Rebound (3 page)

“Knew I could count
on you, Lou.” She pecked the old man on the cheek, wiping the light
smudge of lipstick off before bolting out the door.

* * * *

Kevin was surprised
how few people bothered you when your carry-on luggage was another
person. The usually brutal security screeners waved him through.
The flight attendants showed him hastily to his seat, not daring to
ask what was wrong with the pretty, though catatonic, woman in his
arms. Kevin buckled her into her seat and spent the rest of the
flight with his arm around her, not saying a word. Partly because
he didn’t know what to say, and partly because he genuinely
couldn’t let her go. He’d missed her so much.

When the flight
landed in Cancun, the hotel picked them up in a simple yet spotless
black sedan. No limo, no tacky
Congratulations
or
Just
Married
signs in sight.
Obviously, Kevin thought with gratitude, Liz had already contacted
the resort.

“
We’ve moved
you to a luxury suite, sir,” the driver said as he pulled the car
out into the gridlocked traffic. It seemed that half the United
States had said, “Screw it!”and exited
en masse
to this sunnier, warmer destination. Kevin could feel himself
start to sweat through his suit, even after he had already removed
his tie.

At least they
wouldn’t have to deal with the honeymoon suite or some heart-shaped
bed. “I’ll need to have some more appropriate clothes sent up to
the room.”

“Of course. Should I
charge it to the room?” The driver’s expression was one of keen
knowing.

“No. I’ll pay for my
own clothes. But charge everything for the lady to the room.”

“Very good, sir.
Would you like medium or large shirts, and your waist is probably a
thirty-two?” The driver’s eyes were smiling in the rearview mirror
as he peered back at Kevin and Susan.

“Large shirts, size
eleven shoes, and my waist is a thirty.”

“Ah, big feet.” The
driver wriggled his eyebrows. “Very good indeed.”

The driver’s smile
was smug, and Kevin guessed he already knew his measurements the
moment he looked at him. That first look at the airport was not
only professionally friendly, but unabashedly appraising. At least
someone would be flirting with him.

* * * *

The luxury suite was
exactly that. Some thousand square feet, two bedrooms, private and
master baths, a living room and a fully functioning kitchen.

Kevin took Susan
straight to one of the bedrooms and lay her down on the bed,
covering her up and tucking her in protectively.

The bellman had left
the bags by the door, but two maids had come in and were unpacking
Susan’s before Kevin even noticed they were there. He would’ve told
them he’d take care of it but as they transferred Susan’s
underwear, and other unmentionables that had been packed for much
more erotic adventures, he decided it best if they finished.

Amazingly, Kevin
counted back the hours and only two and a half of them stood
between where they were and Susan’s aborted marriage ceremony. Two
and a half hours and he was already ready to jump out of his skin.
He couldn’t stand seeing her like this. If she’d get up and start
throwing things, start screaming all the nasty curses she knew how
to use perfectly, maybe he’d get through this.

“Yeah, that Mark,
what a fucking prick!” he’d say. Maybe he’d help her plan some
mindless revenge. But with her lying there, helpless on the bed,
all he wanted to do was lie next to her, holding her in his arms,
protecting her from all those things that could hurt her.

But how could he do
that? It’s what he should do. It was what a real friend would do,
ignore their feelings and do what was needed for the good of their
friend. But if he held her in his arms for one instant, he was sure
he’d never be able to let go, never be able to just be her friend
again, and the memory of it would haunt him for the rest of his
life.

Susan groaned. A
small gasp escaped her lips as her ribs expanded and contracted
with the efforts of her silent sobs. Kevin didn’t give any of his
misgivings or worries a second thought, he crawled onto the bed and
lay down facing her, pulling her to him and holding her against him
as she cried softly, her face pressed against his chest, soaking
his shirt in tears without end.

