Six Shades of Romance

by Darling, P. K.

  “Mother, shut up,” I told her quietly, and I heard two gasps on the phone. Good, Daddy was on the other line listening.

  “I am going to hang up, but let me tell the two of you something.” I was breathing hard, trying not to get upset, trying to keep my voice calm, “I will not have either of you dictating my life. Daddy told me I could come up here, and Mr. Carlson told me Daddy said I could stay as long as I needed to. Well, I don’t need to stay here. In fact, I can go wherever the fuck I want and I have enough money with me to do it, so leave me alone.” I finished, almost hyperventilating.

  “You ungrateful little slut, I ought to come up there and…”

  “Shut up,” I heard Daddy say. I almost dropped the phone, because Daddy never stood up to her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said shut up. If we ever want to see our daughter again, you can’t keep doing this.”

  “We can talk about this later,” she said, her tone icy. They might have been in opposite [?] rooms, me a hundred miles away, but I could almost feel my father’s anger start radiating heat.

  “If you can’t shut the fuck up for once in your life, you can go live at the hospice house. I will not allow you to push our only daughter away yet again.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” she said, a bit uncertain.

  “I would. You’ve been nothing but a miserable bitch for the last twenty years; I don’t remember what a happy time was like with you anymore,” he said. I know it was a horrible thing to say, but he must have really felt that way. Today was a day of firsts for all of us, I guess.

  I was silent, Mom was silent, and all we could hear was everyone breathing on the phone for what seemed like an eternity.

  “I’ll be back someday, Daddy. I just need some time and space.”

  “You and me both, kiddo,” he said, and I could hear Mom’s sharp intake of breath. “But your mom needs me around for a while. You take care of yourself. Don’t give up hope of going on to graduate school…”

  “I won’t, Daddy. Bye, you guys,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  Should I scream now? I definitely smelled something, and remembered the sauce simmering on the stove. I guess I was lucky, because it hadn’t burned to the pot, but it had splattered all over, making a mess, in my inattention. Dinner was a quiet, cheerless affair. I decided to check out some of the movies I’d picked up, some of them favorites of mine, some I’d never seen.

  I remembered Daniel had an amused look about the “Resident Evil” movie, so I flipped the cover over. Ugh, zombies weren’t my thing, but this wasn’t exactly about zombies. After a day like I’d had, I figured what the hell and put it in. I grabbed a throw blanket from the bed and snuggled down on the couch, wondering why it was getting cold so quickly. The fire! With a start I remembered that not once had I added wood to the fire, so I hit pause.

  I was lucky, the fire was almost out. I used the poker to push the glowing coals into the center, and started adding the wood. When building a fire, you always start with the small stuff; it ignites quickly, but burns up quickly, so on top of that you put in the larger pieces. With a start I realized that I was thinking in terms of metaphors, my internal dialog not stopping.

  Fire as love/lust. Ignite it with tinder and sustain it with something more substantial. Without the tinder, there is no fire, but without something more substantial the fire goes out quickly. Maybe all relationships were like that, but I wasn’t experienced enough in love or lust to know if this was true with everything; still, intuitively I knew this to be the truth—at least as far as my beliefs went.

  As I built the fire back up, I wondered about Daniel and Derek. I knew they definitely ignited something deep inside me that I’d never felt before. Oh, I had crushes on them when I was younger, but my parents had always squashed those, and kept us apart as much as they could. Despite that, we always found ways to hang out together, one time hitchhiking to the Grand Canyon in the back of an old beat-up truck.

  Satisfied that the fire would keep going now, I wrapped the blanket around myself, and wedged myself down on the couch, pulling a pillow onto my lap. I hit play and watched in fascination as Alice blasted her way through the storyline. If there ever was a woman I wanted to be, it was smart, sexy Alice. I wondered if she was a virgin at twenty-five. Honestly, I didn’t know anyone else in the world that was.

