CHAPTER EIGHT: HUGH MADDOX
Ironically, since I had spent the night doing nothing but beating off and punching a bag, I wake up this morning feeling like I’ve been in a fight and then gotten run over by a train. I came so hard that it nearly knocked my fillings loose, something I wouldn’t have been happy about. I take good care of my teeth, but the Wahay dental services are nothing to throw a parade about.
I also wake up hard. Less surprising, I mean, that’s the way it usually goes, but I’m harder than ever. Sam’s presence in the house has gotten me all stirred up in a way that is not at all surprising or unwelcome, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I’m glad she’s here but I have no idea what today is going to be like, or how things will have changed by the time the sun goes down tonight.
It’s still raining like mad, but maybe she left. That would make things simpler and saner. But also far less horny. And no one likes less horny, not even a pseudo-lumberjack brute like yours truly.
I used to love Sherlock Holmes. What am I saying? I still do. Sherlock would have said, “Elementary, my dear idiot Hugh. Get downstairs, give her the story of a lifetime, and try to see if you can make yourself happy by doing something for someone else.”
I can try. That’s all I can do. Just see what happens. I get up, get dressed, note how sore my fists and feet are, and tiptoe past her door in case she’s still sleeping. She’s not. When I get to my kitchen Sam is in there rooting through the cupboards.
“I hope you don’t mind if I make breakfast. I’m starving from last night … I mean from all the hiking. It’s more than a city girl like me can handle,” she says over her shoulder with a grin, “but you don’t really have anything. Hope you like water.” She’s playful but she’s not exactly wrong. My kitchen isn’t packed with goodies. That doesn’t mean I don’t have them, she’s just not looking in the right place.
But she’s looking good, that’s for sure. She must have put on this pink nightgown after I left her last night. It’s modest but it fits her perfectly.
“Do you always wake up looking this good?” I say.
She snorts, and even that sounds becoming when it’s her doing it. “Nice try, Hugh. Seriously, is there no food in here?”
“Come on. I’ve got to show you something.”
She turns around and thinks for a moment. Maybe she thinks this is the moment where I show her the basement where I hold my captives. So close to telling my story - only to lose her life in the process.
“All right,” she says with a smile, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “But hurry. I’m starving. Blood sugar issues.”
She’s glowing. What happened to her last night? Moreover, why hadn’t I spent the night with her? I could have been the reason for her glow, but instead, I was out back jerking off like a doofus.
Enough. Get it together, Hugh. I take her out of the kitchen and show her the stairs leading downwards. To her credit, she goes first. Maybe it’s bluster, but I think she’s brave. Or maybe naive. I wouldn’t let someone who looked as intimidating as me take me down into a strange basement.
Happily, the staircase leads, not to a subterranean chamber of horrors, but to my pantry and what you might call my real living room.
“Wow,” she says. “This is more like it.”
“I honestly don’t spend that much time upstairs,” I say. “So I just keep everything down here for when I need it.”
One wall is completely taken up with provisions. Everything you’d ever want to make for breakfast is either on the shelves or in the deep freeze. There is an oven, a sink, and a dishwasher. “Sometimes the upper floors leak,” I say, “No matter how much I reinforce them. “But I had the workers do something special down here so there’s no way water can get in.”
She nods but she’s already looking at the food. “Okay, I’m making sausage, eggs, coffee, and...hmm, do you have anything for biscuits?”
“Yep. Up there. Top shelf to the left.” This is a great excuse to watch her raise up on her toes as she stretches to reach, which gives me a great view of her flexing legs and cheeks. She looks back at me and smiles. “What are you looking at?” She blushes at the same time and I feel myself getting hard again. This was an unsustainable situation.
“I think you know,” I say. “What are you looking at?”
She opens her mouth to say something playful, I’m guessing, but then she notices something over my shoulder and stops. “What’s behind that door?”
“Chamber of horrors,” I say. “That’s where your real story lies. But most of the time when I lock someone in there, they never get out.” We both know that I’m posturing; that I don’t want to talk about what’s behind that door. Or maybe I do.
“I believe it’s something you don’t want anyone to see,” she says. “But I doubt that it’s as bad as you think.”
A minute later the smell of sizzling breakfast permeates the entire basement. “So you’re really not going to tell me?” she says, putting a pout in her voice. For an obviously inexperienced woman, she’s certainly a natural when it comes to leading a man towards what she wants from him.
“I will tell you,” I say. “On one condition.”
“Anything,” she says in a halting voice, wondering if she may have offered too much. We’re both reminded that she doesn’t really know me.
“I want you to tell me who you’re running from. Or what, if that’s the case. And don’t tell me it’s Jarom. You could have knocked him senseless and then slept like a baby.”
Here is the test. She’ll either back off or she’ll try to come clean. Maybe she needs to unburden herself in the same way I do.
