Miss You Mad: a psychological romance novel

by Atkinson, Thea

  "Hey man," the clerk said. "Are you okay?"

  "No I'm not okay." Came a voice that didn't sound like his own. It was harsh and loud. All is not well.

  Hamlet knew. Hamlet knew that things were not as they should be and William listened to that voice. It drove him straight out of the cafe and onto the street where the throngs of people jostled him and stole his breath. Those people stared at him and crossed themselves as if he were evil. Some of them sneered; some growled like feral beasts. William's heart tapped against his rib cage. It tapped harder, faster. Something inside told him to run. Run fast.

  And all because of the painting on the wall. The painting that looked exactly like the one Hannah was working on. What did it mean? Had she, like the bank teller suggested, gone to Yarmouth? And Yarmouth was where? Down the street? Across town?

  Across country?

  We took Hannah's rental car out to Pembroke. I knew my way in the dark to that spot as well as I knew my own garden. The moon, though it wasn't full, offered plenty of light. Once past the hospital, we came to a wharf and derelict fishing shanties.

  "Look at those shadows," Hannah murmured as she slowed the car to a crawl. She pointed to a large dark void created by stacked lobster traps.

  "God. Look at that." This time she stopped the car in the middle of the road. Without bothering to pull over to the shoal, she jumped out and scrambled up the small hill to a falling down building. I knew what was inside; I'd been here plenty. I wondered what she'd think of the cache of forgotten barrels.

  I slipped over to the driver's seat and stuck the car in gear. Within seconds, I pulled into the dirt driveway that had she been patient enough, would have noticed made a path straight up the middle of the village of deserted but not abandoned shanties. At one time they'd been used as living quarters by poor fishermen, but were now utilised, quite practically, as storage sheds by wealthier ones--lobster bringing a prettier penny these days.

  Turning off the engine, I rolled down the window. Peepers peeped. I cleared my throat and gave a shout.

  "What did you find?"

  Nothing came back. Only the song of tiny frogs. I got out.

  "Hannah?"

  She made a delighted squeak; it came from around the bend. I smiled. Couldn't help myself. I knew she'd found the tumbling building whose roof bent in the middle as if it were the curve of a woman's waist. That unpainted, long unused building stored barrels upon barrels upon barrels. Some stood like little soldiers outside; most piled high on top of each other, were inside, visible through the paneless window. If she liked shadows, she'd find plenty there.

  I shuffled my way up the path and found her staring into the darkness between the sentry barrels. "Look, Daniel." She crouched so that her eye level was about the middle of the barrels. "Look at the view of the water between these." She motioned me closer. Hunkering next to her, I peeked out of the shadow created by the barrels and into the black water.

  "If you think of the moonlight on the water as milk, then the cloud shadows are almost like little sponges drying up the puddles." She indicated with her hands how the barrel edges formed a frame for the living painting.

  "Neat," I said, and quaked over the word because it was such a stupid thing to say.

  She moved closer, lifting her face to mine. I swallowed convulsively, as I pictured those full lips stretching wide to take me in the way she had back at the pub. She smiled, obviously reading my thoughts as she pulled my mouth down to hers. Her lips had the same satin texture on my mouth as they'd had around my prick.

  I stuck my tongue between the gap in her front teeth. She skimmed the surface of mine with the tip of her own tongue and then nipped it with her teeth and stepped away. No more than three heartbeats, and she stood naked in front of me, her toes burrowing into the grass.

  "Fuck," I said.

  "Yes, Please," she answered.

  A sense of desperation rose to my throat as I peeled off my clothes. I ran my fingers down her throat, pausing at her clavicle. Of its own accord, my thumb traced the ridge of bone, finding her sternum and then as though it were plunging recklessly into the unknown, my hand dropped to her breast, cupping it for a long moment. I heard my own sigh a heartbeat before my other hand reached behind and thrust her toward me.

