by John Everson
She looked him up and down with a faint frown. “Come with me a moment, I want to show you something.”
She passed him by and he followed her down the hall in the opposite direction from where he’d come in. They walked around a corner and abruptly came to a dead end. But she wasn’t interested in the dead end—Agnes opened a door next to the blank wall. Scott would have ignored it as a hall closet from where it was positioned. He would have been wrong.
He followed her inside to find a small sitting room, with an old dark leather couch and chair, two small end tables and lamps that sat upon them and shed a warm yellow light across the deep blue pattern in the Chinese carpet. Two bookcases covered one wall, while another was filled with large-framed portraits of men that looked very familiar to Scott.
Too familiar.
They looked a lot like him.
Agnes pointed at the farthest portrait, of a black-haired man with a faint curve to his smile. The kind of smile that suggested he knew more than he was telling. He stood before a fireplace, one arm resting on the mantle, holding a pipe. A Sherlock Holmes pose, Scott thought.
“That painting was done in the great room,” she said, “but this is where your great-great-grandfather used to come to hide away. And his son after him.” She nodded at the next portrait, which showed a man with similar features, but lighter hair. “And his son, your grandfather. He and his brother used to hole up back here and drink the place dry the week before we tapped the new season’s ale. We’d find them passed out in here in the morning. And between the smoke and the liquor, when you opened that door for the first time, it was like being hit in the face with an iron cloud.”
Agnes shivered at the memory, but grinned too. “They were good men though, they were. Gave their all for their families, even if they came back in here to escape them.”
She turned her gaze to Scott and held his eye. “You don’t have any family a’tal, do you?”
He shook his head.
“A man should have someone to care for. Without that, what is the point of living?”
The comment took the wind out of him. What kind of thing was that to say to someone who lived alone? The truth was, it hit home. He sometimes bragged about his independence and “fortress of solitude” back home, but as often as he felt free, he felt empty. What was the point indeed?
“This room is yours now,” she said, changing the subject. “We don’t lock it, but nobody else will come in here. It’s the private retreat for the Belvedere man of the house…and that’s you now. Use it as you like. Maybe get to know your ancestors.”
She nodded at the portraits, and then began to walk to the door. “Listen to your past, Mr. Belvedere,” she said. “If you don’t learn from the past, y’all are doomed to repeat its mistakes, is what they say.” And then she closed the door behind her, and left Scott by himself in the room.
He raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath. He’d started this walk with the intent of exploring rooms in the old place…but this was not where he’d planned to end up. Still…
He walked up to the bookshelves, and ran a finger across old faded red leather bindings. Hemingway, Horatio, Hortense…they were alphabetical. Orderly. A mix of fiction and history and science. He noted a great many titles that dealt with chemistry and botany. Some were so old he thought the bindings would turn to dust if he pulled them out, but others were more modern, paperbound. One old leather-bound book caught his eye and he thought of Ellen and her annual tapping festival: Distilling Spirits From Life the spine read in faded gold inset. Right next to that was a paperback that looked to be from the ’70s about The Search for the Fountain of Youth. Several books on the shelf were dedicated to the study of Native American Indian culture.
“Quite the diverse library,” he noted, and then picked up a small, framed black-and-white photo that sat on a shelf. It was a portrait of a young woman, who smiled thinly at the camera. She wore a small dark hat, and a tightly fitted bodice that opened to a long skirt. The image was so faded that the ruffles of the dress all but disappeared in spots, but it was the face that caught Scott’s eye. The features. A thin patrician nose, strong jaw, and eyes that even in black-and-white and faded with decades stood out. The woman’s face looked just like Sherrilyn. Behind her stood a man with dark hair and a heavy Teddy Roosevelt-style droopy mustache; one of his hands rested protectively on the woman’s shoulder. The face was familiar and Scott took one look at the large portraits on the wall to his left and nodded. It was definitely his grandfather, a picture taken in his younger days. So this would have been…Sherrilyn’s grandmother? Or more likely, great-grandmother? Was she actually family?
But…Sherrilyn had said she was a runaway, taken in by the Belvederes. Why would she make a story like that up? Or did she just have an uncanny resemblance to the woman in the photo; had his grandfather taken her in because of her striking resemblance to his wife?
“Weird,” Scott said, and put the photo back down on the shelf. He made a mental note to ask Sherrilyn about it the next time he saw her.
Chapter Fourteen
The days began to slip by easier and easier at the inn. Scott continued to work on his laptop, as well as on strengthening his leg. He found himself losing track of what day it was… up here in the hills, it didn’t really matter. One day was much the same as the last. And just like many other nights, tonight, The Family Table was packed for dinner. Emmaline, Agnes and her boys, Owen and Sutter, Burton Lowe, Billy Dean, Rocky and Jerry, Sherrilyn and Ellen were all there, but there were also several faces Scott didn’t recognize. He sat between Caroline and Rocky, as had become his habit the past two weeks, intentionally or otherwise, and Caroline pointed out several of the newcomers to him. “That’s Cousin Melba and her family,” she said of a young-looking brunette flanked by a portly man and three grade-school-aged children. “And that’s my sister-in-law, ’Melda Mae,” she said of a pale blonde woman who sat next to Agnes. Then she nodded in the direction of a thin old goat at the far end of the table. “And that’s our great-uncle, Reginald Belter. He lives a good ways from here so we don’t see him too often.”
