by Cherry Kay
It was Ted's turn to laugh.
“Maybe waiting does make it better,” Ted said. “And maybe absence makes the heart grow fonder. Or maybe both of those things are just plain old wrong. Who’s to say? All I want to do is make sure tonight goes well so you gotta wait outside.”
“Hey, you don't hear me complaining do you?” Tina said, elbowing him in the ribs.
When they got to the cabin Tina waited outside while Ted went in to “set things up.” A bunch of banging noises came from the cabin, to include the sound of something breaking that sounded a lot like glass but might have been wood splintering. Tina rushed in the cabin to see what was going on to see Ted standing on the bed. He'd just broken the particle board laid across the beams that regularly crossed the space form wall to wall above head level.
“What in the world you doing?” Tina asked.
“I want to see what's up here,” Ted said with a laugh. “And besides, the board was cracked down the center, right in the middle over the bed. I noticed it when I walked in today. Since I'm not too keen on the idea of having it break while we sleep, I figured I'd just see what's up here.”
Tina was about to say something about how he needed to curb his puerile curiosity when she noticed the lit candles set out all over the cabin. She tried not to gasp, but then she did anyway. It wasn't often that Ted got romantic, but when he did he went all out. Tina noticed what looked like a liquid of some kind of the floor, but upon closer inspection realized that it was rose petals.
“Oh my God, Ted,” Tina said. “You have really out done yourself this time. If only we had wine.”
“You mean like the bottle on ice right there?” Ted said pointing to the table.
Sure enough, there was a bottle of wine that had been placed in a small metal bucket of ice. It was a special kind of wine all the way from the cornfields of Iowa. It wasn't corn flavored though, it was honey flavored, and one of Tina's favorite wines. She walked over the table to find the bottle uncorked and chilling in the ice, waiting to be poured.
“Ted, you are such a great boyfriend!” Tina said. “I am so, so lucky to have you!”
“I knew you'd like it,” Ted said, accepting a glass of wine from Tina while she poured herself one.
“So what do you want to do tonight?” Tina asked.
“Well, I figured I'd dust out that fireplace over there and we'd snuggle up in front of it before the sunset,” Ted said. “Which will be soon. That's why I accidentally broke the false ceiling. I knew they'd have gear to clean the chimney out.”
“Does it really need to be cleaned?” Tina asked.
“I'm not sure, that's what I'm going to check,” Ted said. “If it does I'll need to, because a chimney that is all stopped up will start a fire.”
Tina sipped her wine and watched Ted mess around with the chimney for a few minutes. After finding everything in good working order, he put a few logs in the fireplace and pulled up a chair almost big enough for both of them to sit side by side.
“Who do you think this chair was built for?” Tina asked as she snuggled up to Ted.
“I'm not sure,” Ted said. “But I think whoever built it didn't feel like measuring anything so they just guessed, and guessed way, way too much.”
Tina's hand slid the length of Ted's thigh, stopping to cup and caress his knee.
“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” Ted asked her.
“I'm sure at some point, but you can go ahead and tell me again right now if you like,” Tina said.
When Ted opened his mouth to answer Tina playfully bit his lower lip.
“What's got you all riled up?” Ted asked.
“Everything I like,” Tina said. “My favorite boy is here, and he looking goo-ood! This amazing wine is here. I'm in the mountains, which the sun just dipped behind. And there is a fire in front of me. So am I allowed to feel frisky if I want to?”
“For sure,” Ted said, kissing her on the mouth.
Their tongues sought each other and wrestled for a moment, then retreated as their lips locked in passionate embrace.
“Oh, Ted,” Tina said. “I'm so hot for you right now. Take me to the bed. Please take me to the bed. Oh, God, I don't know if I can wait any longer.”
Ted carried Tina to the bed and laid her down gently on it. He kissed his way down her flannel shirt, carefully undoing each button as he went, then he undid her pants. Tina's back arched as Ted went down on her. She loved it when he went down on her and Ted knew it. He was good at it, always had been. Tina knew because they’d talked about it. He'd said that he didn't believe in the whole doing the alphabet thing on a woman's clitoris. Instead he just went with whatever felt right to do, often times nibbling and lightly biting her most sensitive spot because it made her go so wild. This time was no exception and it didn't take long before Tina was bucking her hips forward while she pressed Ted's down into her crotch.
“Just like that,” Tina said. “Just like that, baby. Please don't stop. Keep going, you're almost there.”
Tina loved it when he got her this close and pulled back at the last second, making her writhe on the bed and beg him to keep going—and that's exactly what happened. Tina begged and begged, and eventually would get Ted to renew his stimulation of her most sensitive erogenous zone. But every time she got close he would pull away, and leave her hanging. Finally, when Tina didn't think she could stand for him to not finish the job, Ted finished with a crescendo so stimulating Tina screamed some of the filthiest words he'd ever heard come out of her mouth.