  That was the breaking moment. With her skin against mine, I went mad. My tongue couldn't taste enough of her skin; it ran the length of her throat until it met her earlobe and I dragged my mouth to hers. I sucked in her tongue and massaged it with my own, not ever getting enough of her to satisfy the burning in my crotch that had somehow found its way to my throat. I was a starving man in that moment needing the savor of her breath. My hands bit into her ass cheeks as I ground myself into her hips. I knew she felt my erection; it was already doing its best to seek entrance, already throbbing with the same searing lust that stopped up my throat.

  I lifted her onto my waist and sweet God she wrapped those luscious legs around me so tightly I thought I'd be able to walk for miles without her losing grip. But I had no intention of walking. Not even a single step. The way my cock slipped in the cleft of her ass all I could think about was ramming myself into that tight bud and pumping until I lost the memory of my own name.

  "Fuck," I said again against her ear as her lips worked their way to my throat. "You're going to kill me."

  I staggered when she used the back of my waist as leverage to piston her way onto my cock, but I had the presence of mind to hold onto her so that I could lower us both to the grass. I pulled out from that tight pussy, with every intention of burying my cock deeper. I pushed her legs as far apart as they would go, putting one hand beneath her knee to lift it. Nothing would stop me from taking every inch of her; splayed in front of me like that she had no defense, left no barrier. I had all of her in whatever way I wanted and I knew none of it would come close to being enough.

  When I drove into her again I could have sworn I felt myself take root. I wanted to stay there, seed myself there, push on until my balls tightened up so small they found their way inside too. It wasn't enough and yet it was too much. I needed to do it again and again.

  I think she bit me at one point. I even think I begged her to do it again. All I truly knew was that fucking her was what I was made for. It was the moment God looked down on creation and saw that it was good.

  It was divine. And all along she begged for more. She told me I was perfect.

  "Fill me," she said. "Every dark space. Take it."

  When I came I could have wept. It was too soon. It would always be too soon.

  She touched my cheek. "Damn fine, Daniel," she said.

  "Really?"

  "Really." She passed me my shirt.

  "What till you see what I can do with the lights on."

  She laughed. "I can't wait." She sat up, looking over her shoulder. "How far is the house?"

  I took a deep breath, letting the oxygen fuel my brain instead of my dick. "Right," I said. "Let's go."

  We got dressed and I cut across the rolling sand dunes where grass had grown knee high, she close on my heels. I passed the ruined boat hulls abandoned on high ground. Slicing this way and that with my arm, I cut a path to the road and turned to look at her.

  "See? Not far. We were just about here."

  She peered off into the darkness. "What's over there?"

  "The beach. And the house sits about a hundred yards from it."

  The house, all 800 square feet of it, was nearly obliterated from view by the overgrown grass that hadn't been tended in four years. In the dark it seemed smaller than during the day. No lights revealed the front door; no path led to an entrance.

  "We'll have to rummage around," Hannah observed. "If we're to find a way in."

  "We're not going in," I answered. "It's been locked up. But we can look through the windows at the back."

  "You know where the windows are?"

  "Of course, and I know where the door is. But just because the ladies are dead, doesn't mean the place
doesn't have an owner." I took Hannah's hand and lead her through the over growth and past the cellar entry. The bow of windows protruded out the back like they always had. Skylight panes joined the windows to the house. We stopped facing the middle. Hannah gasped.

  "I had no idea."

  I nodded, even though she probably couldn't see it in the dark. "That's where their studio was. Right there."

  "I'm sure it gets beautiful light," Hannah murmured, more to herself than to me. "And you say they had no electricity?"

  "Not until the last year. By then Helen lived alone and her nephew begged her to get hooked up. Everyone says they must have been two special women to live alone like that at their age with no power."

  "Oh," Hannah said. "They had power."

  I had the feeling we were talking about the same kind of power.

  "And it's exactly as it was the day she died?"

  "Yup. In daylight you can actually see cards on the kitchen table and a beer bottle on the studio table that one of them was gluing barnacles to."

