Coming Together: Special Hurricane Relief Edition (31 page)

"What
was that?" she asked, a bit of a gleam showing in her eyes. She
didn't wait for an answer, just swept into the apartment and pointed
Pat towards the first doorway off the entrance hall. "Go on in,
I'll go get the coffee started. Be right back," her voiced
trailed away as she continued on down the hall, "Just have a
seat."

Pat
looked about the room he found himself in. Then he looked down at his
squelching boot clad feet and the little beads of water that rolled
down the waders. He felt around his jacket and shook his head...his
breath catching at the sight of the spray coming off his hair. "Have
a seat?" he said. "Yeah, right...I don't think so. Not in
here."

It
was a nice room, almost what you might call a parlor. Pat was
reminded of the way his mother used to keep the very front room of
the houses he grew up in extra neat and tidy. "Public rooms"
is how he'd viewed them. They were places where you could let
anyone...salespeople, missionaries from whatever religious group was
in the neighborhood that day, the kids trying to get you to buy their
magazines, or candy, or cookies...without worrying that they might
have a wrong first impression.

Never
mind that the impression they were getting was wrong to begin with.

Valerie's
front room had a lot of those qualities. Most of the horizontal
surfaces around the room were full of knick-knacks. They sat on the
mantle along one wall, on the end tables, and at the very edges of
the shelves of the small bookcase by the entrance to the hall leading
further into the house. Some of those same shelves also held little
groupings of pictures displaying a nice looking family as it grew
from a couple to a trio to the size it was today. More professional
portraits of the three children—school pictures, from the looks
of it—were hung amid paintings here and there about the room's
walls. But, where his mother's choice of things reflected her tastes
and background in a fairly obvious way, Pat wasn't sure who was
reflected here. He stopped before a rather artsy looking print
hanging near the bookcase. It showed a woman reclining...well, most
of a woman reclining. You had a good view of her shapely legs encased
in ivory colored, patterned hose, garter belt just barely visible,
and her hips and thighs turned to imply she wasn't wearing anything
else...even though that wasn't expressly shown.

A
slight tinkle of metal on china behind him announced Valerie's
return. "It's not quite finished brewing, but I thought we could
go ahead and have a bit of cake or something." She caught sight
of where he was standing and what he was looking at.

Pat
half turned towards her then gave a glance back over his shoulder.
"You?" he asked with a nod to the picture.

Valerie
rolled her eyes. "I wish...been thinking of getting some
stockings like that though," she said. Sighing, she added,
"Would probably go to waste around here." She smiled at
Pat, who laughed lightly.

"Mmm...well,
should you take pictures of them and wish to share," he said
with a wink.

Her
face reddened slightly. Valerie swallowed nervously, sitting down and
returning to the coffee service. "Maybe someday. When I
finish..." she let the thought slip away, her eyes mostly kept
down and away from Pat.

"Finish
what?" Pat probed. "Finish remaking yourself? I can see the
start you've made, and I barely know you. I'm sure Ben is as happy
with the results as you are, yes?"

She
shook her head just a bit and Pat nodded. He quietly took a plate of
cake. "Come on, I'm too wet for this room. Let's go to the
kitchen and check that coffee. We can talk about why we've never
really talked before. Or anything at all, really...What prompted you
to begin making a change?"

The
pair moved out into the hall and down to the other room. It, too,
showed the sign of being carefully seen to and kept up. Everything
had a place and nothing seemed to be out of place from what Pat could
tell. He could tell the kitchen was used, though; it had that sort of
lived in feel to it. There was a smell that he couldn't put a name to
hanging in the air. It might have been a type of potpourri or very
mild incense, but he wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it fit the room
nicely, and blended in with the sounds, also.

From
the counter by the stove, the coffee machine was just finishing up.
The mild little drip it made mingled with the rhythmic hum and whirl
of a washing machine that Pat could just make out running in the
background somewhere.

"It's
just silliness," Valerie was saying as she took their cups and
began to fix coffee for them. "I read something that sparked a
thought that I needed to try and improve some things, that's all. How
we would all get along better if we knew something more about what
makes us tick. So, I decided to begin finding that out with me. It's
sort of a special present for me. My birthday is in a few weeks."
"My birthday was earlier in the summer," Pat remarked. "I'm
just about to crest the next hill. Forty is a hill, a milestone,
isn't it? I mean still. The way things seem to be happening with
regards to keeping people healthy and fit these days I never seem to
remember when I'm allowed to consider myself old."

"You're
only as old as you feel."

"True
enough, I suppose. At least, that's what they'd have you believe."
Pat took a deep breath and sipped at the coffee cup he held. "So,
umm, what exactly did you mean by tick?"

Valerie
laughed. "Well, I was referring to general interests, but you
can read into it whatever you want." The merriment in her eyes
radiated out between them, and Pat ran a hand over his chin as he
thought for a moment.

"Ah...well,
let's see...interests...do I even have those any more? I sometimes
wonder." Pat turned his head to glance in Valerie's direction
and found her eyes already on him. "I mean, I still have my
writing. Sometimes, I manage to squeeze in a roleplaying session or a
movie; but between work and helping out Allan, I'm more than a little
tied up."

He
smiled, adding, "Not in a good way, either. You mean stuff like
that?"

