Men in Kilts

by Katie MacAlister

  We all looked up hopefully. Aunt Grace had been droning on now for a good three or four minutes, and the roast was cooling. Grace, however, wasn’t going to miss this marvelous opportunity to let every member of the family have their share in the graced spotlight.

  “We’d also like to thank the graces that Karen hasn’t gotten blood poisoning from all of those piercings, although the graces only know what her parents were thinking when they agreed to the nose ring.”

  Iain snickered softly. I pinched him to keep him quiet. If Aunt Grace was interrupted, she was liable to start over again. She ran through the rest of the youngest generation, and then turned her attention to the older members.

  “It should be mentioned as well that my own son Gene needs the graces’

  particular help with that little problem he’s been having in the bedroom, and, since I’m not getting any younger and he’s not making me grandmother, I’d appreciate it if the graces could see to it that his wallop packs a little more punch.”

  My cousin Gene moaned and glared at his wife. “Fer chrissake, Darla, if you tell my mother anything again I swear I’ll cut off your Nordstrom’s card.” Iain snickered again. This time I was snickering with him. Mo cast a worried eye at Aunt Grace and hushed us up.

  “And lastly,” an audible sigh rippled down the table, “we’d like to thank the graces for keeping Dad off the sauce, which he knows full well is for his own good, but we ask the graces if they’d please lend a little assistance in keeping him from trying to pay street people to buy liquor for him. Amen.” Uh oh. I turned to my right. “Grandpa Lewis isn’t supposed to be drinking?” I asked my eldest brother, Brother. His real name was Edward, but everyone, including my mother and his wife, called him Brother.

  “No, he’s taking some blood pressure medicine that alcohol counteracts.” Damn. I turned to my left. “Iain, did you give Grandpa Lewis that extra bottle of whisky you brought?”

  Iain flinched slightly as he complied with my mother’s bellowed order for him to pass his plate. “Aye, I did. He seemed right pleased with it.” I just bet he was. I made a mental note to have my mother wrestle the bottle away from him, and frowned at Brother’s daughter Karen before tackling my food.

  “We got off lightly, you know,” I told Iain after dinner, when we were taking advantage of the dark spot behind the stairs. “Aunt Grace has been known to dredge up events dating back to the time we were in diapers.” Iain chuckled, and nibbled on a sensitive spot on the nape of my neck. I was about to return the favor when I spied Karen lurking in the background.

  Karen was sixteen, had two-toned hair, a nose ring, and ears bristling with earrings. I hated to mink of what else she had pierced; Brother wouldn’t answer that question, he just shuddered and said it was best I didn’t know.

  “Your Lolita is watching,” I murmured in Iain’s ear as he slipped a hand inside my blouse.

  “Oh, bloody…” He removed his hand and turned around to face Karen.

  “Oh, hi, Uncle Iain… that is, Iain… I, um, wonder if I could ask you a little more about sheep? Because they’re like so totally awesome, you know? And my friend Sukie, she’s been to Europe and all and I just think it’s like so totally cool that you live in Scotland, and I’m sure that if I asked Brother he’d totally let me come and visit you. And Kathie.” I was clearly an afterthought. She paused for a moment and added hopefully, “And that would be, like, so totally rufous! Sukie would just go like all Springer about it!” I suppressed a smile. It seemed Karen was just as susceptible to Iain’s wonderful knee-melting voice as I was. I thought her infatuation with him was cute. She followed him around all evening, chatting with him about anything that came to her mind, and when she wasn’t chatting, she just sat and stared at him. Iain found the attention embarrassing and avoided meeting her eye.

  “Perhaps Brother will let you come over for the wedding,” I said, slipping my good arm through Iain’s. Karen looked confused for a moment.

  “You know, our wedding. The one at which Iain and I will be married. That wedding.”

  “Oh, right. Yeah, that would be like sooooo totally cool.” She giggled and gazed at Iain with a fervent look of utter adoration.

  “Come along, you great big Scottish heartbreaker, you,” I teased him, and we went off to investigate the dessert possibilities.