  Do you really think he'll let me rent here? Do you?" She stared at me. "What could be better than an artist renting their studio?"

  "Well, I do know how to contact him. Because I took care of her account when she was alive, he got me to witness her estate holdings when she passed away and he acted as executor. I'll call tomorrow."

  "Good. And I'll call Howard tomorrow. Tomorrow could be a perfect day."

  It was no small feat getting Hannah back into the car and away from the dead painters' house. She'd been quite taken by the idea of sunlight streaming in through the studio windows and creating shadows all through the small space. So taken had she been, in fact, that she made me stand in various places before the panes to see which way the moonlight would strike me and what type of shadows the interior would incur.

  Eventually, however, I did manage to coerce her back into the car. The entire drive, all ten minutes of it, she devoted to how excited she would be to set up shop right on the beach. A beach, mind you. She'd never walked on a beach until she came to Yarmouth, let alone smell the salt, or paint the scenery. Imagine, Hannah Hastings living on the beach. I got annoyed.

  "It's just water." I snapped.

  By now we had rounded the historic horse fountain at the end of the stretch and were turning onto Main Street.

  "Just water? How can you take such a thing for granted?"

  I shrugged.

  "Have you ever lived in a city?"

  I shook my head. "I went to school in Halifax. I suppose you don't count that as a city." I turned off onto Grand St. and into the hotel parking lot.

  "Well," she said holding onto the door handle. "It can be quite smothering. I didn't realise how smothering until I came here. I love the open air. I love the people." She yanked on my sleeve. "I love you."

  I choked. Loved? Who'd said anything about love? Had I? I rummaged through the index cards stored in my banker's brain. Nope. I'd said nothing. But perhaps I'd thought it. Perhaps she had heard those thoughts.

  "I'll walk you to your room." I did my best to sound nonchalant and was rewarded with the tip of her tongue poking through the gap between her teeth.

  She linked her arm through mine. It felt right. Good sweet lord, it felt nice. I decided I was going to like this return to humanity.

  Just on the inside of her room, a large easel was propped up a wide canvas. Paints and brushes lay scattered across a spread garbage bag atop the desk next to the mirror.

  "You're painting yourself." I touched the edge, amazed that anyone would be so vain.

  She shrugged. "In the early morning, there are some interesting shadows reflected against the mirror."

  So much for my vanity theory. Ever the eclectic artist, it seemed everything had interest.

  It felt like a good time to ask the perfect introductory question. "Why do you paint nude, anyway?"

  "Tough question, Dan."

  "Is it?"

  "Yes. Tougher than you know."

  I inspected a tin can full of brushes. "Okay then, how about an easier one. What is it about me that you like?"

  "You believe I'm interesting, even though I haven't done anything to make you think it."

  "Are you kidding? What about the Internet nudity?" I smiled, pleased at how I'd managed to return to the original subject.

  "Just a way to get people to buy my work."

  "Your paintings?"

  "Ordinary."

  "Are you trying to say you're just a regular gal?"

  She swallowed. I watched the movement of her throat keenly. I'd touched a nerve.

  "I'm like an apple pie. Flaky on the outside; regular old mush on the inside." She turned away and faced the mirror. Picking up a brush, she traced her outline with white oil paint. Then she stepped away. The mirror held her outline, but the inside reflected the standard floral wallpaper.

  I protested. "You've got a weird fascination with light."

  "No different than any other artist."

  "You're kind?"

  "And you find that odd?"

  I shrugged. I trusted so few people now after the money came that I couldn't truly say anyone was kind It was all colored with paint I couldn't see through.

  She sat on the bed. "Tell me more about your father."

  Sighing, I took my place next to her on the bed. We both lay back, staring at the ceiling. She took my hand; I almost thought I felt electricity buzz through the thin layer of skin that separated our bodies. It gave me the nerve to speak. My leg started twitching.

  "I loved my dad." My tone sounded like I protested too much.

  "I'm sure you did," she said.