“Where are the Thornes?” Scott asked, realizing that they were the only ones who had been at the first dinner he’d had here who were not here now. He realized he hadn’t seen them in a long time—since the morning after they started making out right here at the Table after dinner.
“I do believe they have checked out,” Caroline said.
Rocky slipped her thin fingers around his wrist and tugged, insisting that he meet her eyes. “We had a really intense hike today,” she said, “and I need a good rubdown tonight after dinner. Would you oblige me?”
Scott’s eyes widened in alarm. Caroline was sitting right there and had to have heard every word. But Rocky only grinned at his discomfort. She stroked Caroline’s hand in a calculatedly sinuous fashion up and down. “Honey, you won’t mind if I borrow your man for a couple hours tonight, will you?”
Scott imagined he saw a spark of irritation in Caroline’s eye, but instead of refusing, or putting the decision back on Scott, Caroline nodded her head. “I know you have the need,” she said. “Just don’t use him all up. I’d like some of him tonight too.”
Really? Scott’s mind reeled. When had he become “Caroline’s man” and how did that give her the right to loan him to another woman? Not that the sentence was difficult, but…what the hell. Maybe there was some truth to those jokes about people in Appalachia all being each other’s incestuous sisters and uncles. If they all slept together as easily as they seemed to here…
Ellen interrupted the strange conversation with a toast at the head of the table.
“Welcome everyone. It’s so good to see the family together again. Tomorrow night we celebrate the Last Tap once again, and I’m pleased that we have the last scion of the Belvedere line with us for this year’s gathering. We are all related here in some way,
but only he is a direct male descendant of William Belvedere who founded this inn. She pointed at Scott and continued, “For those who haven’t met him, this is Scott Belvedere, who has grown up in Chicago without any knowledge of our family and traditions. Please make him feel welcome here, as we show him what it means to be part of the Belvedere clan.”
She raised a glass and everyone around did the same.
Scott felt a pang of panic; did you raise your own glass when it was you being toasted? He wasn’t sure, but after hesitating a moment, he picked up his goblet of deep amber ale and held it high.
He drank and instantly felt the now-familiar warmth cascade through his bones.
And then Ellen said words that had become familiar to Scott from previous dinners. It was clearly her evening ritual. “It’s the end of another day, and we celebrate with the Blood of the Family Tree. Our own special ale, which will bring health to your body and ease to your mind.”
Rocky’s fingernails trailed across his inner thigh, and between her sensual touch and the house liquor’s impact (which seemed to affect him almost instantly whenever he took a sip now), he was ready to push back his chair and take her. A flush of need gripped his groin and he had a vision of standing up, grabbing her by the waist and hoisting her up on the table, to disrobe and take in full view of the crowded room.
And then that fantasy broke and he squeezed his eyes shut and open and shut again, trying to blank out the ridiculous thought.
“After dinner,” Rocky whispered in his ear, and then handed him a plate of steaming green beans. When he took his share and passed them on to Caroline, he found her eyes watching him intently. “Promise you won’t chain the door tonight?” she said.
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
She smiled then, a wide, almost innocent grin of pure happiness. “Say what you want about dinner, but it’s dessert that is the sweetest.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he looked across the table at Sherrilyn, who was talking animatedly to the old man, locks of fiery hair bouncing as she nodded and waved her hands in the air to emphasize some unheard point. The accompanying jiggle of her creamy cleavage diffused attention from her point.
When she saw Scott’s gaze, her words slowed, and her eyes opened wider to stare directly at his. Her mouth was silent for a minute, as she looked across the long table and held his eyes. He felt as if she were looking right past his eyes, and into his very soul. He broke the connection himself, and turned to look at Caroline instead. “How was your day,” he asked. “I didn’t see you around.”
Caroline grinned. “You didn’t go outside. I was out in the fields, working on planting the corn crop. It’s that time, ya know. Well, maybe you don’t know. But this is planting season, so everyone comes out and follows the plow to get the crop in before we get into May.”
“I did see a group out there,” he admitted. “Now I feel guilty that I didn’t come out and help.”
“Guilt is a luxury of those who have too much time on their hands,” she said with a serious face. Then her lips betrayed her and she grinned. “That’s what my mama’s always said!”
“Indeed.” He smiled. “She’s a wise woman. You don’t have time to worry if you keep busy enough, I suppose.”
“Exactly. So I guess that means we need to keep you busier,” she concluded.
He shrugged. “Aside from falling down cliffs, I’m enjoying the time off from my normal insanity, I must admit.”
Caroline raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointed look. “But we have our own abnormal insanity here,” she said. “We need to drag you into that so we occupy your mind!”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Tomorrow, you’ll have a taste. The Last Tap is a pretty crazy night around here.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You’ll see,” she promised.