  My brother Brother is thirteen years older than me. I’m the baby in the family, the latecomer, the one my mother claims showed up with the milk one morning. She also claims I was conceived when she fell in love with an Italian demonstrator at the Seattle World’s Fair, but since I was born before the Fair, I disputed that fact.

  My family was pretty much like anyone else’s—full of crackpots, boobs (Lesser and Greater), and eccentric persons you couldn’t help but worry over.

  “So, what did you think?” I asked Iain after we had returned to my apartment from the family dinner. He was trying to make himself comfortable on my bed, which wasn’t easy considering it was a small double bed that was not meant for a man who stood six inches over six feet tall.

  “I’m thinking I’m glad we’re not going to have to sleep on this bed for more than a few nights.”

  I brought a chair around to take up the excess in the feet region.

  “Comfy?”

  “Aye, if I don’t move.”

  “That’s no problem,” I said, rolling over and plopping myself down on top of him. “I’ll keep you anchored.”

  “You’ll be the one being anchored if you squirm like that again, love.” I stopped squirming and rested my chin on my good hand. “A tempting offer, and one to which I will give my utmost attention momentarily, but first let me ask you what you thought of the family.”

  He shifted us over to the center of the bed. “Ah, they’re an interesting lot.” I sighed. He meant strange and was just too polite to say that word.

  “I’ll be admitting that there are a few customs your family has that are bewildering me.”

  I tipped my head back and admired his manly chin for a moment. “Such as?”

  “There’s the matter of the starters.”

  “Starters? You mean the hors d’oeuvres ?”

  “Aye. Do you know what your niece was offering around to everyone?” He sounded appalled. I mentally reviewed the appetizers that Karen had grudgingly agreed to serve. There were cheese puff things, some of Mo’s Special Weenies (so called by her son, a name that stuck), assorted crackers and dips, Aunt Grace’s egg salad on Melba toast, and other typical appetizers. I didn’t recall seeing anything that would horrify a man who had been known to eat the organs of a sheep cooked in that same sheep’s stomach.

  “No, what?”

  “Horse’s ovaries! I’ve seen caviar, love, but never horse’s ovaries. I’m thinking the Scots have taken a bloodying over haggis for no reason when you Yanks eat horse’s ovaries.”

  I started to giggle.

  “And what’s so amusing, I’d like to know? That sheep-eyed niece of yours shoved a plate of bits and dabs in my face and said ‘Want a horse’s ovary?

  Those ones are the best,’ and pointed at something that looked like chipped ovary on toast.”

  I laughed even harder. “Oh, god, Iain. I’m sorry, I forgot about the horse’s ovaries. I should have warned you.” I whooped a few more times, then tried to wipe back the tears. Iain had a decidedly disgruntled look on his face.

  “They’re not horse’s ovaries, sweetie. My mother can’t speak French, you see, not even remotely, and since she can’t pronounce hors d’oeuvre , she calls them horse’s ovaries.”

  Iain stared at me for a minute, then closed his eyes. “It’s a good thing we came visiting after I’d promised to wed you, love.”

  “Oh, they’re not that bad,” I giggled, and tucked my head under his chin. “At least none of them have cast aspersions about your morals.”

  “Aye, there is that.”

  “And I don’t have any old flames hanging around to give us grief.”

&n
bsp; “Mmmm.” Iain’s breathing started to deepen.

  I listened to it for a few minutes, letting my own breathing slow to match his.

  “There is, of course, my ex-husband, but that shouldn’t be a problem. He swears the divorce is legal.”

  Iain muttered something unintelligible.

  “I’m sure it’s legal. Kevin wouldn’t have remarried if it wasn’t.” Famous last words, those.

  The following morning was our day for receiving visitors. The first to show up was Brother. He arrived on the way to work, interrupting Iain’s traditional morning greeting to me. I was not best pleased.

  Neither was Iain. He stopped in midthrust, glared at the door over the top of my leg that rested on his shoulder, and spat something in Gaelic.

  “What? Iain, you can’t stop now!” I wailed, wriggling my hips and tightening my inner muscles around him. He groaned and dipped his head down to plunder my mouth as he resumed his impression of a really, really talented piston engine.

  Another spate of knocking stopped him. He lowered my legs from his shoulders and started to disengage the piston.