  When the movie ended, I got up and rummaged around in the cabinet over the top of the now full refrigerator and found my father’s stash of Stoli vodka. I’d tried alcohol plenty of times in college, but I’d never gotten drunk; this I was going to change. I poured what would become the first of many drinks that night and watched movies until it was time to stumble to bed. It was almost dawn by that time and even in my restless dreams, the guilt, the pain were still there. Was I to be haunted by my conscience or was I feeling what I’d expected my ultra-religious parents wanted me to feel?

  Chapter 6

  The knocking on the door was what woke me up. I’d fallen asleep, and slept hard, my arm asleep. The next thing I noticed was that my head was pounding and I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to get up, but the blankets were all twisted up in my legs and I tripped before going two steps. I untangled myself and lurched to the door and I was horrified to see Derek and Daniel waiting at the door, a case of beer with them. My God, what time was it?

  “Oh jeez, I’m sorry Caroline, I know we’re early…” I was too bleary-eyed to make out which of them spoke, but I was feeling a thousand times worse.

  I ran to the bathroom, and made it in time to be sick. My head was pounding, each pulse of pain matching the rhythm of my heart. My eyeballs didn’t quite pop out of my head, but that’s what it felt was going to happen. Suddenly a strong arm was around my waist, and one rough callused hand was pulling my hair back.

  “Hangover,” Daniel said. Good, I could tell them apart by voice at least.

  “Vodka,” Derek said, showing his brother the near-empty bottle I’d left near the couch.

  “Don’t worry, girl, it feels better to get it over with,” Daniel told me, moving his hand to my back and starting rubbing.

  Even though I had just gotten sick, that hand on my back started a burning within me that no amount of pain could put out.

  “I think I’m done for now,” I told them, standing up. “Gross. I think I need to hop in the shower, though,” I said, flushing the mess away. I hated that he had to drop his hand, but I wasn’t exactly feeling sexy at the moment, and I’m pretty sure I’d gotten puke in my hair.

  “You must not have had hangovers often. If you’re just getting sick for the first time, it’s probably the first wave,” Daniel told me. I just nodded, agreeing with the sentiment, but not sure what he meant by wave.

  “I’m sorry, guys,” I said and started to wobble out of the bathroom. I was able to make it to the kitchen table, where I sat down. OK, I lied; I really flopped down in the chair, and buried my head in my arms. “What time is it anyway?”

  “It’s a little after noonish,” Derek told me.

  “We got a phone call about a new job so we came early to drop off the wood,” Daniel said, and Derek finished, “so we have to cancel on dinner later on.”

  “Job?”

  “Yeah, we got a call; we’re going to be doing some more work on rigs in the Gulf.” Even though I had my head down I could hear their excitement. Damn, there went my fantasy.

  “We already stacked the wood, but we can’t leave you like this.”

  “I’ll be OK,” I lied. My heart was breaking while they were obviously excited.

  “No you won’t. Go hop in the shower, and we’ll whip something up to make you feel better,” Daniel said and Derek continued, “and then we can tell you all about it, but we have to get our passports updated,” and Daniel finished, “that’s why we came early.”

  Now I understood why folks who weren’t used to it got confused when they did that. I was only functioning at half capacity, my eyes hurt, my head hurt, my stomach f
elt a mess, and listening to them banter back and forth made me want to…

  “Excuse me a second,” I said and fled to the bathroom.

  After I was done with the second wave, I decided that I’d take a quick shower. I felt like hell, but being sick the second time seemed to have helped. I was hoping the shower would slice through the rest of the hangover. I know, I know, I was the worst host in the world, leaving them out there, but within minutes of starting the water I could smell bacon cooking. I couldn’t help but smile at their thoughtfulness.

  When I was done, I dried my hair and reached for my robe. Shit, I’d left it in the bedroom from yesterday. I didn’t want to put on yesterday’s clothing (and I suspected I might have gotten splatter on it), so I wrapped the towel around myself and brushed my teeth. The boys had seen me in my bathing suit, and when I was fifteen, I even took half of it off to prove I didn’t have mosquito bites, so me in a towel shouldn’t be a big deal to sneak off to the bedroom.

