Crushing (The Southern California Wine Country Series) (9 page)

Amanda said to the nurse, “I’ll take him from here.”

“The rules are we must have an orderly wheel them down to the car.”

Kyle thought it seemed even more like a prison.

“Kyle, I can drive you.”

“If Sardis knows we left,” Kyle said to the orderly that arrived with the wheel chair. The orderly had tattoos scrolling up both arms and into the sleeves of his purple scrubs. Kyle said as the orderly helped him into the chair, “Take me to the main entrance and then I can wait for my brother.” The orderly nodded silently and pushed Kyle easily through the doorway and down the hall. Kyle could see how the hospital floor became busier now than when he arrived. Like shift change at the factory, or the prison.

Sharp sunlight illuminated the lobby, perhaps some thought cheery but Kyle only saw scalpels, knives, and scissors. The prick of needles. The lifeless plants and sterile furniture, ragged at the corners and stained with coffee or other fluids over the years. The receptionist wore a sweater against the too-cold air conditioning. The orderly pushed Kyle toward the door that whisked open to the heat outside that seemed like an oven now. “Do you have a car to bring up?” he asked. “Otherwise, I need to transfer you from the chair to the bench outside.”

Amanda said, “It’s hot out here. Can we put him in a chair inside?”

The orderly shrugged, but said, “I really have to put him on the bench. If he can walk, there is nothing keeping him on the bench. It’s just how our insurance and lawyers direct us. The security camera records me. Hard getting a job in this market so I cannot put you anywhere but a car or that bench. Sorry.”

Kyle said, “That’s fine, dude. I understand.”

The orderly helped Kyle over to the bench, “You’ve got your bag of goodies and your discharge paperwork. You are all set. I hope you get well soon – my girlfriend and I want to hear you play at Amber Mountain again. Take care.” The orderly spun the wheel chair around and disappeared into the hospital.

“Hey, thanks!” Kyle said after the disappearing orderly. Then to Amanda, “At least I have two fans.”

Amanda’s eyes looked across the parking lot, “That makes three.” Kyle watched how her eyes sparkled in the light. “I’m a fan, too.” She put her hand out, “Do you need help to walk?”

“I can manage,” Kyle stood, using the bench to stand; he shuffled into the hospital to find one of the chairs near the exit.

“I hope I can still play guitar and sing while this heals,” he touched the side of his chest.

“Kyle, you need to stop roofing,” Amanda said.

“I can’t, what other work will I do? I do not have a college degree. It pays better than other jobs I can get. Music is a hard road, even if you are good.”

“You’re good. You are even great. Amazing. Your music and voice tugged at me in ways I – I don’t know,” Amanda looked back to the shadowed hallway that burrowed into the confines of the building. “Too much danger in roofing.”

Kyle grimaced and looked out the big glass doors. The heat of the parking lot shimmered into the clear sky and made the cars look like a mirage.

Amanda rested her hand on Kyle’s wrist, “You can take classes and get a better job.”

“Half the roofing crew has a college degree. That paper doesn’t mean an instant better job.”

“Depends on what field you study, sure. Some degrees are in more demand than others.”

“I’m not swimming in cash to pay for classes, and those text books and lab fees are insane.” He could have added he slept in his car because he did not have enough money for rent.

“Scholarships are out there.”

“Those are only for kids going direct from high school into college. Not for ones that took a couple years off banging around before deciding to go back. I was never good at tests so I don’t have old grades that would work and I’ll do badly on new tests.” Kyle wanted to move the focus, “When you get your Electrical Engineering degree you need to fix all that medical equipment. I won’t miss all that beeping noise. Nothing about them relaxed me. Always going off for no reason and wailing into the night. I don’t know how anyone gets any better with that constant racket. I even tried using it to compose music in my head, but that didn’t work.” Kyle looked at Amanda, “You will have to check the circuit in my guitar. Maybe you can improve the tone.”

“It sounded good when you played it.”