  I found myself nodding although it made no difference; she wasn't looking at me. "I love my mom, too. And it really bothered me that she could love him. Not that I felt, you know, that way about my mother."

  "No Oedipus for you, eh?" She laughed.

  "My mom could easily have found someone else. Someone who deserved her. He cheated on her, you know. Over and over and over. When I was a kid, I remember her lying on the sofa crying her heart out. It scared me. I didn't know what was going on."

  Hannah draped one leg over mine. That one stopped twitching.

  I kept talking. "I guess I didn't know then, that womanizing can be as much a sickness as alcoholism. And he had it bad. But I suppose all that doesn't matter. I did love him. How couldn't I? He was my father."

  She frowned. "Sounds pretty normal."

  I stuck my finger into the corner of her frown.

  "That's me. Normal." I remembered the night on the beach when I'd taken all those pills. Normal as could be. I grinned at her, all high school kidish.

  Hannah pulled my finger into her mouth with her tongue. It was hot in there, wet.

  "Let's not talk about this anymore," I said.

  She pulled away from me and stripped off her shirt.

  Her breasts were heavy, much heavier-looking bare than they appeared beneath her shirt or online. Her nipples were little round pebbles the color of a pale pink rose bud. I wanted to roll them between my fingers. The videos did not do her skin justice. It was the color of a conche shell, and as she wriggled out of her jeans I had a terrible urge to smooth my cheek straight up from her calf to her forehead. She twined her fingers together and stretched her arms overhead, turning a bit sideways and taunting me with her replica of the old shanty's waistline. I had the irrepressible urge to cast a shadow on her, one that would grow thin and fat alternately as I lifted and lowered.

  She crooked a finger at me. "What's wrong," she said, grinning. "Do you prefer the video version?"

  I could have been the Green Hornet, I took my clothes off so quickly. This was going to be good. This was going to be great. This was going to be the best time she'd had in years.

  I pounced.

  With a practiced ease, she rolled from beneath to top. She licked my eyebrows, she tasted my tongue, she brushed her teeth across my nipples. I groaned.

  "Too rou
gh?" She joked.

  I couldn't speak. She had her tongue in my mouth before I could answer. She tasted of peppermint and a hot, musky smell, that individual smell of arousal, wrapped around us in a blanket as thick as wool. Good sweet God.

  "I'm not God, but thank you for the complement," she whispered and her breath moved from my ear to my neck to my chest.

  I was barely aware that I was moaning like a 14-year-old virgin. The part of me that was aware didn't care. Just wait until I got my turn. I'd handle her with such care she'd beg me to fuck her.

  "You just wait," I moaned. Then she had her hand on the base of my cock and I let go a series of filthy instructions. I thought that somewhere in the middle of those lurid details I told her where the rubber was, and I must have because before I knew it, she was unrolling the thing snugly down my length and following it with her mouth.

  It wasn't my fault. Not really. I should have realized that if I felt like a 14 year old virgin, I'd end up behaving like a 14 year old virgin. Seconds later, her mouth was gone, her hand lay on her lap, and we both sat staring at the traitorous third member of our party.

  "I didn't even get a chance to enjoy it," I mumbled without thinking.

  "Me neither," she murmured.

  I looked at her. She didn't seem upset. Her thick lips curved on either side. She touched the head of my penis and it gave a final shudder before it nestled sleepily on a cushion of hair.

  "Maybe if we wait awhile," I offered. "He'll only take a short nap."

  Upon returning home, William kicked past the boxes that kept him from getting to the computer. Blouses and skirts spilled onto the carpet. High-heeled shoes, strapless sandals, and a rubber boot piled on top of pink rayon shirts and white wool sweaters. His vinyl bottomed sneakers stomped across his mother's clothes and booted aside musty smelling shoes.

  He had to get to his desk. It was almost time.

  He stopped short of the computer chair. He had to catch his breath. Once he had suspected that the painting on the cafe wall and painting on the computer were the same one, he had run as fast as he could back home. At the moment, William could barely breathe.