  “Ignore it,” I pleaded, locking my legs around his hips while tugging him down onto me. “It’s just the neighbors. Or someone’s TV. Or moths.”

  “Moths?” His eyes closed as I flexed my legs and reached around to fondle that part of him that he enjoyed having fondled. He shuddered and gave a wordless groan as he lunged back where I wanted him.

  “Really big moths,” I whispered breathlessly, moving my hips to meet his thrusts, praying whoever it was outside the door would take the hint and go away.

  The front door shook as the evil person on the other side pounded a fist on it.

  “Bluidy hell,” Iain snarled, and pulling away, sprang out of bed and stalked over to the door.

  “Um… Iain…” I started to point out he was sans clothing, but didn’t get the words out in time. I have a very small apartment and he has a very long stride.

  “This’d better be bleedin‘ important,” he snarled as he threw the door open.

  Brother looked stunned at being greeted by the sight of a naked, aroused, enraged two-hundred-and-forty-pound Scot. “I hope to God you’re on the way to the bathroom with that,” he snapped, waving toward Iain’s personal equipment. “I’d hate to have to challenge you over my sister’s virtue!”

  “Eeek!” I squealed and dived back under the blankets as he pushed past Iain into my dining room/living room/bedroom, forgetting for a moment that I was not seventeen years old and caught rounding third base with the neighbor boy.

  I peeked over the top of the blankets. “Brother, what on earth are you doing here? And what are you yammering about my virtue for?”

  “Be quiet, Kathie, I’ll handle this. I’m the head of the family, if you recall.” Oh no, he was going to go off on one of his chivalrous bouts.

  “We’re betrothed,” Iain pointed out, his hands on his adorable naked hips.

  “Beyond that, what we do is none of your affair.”

  “Right!” I chimed in, feeling around under the blankets for any sort of garment. “So bugger off, Brother.”

  “Kathie! I’ll thank you to stay out of this. This is between me and this…

  this…” Brother eyed Iain from his ears to his toes. “This lout who is clearly bent on besmirching the good name of Williams.”

  “Like hell he is!” Outraged, I sat up, then remembered my own state of dishabille, and yanked the sheet out and over me in toga fashion. “Iain’s right, Brother. What we do is none of your business. I’m thirty-seven years old, if you recall—”

  “You’re still my little sister!” he bellowed and turned back to Iain. “For God’s sake, man, cover that up!”

  “I happen to like him like that—” I started to object, stepping carefully off the bed.

  “Go and put your clothes on, love,” Iain ordered. “If your brother’s wanting to say something to me, he can. I’m listening.”

  He was also standing in an aggressive posture, hands fisted, eyes dangerous, dangly bits… er… not dangling. The very picture of a righteously outraged man who had been interrupted while about to grab the brass ring, so to speak.

  “I’m not talking to you while you’re waving that around!” Brother retorted, glaring at Iain’s nether region.

  “Brother, for God’s sake, will you just get out!”

  “If you’ve something to say, Edward, say it. Else I’ll be asking you to leave.”

  “You can’t order me out of my own sister’s apartment! And don’t call me Edward,” Brother shouted (he hates his name).

  “I’ll not be calling you Brother, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Iain bellowed in return.

  “Why not, everybody else does, even my own children!” roared Brother.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said in disgust, and grabbing my bathrobe, stormed off to the bathroom. I could hear the two of them shouting at each other about me, Brother’s lack of discipline over his own children, and oddly enough, honor.

  Brother was a professor at a local university specializing in medieval history, one who spent long hours engrossed in medieval culture and lore. His greatest love was the chivalric songs and stories of ages thankfully past, and he had long annoyed his two sisters by insisting that we adhere to an outdated code of behavior. Hence his reference to virtue and honor. I donned my bathrobe, had a quick one-handed wash, and went out to get rid of my brother.

  Iain was a pretty placid guy. He got annoyed about things, but I hadn’t seen him really angry but once or twice. As he stood, starkers, and faced down my idiot brother, I could see that he hadn’t really lost his temper yet. He was just a bit annoyed at being rudely interrupted and yelled at, but he was on his way to true anger, and that was something I wanted to avoid.