“It’s a simple circuit that I slapped together from memory. I know it is not right, it works, but it is not right. It could have better tone.”

“I’d leave it for now. It really sounded nice.”

“I built it out of desperation and it’s clunky. No music means no pay. Since music is a weekend business, the places pay only when they need entertainment. Four weekends a month, even when a place pays at all or decent like Amber Mountain, four weekends a month in small venues does not string together rent money – and forget about cash for college. We never had money from our parents to start out.”

“Why is that?”

“My father threw Sardis and I out as soon as I turned eighteen. Told us that he and his girlfriend didn’t want us there anymore.”

“That’s harsh.”

“We did, often, get into trouble. Some said they gave us tough love but there was never any love in it, just toughness. Perhaps hate. I think he blamed Sardis and I for our mother dying in the house fire.”

“Oh!” Amanda put her hands to her face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.” Kyle nodded. The memories never got better with age. Picking through the house remains finding bits of their life, an awful task for a teen. It still hurt. His life was somewhere else when the guitar chords rang from his hands. He could smile on stage because in that moment the sound strummed away the past. The stage lights and the audience pushed the shadows from him and the better he played the further the darkness, the loneliness, and the fear fell away. Those feelings blew out there at the fringe where the scratching, grunting demons lived – thirsting for souls to trample and devour.

“Regular jobs are out there that would fit you, ones you don’t risk falling two stories and getting trapped under crushing shingles.”

Kyle nodded. Fitting, tarred bundles of the world crushing the life from him. He needed something new to distract himself, “Let me see that notebook of yours.”

“
No. You should not look there.”

“
A notebook is a good idea. Half my songs I wrote on paper shopping bags,” Kyle could have said on the ripped open paper bags scrounged out of fast food restaurant trash barrels looking for wasted food. Those paper bags were always bright white and showed his pencil marks better than the brown bags that came with alcohol bottles. “I lost them all when it rained. A notebook would have kept them safe.”

It’s my diary. I keep secrets in there.”

“Bad secrets or good secrets?”

“
Is there a difference? How do I trust you with my secrets? With my feelings?”

“
Emotions in your lyrics are important. Now I only want to read them more.”

“
Show me I can trust you with this,” Amanda held her notebook out to him.

“
I’ll keep you safe.” Kyle slid the notebook from her fingers. He saw her eyes averted from his, as if a doctor was about to give her a tetanus shot. He took the small book carefully and opened it. He read fast, her vocabulary impressed him. “You have great stories in here … Like this one; add a cool lick and this one is pure gold.” He tapped his hand on the arm of the chair in a beat that matched the words. His thoughts drifted through chord changes and possible melodies. He flipped through more pages, “You have pretty words here, too.”

Amanda smiled, “Thanks.” She had never relinquished it to another person before Kyle. She felt as if she lost another type of virginity.

Kyle changed his position in the chair, and winced.

“Your pain meds wearing off?”

“Must be.”

Amanda asked, “Let me see that packet of yours.” She flipped through the papers. “Here is a script to be filled at the pharmacy.”

“Does it say how much the pills cost?”

“No.”

“Then I can’t afford them,” Kyle leaned carefully back in the chair.

“The pain is only going to get worse.”

“I’ve dealt with pain before. I didn’t have any pain killers when they dragged my ass in here.”

“You had adrenaline blocking a lot of that. You will be with this for days, constantly in your thoughts. I broke my arm when I was a kid and that hurt a lot even with the pills - and I wasn’t flexing the bones every time I breathed.”

“I won’t be able to sing, will I …”

Amanda rummaged in her purse, a crumpled mash of bills filled her fingers behind the prescription sheet, “I’ll be right back.”

Kyle put his fingers around her arm. How supple and warm. She moved too far before she realized and stretched his arm which pulled on his torso. Kyle gritted his teeth against the pain. “No. Stay with me. I will be fine.” He looked into her eyes. “I have my pride and I have already fallen … off a ladder.”