* * * *

Kevin did not sleep.
For hours he simply held Susan, silently comforting her as she
finally cried herself to sleep. Strangely, the sound of her
breathing, and how her trembling, stress stiff body softened in his
arms, gave him some relief. But for almost two hours he was afraid
to even move, lest he wake her.

When Kevin finally
slipped away, he found room service menus and three heaping bags of
clothes waiting for him in the living room of the suite. He knew he
should be hungry, but he didn’t feel the slightest desire to
eat.

The bags made
him pause. What if the driver had picked out nothing but tropical
printed shirts and polyester pants? Or worse, what if everything
was two sizes too small and ripped directly off the brawny backs of
the cast of
Queer
as Folk
?

Either way Kevin
would not sport anything so cheesy or oversexed.

Well, he might try
them on to cheer up Susan, but he certainly wouldn’t leave the room
wearing any of it.

But when he pulled
the neatly folded clothing from the shopping bags he was pleasantly
surprised. A mixture of light weight pants, shorts, t-shirts, some
tank tops and three different pairs of shoes--sandals, cross
trainers and a moderately dressy pair of loafers. More surprisingly
the driver had bought Kevin underwear--boxer briefs, thank
God--socks and two boxer-style swimming trunks.

Though these choices
were conservative, Kevin got the sense the driver probably knew his
body better than any of his former girlfriends had--and without the
advantage of seeing him naked.

It gave him a
small shiver of distress. A tension headache started to form right
between his eyes. Some days he wished he had a neon sign over his
head blinking
Straight!
Maybe then he’d
quit getting grief. He stripped out of his long-sleeved oxford
shirt and the suit pants had been broiling him most of the day, and
pulled on a pair of the shorts and one of the t-shirts. He would
leave opening the packages of underwear until morning.

Kevin flopped down on
the overstuffed couch, planning on turning on the TV, but the
moment he fell on those plush, ever-so-soft couch cushions, he
passed right out.

* * * *

The tropical sun
radiated in through the enormous bay windows of the suite, not only
warming Kevin to the point of discomfort, but slowly robbing him of
the still shelter afforded by the dark. As he pushed himself up off
the couch, he was surprised by how little his back and neck hurt.
This was the most comfortable couch in the history of the world.
Yet no sooner did he think that then he remembered who was in the
other room, sleeping on the bed--alone.

Kevin bolted back
toward the bedroom and into the darkened room where the drapes
blessedly remained pulled shut. Susan lay there, tucked in as he
had left her. He circled the bed and crouched down, trying to see
if her eyes were open. They were, but she wasn’t exactly awake. She
still looked catatonic, eyes blank, expression slack, her coloring
that of someone in shock.

Wracked with
guilt, Kevin wondered if Susan
was
in shock.
What if she was teetering on the edge of a real nervous breakdown?
What if she needed professional psychological care, or industrial
grade pharmaceuticals?

Don’t freak out!
he told
himself.

Kevin tried quelling
the glut of thoughts bouncing around in his head. He needed to be
steady if he was going to get through this. Unfortunately, as the
whirlwind of panicked notions subsided, Kevin realized he had to
pee in the worst way. It would have been a welcome distraction
except “the worst way” included the mother of all pee hard-ons.

No,
this can’t be happening.
Hot
guilt flooded his veins, and he prayed to God that Susan hadn’t
noticed him hopping through the room to the bathroom with the front
of his shorts tented with a woody the size of…well, a
tree.

All he’d wanted to do
was let her go, to say goodbye so they both could move on. But
instead he was stuck in this Fantasy Island, Oxiconton nightmare,
trying to help his comatose, unrequited first love get over her
asshole ex-fiancé. God had to be a woman, one who hated him with a
perverse passion.

Maybe Liz was God?
Kevin laughed at the thought.

Touching himself in
that state felt so wrong. His best friend was in the next room, her
life torn to shreds by her lying, cheating fiancé, and here was her
horn-dog best friend in the bathroom trying to bend his incredibly
inappropriate stiffy down enough so he could take a leak.