  Luckily, Brother yanked his head into the present long enough admit he didn’t have a leg to stand on with regards to arguments about my virtue and honor, and came to the point of his unexpected and ill-timed visit.

  “We’re all going to the waterfront this afternoon. In honor of Tom Jones, here.”

  “Tom Jones was English,” I pointed out, and went to put some water on for Iain’s tea.

  “Well, Roy Rogers, then.” Roy Rogers? I think he meant Rob Roy. I snickered as I hunted through my cupboards for tea. I thought I had an ancient package leftover from when a tea-drinking friend visited a few years back. “The point being that this strapping bit of Celtic manhood is the guest of honor, and you’d both better be there or Mom’ll have your hide. Both of them. Speaking of which, I’ve seen just about enough of his, so I’ll be on my way.”

  “Wait a minute!” I wasn’t going to allow us to be shanghaied into some jaunt about town when we had other and better things to do. “No one asked us if we wanted to go to the waterfront. We don’t want to go. We want to stay here and—”

  Brother eyed that part of Iain’s anatomy that was still happy, and interrupted me. “Oh, I think I get the drift of what you’d rather do, but you’re going to have to keep your hands off of each other long enough to make Mom happy.

  One o’clock. Ivar’s. Be there.”

  With one last frown at Iain’s personal equipment he left.

  “Well, hell,” I said, and slammed down a mug. “I’m sorry, Iain, it looks like we’ll have to go play touristas.”

  He scratched at the scar on his ribs. “It’s just for one day, love. Your family wants to see you—I can share you for a wee bit.”

  “I’d rather not be shared, thank you. Oh well, maybe we’ll go to the coast tomorrow.”

  “Your movers are coming tomorrow.”

  Blast. He was right. I had arranged for a company to come in and pack up those things I wasn’t taking with me. Iain went off to take a shower while I slammed a few things around in my minuscule kitchen.

  “Kathie? You decent? It’s me.”

  Eek! Not my landlord! I looked down at my bathrobe and did a mental shrug.

 
He’d seen me in less.

  “I’m as decent as I’m getting with one arm in a cast. Come on in.” My apartment, being part of the attic, had a cobbled together sort of layout.

  There was a teeny tiny hallway opening directly up into the one main room which held my bed, table, bookcases, a few chairs, and so on. Off this room was a postage stamp-sized kitchen. Directly across from the entrance to the kitchen was the bathroom (also postage stamp-sized).

  My landlord, a thin guy with receding dishwater blond hair and a friendly Don’t I remind you of an adorable puppy ? smile took the three steps down the hallway to speak with me as I stood in the kitchen. As he did so, Iain opened the bathroom door to tell me he couldn’t hear what I had said because the water was running. He was still naked, although parts of him were no longer happy.

  Iain frowned at my landlord. My landlord smiled at Iain. I reached for another mug.

  “Kevin, this is my fiancé, Iain. Iain, this is Kevin, my landlord.” Iain grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist, then stuck out his hand.

  Kevin shook it happily. “Iain! It’s nice to meet you. I’m also Kathie’s ex-husband, but I expect she told you that.”

  Whoops! Guess I forgot to mention one or two things.

  * * *

  An ex-husband might appear to be a hard thing to forget, but Kevin had been my landlord for much longer than he had been my husband, so it really wasn’t that odd, in my mind at least, that I had neglected to mention the subject to Iain. In his mind… well, he had other opinions about the situation. Trust came into it, I found out, and trust—I knew from past experience—was not an easy thing to give.

  I trusted Iain. I had always trusted him, at least once I knew that he shared the same feelings I did, but I didn’t know then just how much I trusted him.

  “I should probably explain about Kevin,” I said in a hurried whisper. Iain and I were in the kitchen, alone. Kevin was sitting on the edge of my bed, watching TV. “We met in high school, and were married two months after graduation.

  We separated about three months after that, and our divorce was final before I turned nineteen. The first divorce, that is. It turns out it didn’t actually take because Kevin hadn’t dotted some I or crossed some T , and I was too naive to know that one is supposed to receive a final divorce decree.” I took a deep breath. Iain continued to frown at me.