“You got it,” she says, turning back to the stove and whistling something tuneless. “Now be quiet while I cook. I’m not a morning person.”
I have no idea what to make of this woman, so I’ll just try to enjoy it while it lasts. Soon we’re sitting at the table and she’s digging in like she’s been in the midst of a famine, drought, and new ice age. I’ve never seen such an appetite, not even guys after a hard sparring session or weight cut, and I wonder all over again just what happened to her last night.
“Ahhh…..,” she says, finally pushing her plate away and leaning back. “You give me two minutes to digest and I’ll tell you anything you want.”
“That’s quite an offer.”
“I know.” She closes her eyes and smiles. It’s all I can do not to pull her up out of the chair and lay her down on the table before I have my way with her. Something tells me she would love it. Something also tells me that, even if we get there, it’s not quite time yet.
“Do you think Jarom made it back safely?” she says with a cute laugh. She covers her mouth with her hands.
“Oh wow, that guy. What was that all about, anyway?”
She opens her eyes. “Well, that’s going to tie into the question you asked me. You know...the running away. I’ve been running, sort of, from someone and something. Jarom was a symptom, not a cause. He’s a photographer at The Inner Eye. He’s good, too, at photography. Not much in the social skills department. Or romance, for that matter. Not that I’m any sort of romantic prodigy, but Jarom needs some real help.”
“I find it hard to believe that you’re not a romantic genius. I mean...you carry yourself like you know what you’re doing.”
“Well, you flatter me, but you might be surprised. But Jarom...he had a crush on me forever. I knew it. Everyone knew it. I just couldn’t let it happen.”
“Why not? Nervous, frail men not your thing?”
“Ha! That might surprise you too. It wasn’t just that. Jarom was sweet until he got possessive. I noticed it in the beginning of our trip and it only grew. I never saw anything from him like the way he acted when you saw us. It was scary. But before our trip, he was just dorky and awkward. I can look past dorky and awkward. If you ever see my bookshelves you’ll see.”
Oh, I hope I get the chance, Sam.
“But I was with someone. Even if I had been interested in Jarom, I was with someone. It feels a little strange opening up to you about all of this since it’s been barely 24 hours since we met, but I guess something about this also feels a bit natural. Then again, that could also be last night’s drinks talking,” she said with a giggle.
Man, even her laugh is sexy.
“And this is who you’re running from?” Part of me wanted to hear that she was fleeing from a maniac who had threatened her. That I understood. And it would give me a great chance to track him down, punish him, win her heart, make him apologize, etc. But another part of me prayed that no one else had to get hurt by me.
“I’m running from me as much as from him, I think. He was okay.”
“Just okay? What was his name? Not another Jarom, I hope.”
She took a sip of coffee. “No, his name was Owen.”
“Like Owen Meany? From the John Irving novel?”
“Honestly, Owen Meany would have been easier to deal with.”
“Even with the visions and the size and health and everything?”
“Even with those. Owen’s greatest fault was that…” She covers her mouth again and starts laughing so hard she turns red. I wait. “He had a really big...coin collection.”
Now I’m laughing with her. If this is an innuendo, it’s a weird one. “So, he was into numismatics?”
Her eyes widen and she laughs harder than ever. It’s like magic and wind chimes in my life, which is feeling lonelier than ever.
“Oh boy. Oh, you have no idea how good that makes me feel.”
I notice that the rain sounds like it’s lightening up, which takes my heart in another, damper, more melancholy direction. This is going to end.
“Owen was my first,” she says. “My only, if I’m being totally honest. I got with him because I chose to settle with what felt…familiar. But it was just okay. Just...whatever.”
“Seriously, most relationships are just okay, until you find one that’s not.” I am talking out of my ass. I have burned through a ton of women, but until now I had no idea of what it felt like to be in a relationship with someone I could really click with - outside of carnal delights.
“I had no intentions of leaving him. I don’t know if that was inertia or boredom or clinginess or what,” she says. “But I hadn’t really thought about going. Lacey--she’s a friend--was always telling me to drop him and go…” she makes air quotes, ‘…fuck everyone who looks at me for an entire year so that I can figure out what I want and like.’ But that definitely wasn’t my style. Eventually he took the choice away from me and I got what I got.” She frowns at the table. Maybe this is still more fresh and raw than she is acting like.
“He cheated? A guy with a coin collection cheated on you? And he actually found someone to cheat with?”
She nods. “I was devastated. Still am, for that matter. But you know what? It’s not even him I miss. I miss being wanted, even though he never really acted more passionate for me than I did for him. What irks me is that someone, without telling me, still found a way to show me that I’m not good enough for him. I’m not wanted. He didn’t even have the courage to tell me.”
“Did he meet her at a coin convention? How did you find out?”
“If only it was so glamorous,” she says. “If only.”
“Curioser and curioser,” I say, and she grins at the Alice in Wonderland reference.
“Indeed, Hugh. Indeed.”