Guilty or not, Kevin
couldn’t not sigh with great relief as he voided the contents of
his near bursting bladder. And he couldn’t ignore how good it felt
having his manhood engorged in his hand. But with admirable
restraint, and another heavy load of guilt swelling on each
shoulder like twin boulders growing in size until they crushed him,
Kevin pulled up his shorts, tucking his flagging erection back
where it belonged.

As he washed his
hands with the sweet-smelling hotel soap, looking in the mirror at
his sleep-mussed hair and unshaved mug, he thought of Susan, and
her bladder. He bounded into the bedroom and stopped cold. Was he
just going to carry her into the bathroom and set her down on the
toilet? Sure he could pick her up, but one problem--he’d have to
pull down her pants and panties. The thought was not only
disturbingly geriatric, but perversely more prurient than Kevin
could handle.

Seeing the hotel
maids unpack Susan’s undies was one thing, but to have to touch
them while they were still on her...

“Susan?” Kevin’s
voice cracked under the weight of his frenzied paranoia. “Susan? Do
you have to use the restroom?”

Her stare never
wavered, her expression unchanging.

Kevin folded his arms
over his heaving chest. He couldn’t do it, it was too much to ask,
and too much to do, and he couldn’t stand feeling so useless.
Squeezing his eyes shut until green clouds of light permeated the
blank slate behind his eyelids, Kevin did the only thing he could
think of doing. Keeping his eyes closed he said, “Go to the
bathroom, Susan!” Affecting the best impersonation of his own
father he’d ever achieved . Voice commanding yet placatingly
smooth.

He didn’t look, just
kept his eyes closed. And then he heard her stir, heard the sheets
rustle as she pulled herself out of bed. He opened his eyes as she
disappeared into the bedroom’s private lavoratory. Kevin blew out
the stinging breath he’d been holding. “Thank God.”

Though Susan got up
and used the restroom on command, Kevin was frustrated when she
immediately returned to her fetal position on the bed. Worse, she
refused to eat a bite of the food he ordered from room service and
then had to throw away. She wouldn’t even drink a glass of water,
so Kevin left it sitting on the nightstand by the bed, and silently
prayed she would drink and eat something for him before she wasted
away.

* * * *

Liz answered on the
third ring.

“We’ve got a
problem,” Kevin said on the other end.

Liz stood in the
middle of her gallery, staring at two of the famous artist’s
paintings side by side. She knew they should be shown together.
They had been painted back to back, they were in the same style and
they even matched chromatically. The first painting, a real
stunner, was gorgeous enough to take the breath from one of those
rotund divas down at the soon-to-be replaced opera house. It was
the second painting that had her stumped. It sucked. Even by
contemporary standards, even with an artist’s God-given right to
differentiate style and texture and all of that shit--this painting
was killing her.

“Liz? Are you
there?”

“You think you have
problems?” she said, turning her head to the side just in case
she’d hung the damn thing the wrong way and might see the
brilliance of it from another angle. “I’ve got shit hanging on my
walls.”

“She won’t eat or
drink, and she’ll only go to the bathroom if I yell at her like I’m
my father.”

Liz tilted her head,
remembering the brief couple of times she’d met Kevin’s parents. “I
liked your father, real sexy voice.” She almost lapsed into
insulting him, maybe something about him finally growing a backbone
or something like that, but she needed him clearheaded until she
could steal away and take over the watch.

“Well, it creeps me
the fuck out! I think maybe she needs professional help.”

Liz laughed bitterly.
The Boy Scout finally saying the F-word--only the second time she’d
heard it from him. “I’ve been under the care of ‘professional help’
since I was fifteen years old, does it seem to have helped me?”

Silence.

“Point taken.”

She shook her
head.
Sure, he can
make wisecracks
, she
thought,
but I have
to be good
.

“So she’s just lying
in bed, staring at the wall?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I remember her
getting that way for about three hours after Nate Jordan dumped her
sophomore year--”