“Fuck yes, fuck yes,” Tina said. “Oh my God I'm going to fucking come. Oh my fucking God, yes. Here it is! Here it is!”
Tina's hips bucked so much that Ted had to hold on to them and pin them to the bed in an effort to keep from hurting her or getting hurt himself. When she was done, Tina pulled him up to her and kissed him on the lips.
“You are so good, baby,” she said. “Now let me go down on you.”
Tina loved it when Ted laid back and relaxed while she gave him head. She never really thought she was that great at it, but he didn't seem to mind. What made it more difficult was that Ted was hung. His thick member was a chore to get her lips around, but she always managed and he always loved it. Some women hated going down on men, or so Tina had heard others confess, but she had never understood it. When Tina went down on Ted, she felt sexy and empowered. For a little bit she was the center of the universe for Ted. Tina also especially liked how aroused it made him.
“Oh, baby,” Tina gasped as she crawled up Ted and straddled him. “I can't wait to have you inside of me. You are so turned on right now that your cock looks angry!”
They both laughed at this and Tina lowered herself onto him in one smooth motion. She could feel Ted's body quivering with pent up anticipation. It was taking all of his self-control not to hold onto her hips and start thrusting. But Tina wouldn't let him.
“Now, now,” she said. “Don't be a bad boy or I might have to spank you!”
Ted chuckled at this. The rest of their love making session was passionate and hot. Afterward neither of them could think of a better sexual experience they'd had together or apart, both of them couldn't help recount the moments of climax when Tina had thrown her head back and loosed cries of passion into the newly opened ceiling.
Tina woke up in the middle of the night, her face resting on Ted's chest as it slowly rose and fell. It was so still outside. She almost thought to herself that it was quiet, but it was more than that. There wasn’t just the absence of sound, but sound being absorbed. She didn't know how she could tell, but when she got out of bed and peeked out the window, snow was blowing hard—there was a blizzard outside. Tina had never seen so much snow before in her life. She didn't have any way to gauge how much was already down on the ground because she'd spent her whole life till this point, in the Deep South where snow didn't fall like this. It seemed like the end of the world, or at least a time when the world stopped spinning. Tina started to wonder what wou
ld happen if they were snowed in for longer than a few days; what would happen if they were snowed in for weeks at a time.
Tina opened the door. The drift formed against it reached up to the top of her shins. She peered out through the heavy snow and saw a few drifts on the road that would come up to her chest if she had the courage to wade out into them. The fridge was stalked with food, she checked just to make sure. A long forgotten suggestion came to Tina out of nowhere—her mother saying “If it starts to freeze out there be sure to turn the faucet on so the pipes don't freeze”—and she turned on the tap water to a barely discernible drizzle.
“Honey, are you up?” Ted asked sitting up in bed.
“Everything is all right dear,” she said. “The snow is really coming down right now. You should come look.”
“I need to put a few more logs on the fire then,” he said. “And we'll have to make sure to keep the embers going and all that.”
“Don’t you have a lighter or anything?” Tina asked.
“No, I do. But in the movies they always seem to worry about the fire going out so it just seems appropriate that we do, too.”
Tina laughed at this and hugged Ted as they both stood at the door of the cabin, looking out over the landscape that was now nearly unrecognizable from what it had been just a few hours before.
“How many inches do you think have come down so far?” she asked Ted.
“At least eight inches right now,” Ted said. “But maybe more than that. Denver sees some pretty crazy extremes when it comes to bipolar weather and snowfall. Like how it was all nice and warm today and then a few hours after the sun sets the sky drops a foot or so of snow. It'll probably end up being more than a foot. Hell, maybe it'll break some kind of record.”
“You really think there is that much of it?” Tina asked him.
“Oh yeah,” Ted said. “Look at all of it! I mean, I'm being fairly conservative when I say at least eight inches. I don't want to say something like 'Oh my God it must be a foot of snow!' and then have it be less and I look like a dork from the south that isn't ever around this kind of thing.”
They both laughed at this and went back to bed.
That night Tina had strange, troubled dreams. In one of them she was back in middle school, but the halls were filled with snow. She tried to tell the teacher what was going on, because she seemed not to notice how the halls filled with millions of soft, white snowflakes. But Tina found that the child she was in her dreams couldn't manage to speak properly. So the class was sent out to wade in the halls filled with snow. There were other dreams as well, but only one other stood out. There was a man stumbling through the snow toward their cabin. He had a mean glint to his eyes, the only part of him that wasn't wrapped up with some kind of winter clothing in her dream. Something about the man made her feel afraid, even terrified. She could tell that he had hate in his heart, some kind of malice he kept hidden way down deep away from anyone else. Normally no one ever knew about it, but somehow Tina could tell. He stumbled through drift after drift, the cabin she and Ted slept in growing larger in front of him until he was at the door. He drew his fist back.