  Things didn’t quite work out that way though. I opened the bathroom door just as Derek had his hand up to knock.

  “Ahh, you smell lots better,” he told me with a grin.

  “Thanks,” I told him lamely.

  “Daniel’s done cooking, and I have my famous hangover remedy made up for you,” he said, handing me a glass of what looked like ordinary orange juice.

  “Let me take this with me,” I told him, and took a sip walking towards the bedroom.

  The flavor was definitely orange juice, but I could immediately tell that wasn’t all it was. There was a medicine flavor in there, and if I wasn’t mistaken, a tiny bit of the leftover vodka. Oddly enough, I now understood “hair of the dog,” and took a big swallow, pausing at the door.

  “Good stuff, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, thanks.” I told him just as the towel came undone and fell to my feet. I know, it sounds clichéd, but if I hadn’t dropped the drink in my frantic efforts to cover myself it might have come across as seductive. OK, who am I kidding, I looked panicked and lame.

  “Shit!” I said, slamming the door behind me.

  “It’s OK, Caroline,” I could hear Derek on the other side of the door, “I’ll pick up this mess,” and then Daniel, “if I get to see you naked again.”

  I knew there was no one there to see it, but I started blushing furiously while I tried to hurry into clothing. I just hoped I was done with the nausea. Finishing with the clothing, I ran a brush through my hair real quick and opened the door to find both men bent over and scrubbing the carpet where I had dropped the hangover tonic.

  I drank in the sight of them like that, and shook my head. Right now, if I played out the fantasy that had just popped into my demented brain, my head might explode. Besides, I didn’t know the first thing about sex other than the theoretical.

  “Here, let me finish that,” I told them, trying to get the rags out of their hands.

  “No no, we’re both finished,” and they stood up, ushering me to the table.

  “Now if it’s too much at once, just eat the bacon,” Daniel told me, handing me another orange juice tonic.

  I sat down and looked. An omelet, and a few strips of bacon. How did they whip this together so fast while I was in the shower?

  “It looks good, but my stomach,” I started to say, but Derek stopped me.

  “I know, just take a bite of the bacon. You need something fattening and greasy to settle your stomach. If it won’t sit, you aren’t done yet,” he said, nodding towards the bathroom.

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” I muttered and took a bite. Don’t get me wrong, I love bacon, but I felt all hollowed out inside. The bacon sat there in my stomach just fine, and I found that I was hungry. I tried not to pig out, but the boys smiled as I kept at the bacon, and started on the omelet.

  “Don’t forget about this,” Daniel said and slid the juice over. I drank half of it at once, and fought the urge to burp.

  “That’s good. I can taste the vodka in there, but what else is it?”

  “Headache powder,” Derek told me and I almost choked on the bite I’d just taken.

  Crouching, Daniel pounded me on the back a couple of times, but I waved him off.

  “No, I’m just surprised they still have those. I haven’t seen that stuff in forever,” I told them both.

  “Gas station,” Daniel told me with a shrug.

  We chatted for about an hour, and I had to promise them I felt loads better before they left for their appointment at the post office. Two days. They left in two days, and here I was, feeling hung over instead of visiting with them. I felt guilty for a moment, but then I reminded myself that I was up here to relax and get away from my parents for a time. To decompress. I needed to quit obsessing on those two, or on losing my virginity for that matter.

  The food and the alcohol in the hangover tonic were working on me, and I briefly wondered about watching a movie, but just lay on the couch instead. It wasn’t long before I was once again asleep, and dreaming.

  Derek and Daniel walking with me through the desert, taking a mule down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon like we did years ago; Daniel and Derek, holding me down, pulling my clothing off, one article at a time… Taking turns pinning my wrists, and covering my body with kisses as more and more of my body was unclothed.

  I woke up hours later, feeling better from the hangover, but I had that tingling, burning desire still inside of me. I considered going to the shower, but had another idea instead. I came up here to decompress, wasn’t an orgasm a massive decompression of sorts? I had just the tools for the job, although I secretly wanted it to be the boys.