Nodding,
Valerie said, "It's a start. I know what you mean about finding
time for such things. I never have the time for all the reading,
writing, and movie-going that I would like. You've seen the kids.
They're good...very good...but three of them is still an awful lot of
time and care. Now that they've all started school, I've begun to
pencil in some volunteer time here and there, maybe a day in the gym
or out biking, but have yet to get back to hobbies."

Just
outside the kitchen windows, the rain took a turn towards the heavy
side. Pat felt what was coming before it happened. A large crash of
thunder announced to everyone for miles that the storm was not only
back, but bigger and closer than before. Valerie started at the
noise, and Pat stepped in without thinking and laid a hand on her
shoulder.

"It's
just noise, you know. It's not going to bother you, really." She
gave him a dubious look. Pat smiled. "Honest. Some people even
use thunder and rain as ambient sound within musical compositions."

Valerie
sighed. "I know. I studied music for almost a decade between
grade school and getting my bachelor's degree. Thunder storms just
make me uneasy. Don't know why, or what to do about it."

"You
deal with it, like any other fear or compulsion. Make it have minimal
effect on you by interacting with it and getting yourself used to its
being around you. What have you got finishing up in the wash?"

"How'd?"

A
light laugh escaped from Pat as he stepped back to give Valerie some
space again. "You'd mentioned you were doing housework. I
haven't ever been in a house with work to be done that didn't include
laundry. And, besides, I can hear the washer going through its final
spin cycle."

"You
have too fine an attention to details." She moved through the
dining space to the far side of the kitchen and folded back a pair of
doors covering a small washer and dryer room. Just then the washer
clicked and thumped and settled down again. Valerie leaned over after
opening the top and pulled out a piece of white cloth. "Sheets.
Sheets and pillowcases and other assorted bedding," she said.

"Perfect.
Throw it all in a basket and put it on the table there."

His
instructions were met with a roll of the eyes and another dubious
look. "Trust me, 'kay?"

Valerie
shrugged and began drawing forth the linens from the washer. They
were bright and reflected the light of the kitchen. One by one, she
piled them into the waiting laundry basket and then picked the whole
thing up and set it on the dinette table. "Alright, what now?"
she asked.

"We
hang it up to dry, of course. Come on, follow me," he answered
as he tossed a bag of clothespins into the basket and gathered the
whole thing up and headed for the now open sliding glass door to the
backyard. "That means you have to walk, Val."

"You're
crazy! It's pouring down rain out there."

"Yep."

"It's
thundering and lightning and the wind's blowing and...and..."

Pat
walked over and held out the basket to Valerie. She took it
automatically. He stepped around behind her and leaned his body
closely up to hers...his voice a soft asp upon her shoulder, hissing
in her ear. "Move or would you rather I made you?"

She
swallowed nervously. Her head shook back and forth a few times and
she stammered out that she was moving. Pat watched her step through
the exit onto the small patio right outside the door. She paused to
regard the water falling in great sheets...dripping steadily at the
edge of the ceiling formed from the balcony on the second floor...and
met Pat's eyes in his reflection in the glass. He narrowed his gaze.
He could feel a devilish smile slowly emerging, but he kept it at bay
and just let his eyes bore into Valerie. He watched as she bit her
lip. Valerie was unsure of why she was listening to him, but she
didn't stop doing so. When she turned her body to squeeze the basket
through the backdoor, Pat saw the beginnings of hard nipples pressing
through her shirt even before the mist began to dampen the fabric,
and let the smile come.

"So,
what sort of typing have you been doing?" Pat asked as Valerie
stood holding the laundry basket. He motioned for her to set it down
to the side of the door, ducked out into the storm and undid a length
from the clothesline. Valerie's eyes widened and he laughed when she
relaxed and breathed more easily when he strung it up along the small
enclosed patio outside the kitchen door. "Well?"

Valerie
gave a light shrug. "It's nothing much. I've been hanging out on
some forum type places, bouncing messages back and forth and
bantering with people. Occasionally, I've slipped away to check out
stories and poems posted by people I know. There's some impressive
stuff out there."

"I
know. I hang out in quite a few of those places myself. Sometimes,
the immediacy of a chat room isn't as intimate as leaving a part of
you exposed and coming back later to see what people have remarked
about it."

Valerie
relaxed a little more. Her body had grown a bit stiff and on guard as
Pat had rehung the clothesline. "So, you write yourself?"
she asked, the curiosity evident in her voice.

"Well,
when I manage to kick my butt into gear, yeah. I need to get back in
the groove of writing regularly. I managed to get out some new poetry
recently, and that's at least a start in that direction." He
noticed the slight fidgeting Valerie was doing and smiled. "You
write too, don't you?" Pat asked.

Valerie
nodded. "I just have such a passion that needs released
sometimes. I think my music used to do that, but when the girls came
I found other things to put that energy towards. Now, however, that
feeling is building again, and writing seems to be calling to it."

"What's
Ben think about it?"

A
sigh slipped from Valerie and she shrugged. "He was really
supportive, until he found out what I was writing about." She
stooped to pick up a sheet from the basket and began draping it over
the clothesline. "He's fine, long as 'no sexy stuff' is
involved."

Pat
eased himself over behind Valerie once more.

"And
what do you want?"

"I
don't know."

Soft
laughter sounded in Valerie's ears. "Yes, you do," Pat
said, "listen to the wind. Feel the way it blows the mist from
the rain over and around that sheet." He reached around her
back, taking each of her wrists in hand and drew them back to place
her palms against her damp, transparent sleep shirt. "Your
nipples are hard."