That drew a smile from Amanda, “Funny. But you don’t need to be so brave.”

“It’s not bravery. It is cost. You do not have the money to spend that way either. Thanks for offering.”

Haley entered the hospital through the sliding glass door. Air rushed out of the building into her face, knocking back her hair and making her squint her mascara-laden eyelashes. She pushed down her long shirtsleeves. She could only guess how many pathogens rode that wind, bombarded her skin and clothes, and clung to her hair. Like a barrel of tiny monkeys released to swing in her tresses. Too many people in her life had died in this building; many of them flogged on their ride to death. She pushed all of that away.

“Can I help you miss?” An older woman asked from the front desk wearing a pin with her name and the hospital logo. Her attire spoke of wealth and careful shopping as if she worked here as a volunteer to distract herself from boredom, perhaps married to a rich husband and living in a monster but empty house with a pool.

If Haley was not feeling rushed and not in a hospital she might suggest something about being bored with pool boys too. Something about those long poles slowly sweeping under the clear water that shimmered around them and made them seem so magically romantic and hot. Did this woman search out meaning by volunteering in a place where sadness and death prevailed? Did her shopping end during the recession and she needed this job to pay the credit card bills her husband could not afford? “Yes. I’m looking for Kyle Doukay.”

The woman swiveled on her chair, her legs remaining carefully crossed and her back and shoulders properly aligned. “I’m sorry. The hospital discharged him through our main lobby; this lobby supports the physician offices. They wheeled Kyle to his car about twenty minutes ago.”

“Maybe he stayed for some reason. Can I go look for him?”

“We can’t let you in unless you have a patient here.” She swiveled her chair away from the computer. “Do you have his phone number? Maybe you could call him and meet up with him at his home.”

“No. I don’t have his number.” Haley looked into the passive face. “He lives out of his car, so he could be anywhere by now.” Haley waited for the shadow of fear and repulsion to race like storm clouds across the receptionist’s face. The reaction she hoped for, and the answer she suspected. A chronic shopper with bills too big for her husband to pay, paddling to keep above the mortgage – and avoid living out of a car. Haley smiled as she pulled away from the desk, “Thank you.” She rode the wind of pathogens out the door and walked toward the parking lot.

Haley still strolled under the shadow of the drop-off turnaround and saw a man walk briskly from the bright sunshine in the lot. Haley recognized him from the car crash. He looked more handsome than she remembered, but then she rushed to escape. Tall with enough beard stubble to define his jaw and frosting in his hair that probably started early in his late twenties. Her body urged her to say something. Haley stopped in his way, standing like a boulder that fell from an overhead cliff, “Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Benjamin stopped so he did not knock Haley over. She watched his eyes scan her face and then down her body. His eyes lingered at her breasts and hips but only paused like a man who spent years perfecting his technique – different from the clueless young men her age that she watched ogle her body like a dirty magazine.

His eyes came back to her face, “I can’t say. I should think I would remember you.”

“Are you here to see a friend?”

“Yes. You? Friend or family?”

“A friend. He fell off a house roof.”

“Ouch. Is he ok?”

“I don’t know. I guess he’s better. They said they discharged him earlier. I wanted to look for him but they won’t let me in.”

“So you want to go in with me.”

“That didn’t come to mind until after I recognized you. That would help.” Haley arched her back and looked down to the ground. She brought her eyes up to his face and smiled because she saw his body tense at seeing her body perk up before him. “I would be grateful if you could see me in.”

Benjamin said, “You seem harmless enough. Follow me. You’ll need to be my younger sister.”

“Do you have a sister?” Haley followed him back toward the building.

“No.”

The woman at the reception desk looked at Haley as Benjamin said, “I am here to see Ophelia Barnes.”

The receptionist typed the name in. She grabbed one badge.

Haley said, “This is my brother, I am here to see Ophelia too.”

Benjamin nodded.