Caroline was quiet then for a bit, as she ate her pork loin and pickled beets and Scott eavesdropped on a dozen other conversations around the table, all seemingly focused on the misadventures of one Belvedere or another. Now and then, he would feel uncomfortable, and look up to see a pair of unfamiliar eyes staring at him.
The newcomers were checking him out. He understood it—here was the foreigner who’d inherited the inn, instead of them, the ones who had spent all of their lives here. He looked away in each case and worked on clearing his plate.
No sooner had he done that when he felt a cool hand on his arm.
“I need your hands,” Rocky whispered, and pushed her chair back to rise. “Now.”
She pulled him up and together they said their good nights to Ellen and the rest, after complimenting the food. Scott felt Caroline’s eyes burning into his skin, but he couldn’t meet them. And then Rocky and he were walking down the dark hallways, with Jerry following close behind. When they entered Room 321, Rocky locked the door quickly behind them, and without a word began to strip off her clothes.
In seconds she stood naked in the center of the room, as her husband walked past, and busied himself at a small bar on the far side of the room. He brought back two glasses filled with a dark brown liquid topped by a couple of ice cubes. “Drink,” he advised. Then he took a seat by himself in a blue cushioned chair in the corner near the large king bed.
Scott had never felt more weirded out in his entire life. He had just been served by the husband of a woman who had stripped naked for him, and was now waiting for his attention, resting her cute rump on the edge of the bed. He’d heard of “swingers” but always found the notion of such a life style ridiculous. In a way, he’d never really believed that such people existed outside the letters columns in men’s magazines.
Rocky raised her glass to him, and he answered the gesture, deciding that the best course of action was probably a stiff drink. He downed the house liquor in one gulp, and the fingers of lust ripped through his veins as its influence spread. He was ready for her in seconds, and quickly forgot the fact that Jerry was there in the room, watching. He stepped to the bed and Rocky rose to put her arms around his neck, running fingers through his hair as he bent to taste her lips.
They were full and warm, and she smelled of the rich sap of the tree. He breathed in that heavy scent, and then his tongue was tickling hers, and the tips of her nipples were pressed against his chest, and he felt the blood begin to rush in waves through his fingers and ears and most of all, his extremely excited cock…
He barely remembered how, but the next thing he knew, Scott was naked with Rocky’s ankles over his shoulders as he pushed himself in and out of her, while her own fists gripped the pillow behind her head. She urged him to go faster, and then slid her legs from his shoulders and pushed him to the bed, taking over when he apparently didn’t piston her hard enough. She, on the other hand, mounted him like a rodeo rider, and jammed herself against him faster and faster. He barely noticed the scratching of the splints against his skin as she thrust herself upon him, meeting his flesh in slaps that were so fast and anxious they were almost as painful as they were pleasurable. Rocky was an animal tonight.
He moaned and was answered by short sharp squeals of pleasure from his partner, who threw her head back and then collapsed to his chest in a wet, desperate hungry kiss. Still her hips kept moving and she screamed out in his mouth, the sound muffled by his tongue, but felt in his groin. His cock was engulfed in heat and he instinctively let go as she reached her peak, the two of them crying into each other’s mouths while locked in a suction kiss.
Through it all, Jerry only sat in the corner of the room and watched.
When Rocky finally disentangled her fingers from his hair and rolled off him to let her arms and legs fall limp to the bed, Scott lay gasping beside her, struggling to catch his breath.
“Now I’m really tired!” he said.
“You still owe me a body rub,” she reminded.
“I thin
k I just gave you one. I rubbed every inch of you.”
She reached to the edge of the bed and handed over an opaque bottle of massage oil. “Not with this,” she said. “Not with your hands.”
Scott took the bottle and squeezed a dose of oil across his palm. It smelled like flowers, lilacs maybe. He rubbed his palms together to distribute the oil, and then rubbed them across her breasts, marveling at how it made her skin glow. Her body was slim and tight, a hiker’s physique without a doubt. And her breasts were thick and taut beneath his hands. She didn’t have a lot up top, but her nipples begged for attention; they poked out of her small breasts like anxious flower buds, glistening in the dim light with need. He thumbed and tweaked them, rubbing the oil across her breasts and belly and thighs until she all but glowed in the low light of the room. When his fingers slipped to her inner thighs, she took in a breath and arched her back, her sex struggling to meet him.
“I wish you could stay tonight,” she whispered. “I love this.”
“I think your husband might have an issue with that.”
Rocky snorted, and raised her chin at Jerry, who sat in the corner, one hand on the crotch of his shorts. “Does he look like it’s a problem?” she asked. “He is happy if I’m happy. And you are making me very happy.” She stretched and shimmied beneath his hands before suggesting, “Go lower.”
He put more oil on his hands, and then slicked the stuff across her belly and below, tracing her swollen lips with his fingertip, before palming his massage back out across her thighs. She shimmered in the low light of the room, and behind him, Scott heard Jerry’s breathing grow heavier.
“See, he likes it when you do that to me,” she said. Scott looked over to see Jerry standing next to the bed, shorts at his ankles, moving his hand in an increasing and familiar lap rhythm. Rocky arched her back again to push her groin against Scott’s palm. “And I like it too.”
