray as hard as I can that it won’t be the case, I REALLY love loving you. It makes me feel like I’ve never felt. With Piper I had doubts for a long time and even with your little escapade a few minutes ago, I don’t want this feeling to end. If I have to lay you out right here in the sand and make love to you to prove that, I will. I am not ashamed to say I love you after these 5 or 6 days, even though the “me” from 7 days ago would have told you there was no chance of this EVER happening.”

Melody had tears streaming down her face as she looked out over the ocean hearing my words. Never averting her eyes from the horizon she said, “I can’t imagine any day without you right now. I’m still a little edgy, but the pill I took a few minutes ago will smooth out those wrinkles. Bart, I cannot lose you and I’ll try my best, pray my hardest to keep these feelings. You know at one point, while still on the meds, while driving here with 8 hours of only me to reason with, I considered walking out into the ocean until I was gone. I figured it would be fitting to come here and join Frankie on the other side. Do you still want to be with someone as kooky as me?” zooi

“Mel, don’t think because you had those thoughts it makes you crazy. I only had 4 or 5 hours alone and I thought about just dying up here too. I didn’t want anything to be so obviously suicide though. Then I thought if there was an afterlife as we imagined, Piper would never speak to me. I do know she would want me to carry on and be happy.”

“You spoke about it?” Mel asked.

“We had cemetery plots together. She ended up being buried back where her family was from. It didn’t seem right to deny them, although it was her wish to be buried with me, but I suppose we thought that might be a long way off.” I said choking up once again as memories came rushing back.

She turned and we had a long hug together and started out into the ocean. You are able to walk out a long, long way at low tide before the water would be over your head, and we slowly walked until we were fighting waves to keep our head above water when we came upon a sand bar that got water back down to just above our waists.

“I knew this was here, I was just going to turn back, giving up on it.” I said as Mel turned with her back towards shore and brought her hand up under my suit to grab my cock.

“Can I call this MY cock? It makes me so happy, you know how to use it so well to please me, I really don’t want to lose it.” She said with that grin and look in her eye that made me crazy.

“You can, but I can tell you that screwing in the ocean isn’t as fun as it seems, especially when the water is so cold. We tried it.” I said with a winking smile and little peck on her lips.

“I was thinking about sucking it.” She said as she stroked me a bit.

“Why don’t we wait until we get back alone where we can do anything we want, not have to rush or anything.” I suggested, knowing there were more people coming into the beach now that the lifeguard was in place.

“You know I don’t care who sees me. I’m not ashamed to be in love with you.”

“But there are public decency laws, and we do like coming here.” I reminded her.

“I promise,” I said trying not to show my smart-ass smile, “to let you enjoy a nice blow-job later on.”

She took her hands from my suit and looked at me slyly, saying “Try and stop me.”

She dove into the water and started toward shore. I waited for the next big wave and followed suit.

When I caught up to her on shore she was bent over at the waist, her hands on her knees, letting the water drain off her hair and body. Needless to say her suit clung to the gorgeous globes of her ass pointed right towards me.

“You offering me your ass?” I wisecracked. “It’s yours if you want it, I can be very naughty with the man I love.” She said not skipping a beat as she stood and looked at me dead serious look and all.

I hugged her close and ran my hand down over her delicious ass while whispering, “Mel, I would never do anything to hurt you, or anything to satisfy my own prurient interest. If you knew you’d enjoy it, that’s one thing, but your few words made it sound like it wouldn’t be good for you. I don’t want or need that, and if you think it would prove something to me, think again. What we’ve had is proof enough, and you know that.”

I heard her crying in my ear and she kept her head hugged tightly to mine so I wouldn’t see her tears.

“Our rule always was, and it sounds like it was your rule, “anything we agree on” and I would never think anything less of you for asking about anything.” I whispered.

“The bikers peed on me, that was humiliating and over the top, but not until after they left me. While it happened it was hot, but now I know. I hadn’t agreed to that, but I hadn’t agreed to get my ass reddened and that was fantastic, so...”

“Stop Mel! No sexual history. You don’t need to explain anything. I don’t care. You think I want to fish for the deal breaker with you, I don’t. I love the woman I met 5 days ago and anything you did 6 days ago is NOT MY BUSINESS.”

Mel was crying hard and still holding on to me tightly, not wanting to make a scene. She calmed down a bit and spoke once more time. “That’s ALL I want you to know. I’m afraid you’ll find out some things later and reject me.”