The receptionist reached for a second badge, a grimace slashed a line across her lips, “Here are the visitor badges. That room is up the second elevator on the fifth floor.”

Haley took the offered badge, “Thank you.”

Haley followed Benjamin to the elevators. The door opened and they got in. Benjamin pressed the button for the fifth floor, “What floor is your friend on?” His finger hovered over the buttons.

Haley said, “Second. I should take the stairs but these hospitals are so cut up I can never find the stairwell.”

Benjamin pressed the button for the next floor and the doors slid shut. Haley watched a family rush the closing crack between the doors but she did not motion for Benjamin, who faced her, to hit the door open button. Haley listened to the elevator noises as the machine accelerated them up. It quickly decelerated. Haley guessed the timing. She took the two steps forward to Benjamin, pressed her breasts, her flat stomach, and her pelvis against him while her hand reached around his neck and brought his face toward her. Her lips pulled at his lips while her tongue touched first his smooth teeth and then his tongue as his body responded to hers. She knew the speed of the male mind and the elevator rang the chime for the door to open on cue. She watched his eyes register his tearing, conflicted mind. The doors pulled apart as she released him and she spun across the threshold.
Other passengers tumbled onto the elevator while Benjamin remained shocked and frozen to the rubberized steel floor. She watched his desire-filled eyes peer at her across the transom like an abandoned puppy as the elevator doors closed.
God, how she loved ruling the world of men.

-:-:-:- -:-:-:-

Haley sat on the bench outside the hospital lobby. She returned here after an unsuccessful search for Kyle. A tall palm tree next to the bench diffused the hot sunlight with partial shade. She watched the hospital entrance, looking up every time the doors slid open. Finally, she saw Benjamin. “Hi. How is your friend?”

Benjamin’s body jerked before he responded with, “She’s fine.” He had not expected Haley.

“A girl friend?”

“We’ve dated.”

“You didn’t share that before.”

“It wasn’t a topic. It’s nothing permanent.”

“That’s an odd way to say you are free.”

“And you’re quite forward.”

“An unwelcome kind of too forward?” She twisted on the bench as if relieving pressure points from the bench slats. She rotated one thigh faster than the second creating a widening gap between them. She smiled, watching Benjamin’s eyes glide down to her crotch. She had panties on, but they were light and lacy and she kept her hedging cropped down to a racing stripe. She rolled her other knee across to close the show. “I should get going.”

“Who are you?”

She stood up and looked at Benjamin, “I’m Haley.”

He said, “Benjamin.” He pulled the space between them tighter and said more quietly, “Haley would you like some coffee? I could not keep from thinking of you.”

“Good that you kept me in mind. However, too much caffeine gives me headaches. I prefer not having headaches. What other drinks do you have … at your house?”

-:-:-:- -:-:-:-

When Benjamin held out his hand to help Haley down from the cab of his pickup, she suspected he must have replaced his hybrid car after the accident. She brushed his arm with the edge of her breast in the maneuver of getting down. She liked the feeling and watched his face for the prick of reaction in the accidental contact. Haley walked ahead of him, exaggerating the swing of her hips in a slinky irresistible walk just short of appearing contrived. Several steps up to his front door she paused waiting for him. She could see the desire building in his stance as he kept his eyes on her and fumbled with his keys to unlock the door. The screen door was one of those with a return spring pulled too tight that pinched against Benjamin as he oriented the key and spun the lock. He shoved the screen back as the entry door swung open. Benjamin gripped Haley’s hand and pulled her inside like a vaporous genie, the screen closing like a lid on the trapping bottle.

Haley kicked the inner door closed and twisted Benjamin’s shirt. Her mouth found his and pulled on his lips. She felt the wall against her back as Benjamin crushed her against it. Haley lifted a thigh and curled her ankle around Benjamin, pulling him tight against her heat. The bulge in his pants swelled and Benjamin pressed it against her. The heat and moisture built up steam in her machine.

“You better get this shirt off me,” she whispered into his ear as he kissed her neck.