  I found them under the pillow, where I had left them, and ran to the kitchen to get the batteries. I dropped one as I entered the bedroom and left it where it was, closing and locking the door behind me. I’d never done this before, but I obviously had seen it all, thanks to Internet porn. The smaller one took double A’s in the controller, the larger one took C cells.

  I looked at the plastic and rubber contraptions and wondered if they would feel the same as the boys? It didn’t take me long to find out.

  Chapter 7

  I don’t know if it was the dream, my sudden freedom, or the sly way the boys looked at me when I was eating breakfast, but I realized something. I was not the good girl, the perfect angel my parents wanted me to be. I wasn’t somebody who wanted to remain a prim and proper girl. Not only did I want sex, I wanted a lot of it, of all kinds, in every way imaginable. I realized I was a sexual creature who’d never experienced sex.

  I had lain down on the pillow after getting naked, and looked down my body. My breasts were rising and falling to the rhythm of my breathing, and my nipples were already erect, perhaps awaiting another pinch like yesterday. I teased one, then the other, loving the feeling, imagining that the boys were taking each in their mouth, rolling their tongues over them, kissing them. The thought made me feel wet, just like when I was smashed between the two of them in the grocery store.

  I could see my now partially shaved mound, and hoped the boys would appreciate the exclamation point that my pubic hair resembled after shaving yesterday. I’d never shaved down there, but yesterday I had shaved and sculpted in hopes of them licking, sucking, and poking their tongues… I tested with my finger, and almost immediately squeezed my ass cheeks together and squirmed with the pleasure.

  I was somewhat breathless when I turned on the vibrator. I marveled that they sold this stuff at Wal-Mart, even if they called it a personal massager. I wondered if I’d need any of the KY I’d purchased, not knowing if it would be needed. It was my fantasy, so I decided to try a little bit of everything. I wouldn’t be Daddy’s little girl anymore, I promised myself.

  I couldn’t help it, but I started between my breasts, loving the soft silky feel of it sending vibrations through my body. If it was possible, my nipples seemed to stiffen harder. I circled each nipple with it, decided to see if it felt as good below the belt as it did in the bra line. The tingle I
’d been feeling, the lust, seemed to emanate from my pussy, and that’s what I decided to tease next.

  I laid the vibrator along my gash, and the sensation it sent through my clit almost made me sit up in shock and pleasure. I already knew the dirty words folks used to describe sex, and had no problems using them in my mind, imagining it was the boys whispering dirty words to me as I laid it back down against my clit. I moaned with pleasure, feeling myself getting wet enough that a warm trickle dripped on my other hole.

  I rubbed it back and forth along the surface until my back was arching, and my other hand was spasming, grabbing handfuls of the bedding as the orgasm started rocking my body. This was definitely not rubbing myself off in the shower, this was heaven. I pulled the vibrator back until I wasn’t shaking anymore. My God, that was intense, but I hardly noticed that I had a thin sheen of sweat on me. I wondered what it’d be like to have three of us in this bed, sweating, shaking from the orgasm.

  I imagined that’s what it would feel like to have them lick me, minus the stubble that made them look half unkempt and adorable. I’d used my fingers on myself before, but looking at the vibrator I had to guess this was more what the real thing was, size-wise. I turned it on and slid it inside of me experimentally. I immediately pulled my knees up, rocking with the sensation, the vibrations touching something deep inside me. It wasn’t the same as the first time through[?], but I was almost screaming as my hand became a blur, pushing it in and out of my sex, and I had to pull a pillow over my face as I orgasmed again.

  I pulled out the second toy and contemplated it. It was a chromed ball with a cord that went to the controller. The controller regulated the speed of the vibration, and could pulse it. It was a toy like this that my roommate had found, probably wondering what part of my anatomy I was using it on. Honestly, right now I wanted it everywhere, and I wondered if the boys would like to take me by my ass? Right now, my entire body tingled, and my muscles were limp. If they were here, I’d let them have anything.