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
Tina sat straight up in bed. Sunlight lit the snow piled against the window by the storm. Was there really someone knocking at the door or had it been the strange, scary dream she'd been having. Tina slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Ted. Slowly she tip toed over to the door, trying not to make any floor boards squeak. She wasn't sure why it was important that no one could hear here since there wasn't a peep hole in the door for her to look out of. She'd either have to open the door to look, or she'd have to just go back to bed. That is unless the person knocked again, if there was a person. Which there probably wasn't. Tina was almost sure that it had all been a part of her dream. Hadn't the knocking woken her up when the scary man in her dream had beat against the door?
KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK
This time Ted woke and sat up in bed.
“Are you pounding on something?” he asked her. “I could have sworn I just heard someone knock on the door.”
“There’s someone at the door, Ted,” Tina said. “I saw them in a dream, struggling to get to the cabin.”
“What?” Ted asked, as he rubbed sleep from his eyes.
“I don't know if we should let him in, though. What if the person is dangerous?”
“What are you talking about?” Ted asked. “Aren't you the same person that called me silly yesterday for breaking apart the particle board false ceiling?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Tina asked.
“You don't think it's even more childish to ignore someone in desperate need of help because you think you had a nightmare about them?”
Tina heard whoever was outside lean against the door and slump to the ground. Their back barely made a sound as it slid down the snow drift against the door. Ted hopped out of bed and quickly got dressed. Without even hesitating, he then opened the door and in flopped a man passed out from the cold. Ted quickly dragged the man in front of the fireplace and threw a couple of logs on the fire.
“Hey mister,” Ted said as he shook the man lightly. “Hey! Can you hear me? Mister, are you all right? Where did you come from? Where are you going?”
Tina leaned against the kitchen counter as she watched Ted try to revive the man. Eventually, the man sputtered to life and started shivering so badly that his teeth chattered together like in a cartoon.
Tina had a hard time keeping her heart hard toward the man, but there was something about him that wouldn't let her relax. The feeling she'd had in her dream when she'd seen him, remained too visceral. Something about how the man had looked, moved, and something about what he'd been thinking.
Maybe it wasn't what he'd been thinking exactly, but somehow Tina knew his intentions without ever talking to the man. She knew that he had ill intent, that he would pretend to be friendly until their guards dropped, then he would pounce on them. She knew that he loved the cat and mouse game that he played with people. Suddenly, Tina knew that there were others that he had done this to and gotten away with it, that this wasn't the first time he'd waited for snow to fall real heavily and then walked from his car, parked down the winding road, up to a cabin. Was this the first time someone had seen him in a dream, though? Or had there been others who had watched him walk toward them and their loved ones in nightmare, only to be awoken by him pounding on their door?
Tina wanted to tell Ted all of this but she knew that he had too big a heart to turn anyone in need away—it was one of the reasons why she loved him. She also knew how crazy it sounded to be like, “I saw this guy in a dream last night and now he's real and I know that he kills people.” The more Tina thought about it the more ridiculous it sounded to her. Maybe she had a dream about this man, or a man that looked like him in her dream, but that didn't make what she was thinking true or real by any means. The more she thought about it the more she came to think that she seriously needed to reconsider what she was thinking. What if she was just being a monster because she was scared? It wasn't like her to be this way, she though. She wasn't a distrustful person. If anything she was even more trusting than Ted most of the time.
“You're going to be all right, buddy,” Ted said, as he pushed the man closer to the growing fire. “Just relax. Once you start to warm up a little bit and quit shaking we'll get these wet clothes off and dry them, give you a cup of coffee, you'll never have felt better in your whole life.”
Tina couldn't help but smile as Ted tried to comfort the man. Ted was such a good guy. It made Tina trust the man, because Ted trusted him. Her thoughts about how the man was here to do them harm died away to almost being forgotten completely. Once they had the man sit up in a chair with a cup of coffee in his hands, he stopped seeming sinister at all. He looked like an old wet cat who'd barely managed to claw its way back home through a storm. Maybe that was it, she thought suddenly, maybe the man lived here when no one else was using the
vacation home they rented. The people they had rented from told them someone had formerly rented the cabin but he never used it anyway.
“So what's your name?” Ted asked, seated across the table from the man. “How did you end up out here?”
“My name,” the man said. “My name is . . .”
His voice trailed off. It looked like his face went completely slack for a second. The man must have had some kind of black out, as if his brain was still short circuiting from the cold. Ted threw Tina a worried glance.
“Are you all right, mister?” Ted asked like a polite, southern gentleman.
“I'm, uh . . . I'm fine,” the man said, before burying his face in his coffee mug and slurping up the warm liquid. “Just give me a minute. I just need some time is all. Just need some time.”
“All right, all right,” Ted said with a polite smile. “Time you've got. So don't worry about that. No one here is going to rush you. You just take all the time you need.”