Benjamin’s hands found the lower edge of her shirt and yanked it fast at first but he slowed as he peeled it up as if taking the rind off sweet fruit. His eyes dropped to her breasts as the coil of fabric unveiled their lower arcs. He said, “No bra.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Of course not.”

Was he trying to tease her or himself? She wanted the shirt to move faster. Haley dropped a shoulder so first one breast slipped below and then the second. She brought her fingers up and pinched her nipples into entangling perkiness. Benjamin whisked off the shirt and consumed first one nipple and then the other. She growled at the sensations swirling along her body. Her hips lifted from the wall and pressed into him. His hands reached down behind her and squeezed her cheeks between the newfound space. The thrill of that touch arced around her skin and added to the heat between her legs. She could feel the knob of fabric where the stitching and seams of her pants overlapped and it dug into just the right spot that she moaned.

Benjamin moved his hands around her jeans, digging his fingers over the top edge, following it around to the front. He tipped his torso away to make space to unbutton her pants. Her hands slid between his and undid his clanging belt and button on his khakis. The zipper ground down as she opened them. Each nub of the zipper ratchet made Benjamin’s body sway. She slowed the pace as she neared the bottom of the zipper’s run.

Benjamin had flailed open her pants and pushed them down over the arc of her bottom. Haley dropped her leg and wiggled her hips against Benjamin so her pants lowered to her feet. She lifted each foot out of the crumpled clothing, using the movement to slip out of her shoes. She had debated wearing panties but she did and Benjamin now slipped his fingers over her smoothly shaved legs. The black silk panties were unmistakably feminine and sexy but built to take a soaking. Benjamin tugged the panties down her body, the delicate elastic slowly ruffling her cropped hairs into excitement and she squeezed her legs together. Benjamin lifted her thigh to bring her foot out of the panties. Haley gasped when the chill air hit the heat and the wetness now exposed. He set her leg down and lifted the other thigh until her panties dangled from the end of his finger and free of her body. His other hand followed the contours of her body and slipped low against her heat. Her knees wobbled and her eyelids closed as he met her first unfulfilled desire.

Haley pushed Benjamin’s trousers and boxers away, unloosing his length so it bobbed hot and firm against her thigh. Haley pushed with her hands against his stomach muscles. She kissed him and pushed him backward. He stumbled free of his pants and redirected her hand lower while sliding his hand around the small of her back. She felt her panties snagged around his wrist but the fabric tickled her bottom in an unexpected thrill. She squeezed his dick and Benjamin moaned. She tugged him toward her and slipped the front edge of herself over the top flange of his penis, like sliding along a heated rail. The wetness, the heat, and the touch of her made his dick iron hard in her hand. She pushed him toward the leather couch in the living room but Benjamin bent away, causing him to slip from her hand and he scooped her up in his arms. He danced in the hallway using his feet to take his socks off and then proceeded deeper into the house to his bedroom. He kicked the bed covers to the side with a sweep of his foot and laid Haley down. His hand pulled out from under her, the elastic of her panties stretched, pinched between her and the mattress and sheets, until his hand slipped free. The snap of the panties against her hip like a sharp spank only drilled passion through her hot center like a spike. She really wanted a spike. A whole railroad of spikes and hammers. Guys with thick arms and muscular bodies hammering away at her. “I want you in me. Now!”

Benjamin pushed her legs apart, her knees bent practically to her nipples where he had laid her at the edge of the bed. He gripped one boob, flicked, and twisted a nipple as his arm captured the back of her knee. She felt his bicep against the back of her knee that whispered more sensation to the freely exposed seam in her body that needed to be abused and quenched. “Flop that cock on me. Yes. Rub it like that. Yes! Oh, yes!” Haley put her ankles on his shoulders and then tipped the sensitive skin on her inner ankles against his head. Another layer of rawness opened in her. Her hands flung out across the bed. She moaned, “Now in me! I want to hear you grunt!”