His Pretend Baby Read online

  I think about his earlier words about us being consenting adults and not letting other folks get a weigh in on what we do, and realize he must have said them to himself a whole lot before he ever said them to me.

  “I’m really not sure how I should be handling this,” I tell him.

  My shaky words seem to bring him back from some emotional ledge, and a little of the intensity fades out of his eyes. “You don’t have to handle anything. We just had a lot of fun together. That’s all that matters.”

  His face then breaks out into the easy going smile that graces all of his album covers. Like he’s decided to flip some kind of switch back on.

  “You know what, Purple? That coffee didn’t do nothing for me. Come on over here, and cuddle with me while I catch a few Zs.”

  I want to take him up on his invitation. Maybe because I’m tired. Maybe because I’m as out of my mind as he is. Maybe because when all is said and done, the thing I want most in that moment are his arms back around me.

  But when I carefully lie myself down with my back toward him, it’s on my side of the bed. A small defiance to say the least, one I’m not sure he’ll even notice...

  “You want me to fuck you again, Purple?” he asks my back. “Because that’s what’s gonna happen if you don’t get over here like I told you to.”

  I lie there, completely paralyzed. Knowing I should just move over to the other side of the bed. My body already feels sore and battered, and besides, what does it matter? My pride’s already been stomped out like a big dog. I should just do as he says.

  But I don’t move.

  And it feels inevitable when he lies down behind me. Lifts my leg and starts fucking me from behind. His hard, rough strokes make my tender core burn in a bad way at first. And then it begins to burn in another way.

  I moan and my hand floats down, wanting more than I can get from just this position alone…

  A hand catches both my wrists and folds my arms, locking them down between my heavy breasts. “I’ve already told you, Purple. You’re not allowed touch my pussy.”

  His voice is sandpaper in my ear, and I struggle against it. Against him, even as my hips undulate into his hard thrusts. But he’s got my wrists wrapped up tight, and I can’t bring my hands down no matter how much I try.

  “Only I get to touch my pussy,” he tells me. “You want me to touch my pussy, Purple?”

  I do. But I don’t want to say the words. “Yes… please… ” I say instead, hoping that will be enough to meet his demands.

  It isn’t. He actually starts moving slower behind me. “Let me hear the words, Purple. Give me a reason to give my pussy what it wants.”

  I grit my teeth, trying to hold off. And to my credit, I do… for a minute or so. But by mind is tired, my heart is on an emotional edge, and my body—it knows what it wants, greedily drinking in every stingy stroke Colin gives it, while my clit quivers, desperate for more.

  “Please touch my pussy.” The words come out choked, wrestling to get out past my good sense.

  Colin laughs darkly behind me, and his Alabama accent is as deep as I ever heard it, when he says, “I thought my grammar needed some work, but you got your pronouns mixed up, Purple. You called it your pussy when you done already said it’s mine.”

  He pushes into me so hard then, that the action sends ripples of pleasure up my entire body. I groan against the feeling, trying to temper it, trying to keep myself from wanting more. I’m so close…

  “Yours!” I give up with a gasp. Tears of frustration fill my eyes as I say, “Please touch your pussy, Colin. Please—”

  I cry out when his other hand settles over my mound, kneading it in that punishing way of his, the ball of his hand rubbing my button in hard circles.

  The sensation is so intense it caves my back. I cry out, caught between an electric fence of pain and pleasure until I come with a helpless scream. Soon after that, I feel him spilling inside of me. Again. And I wonder at the both of us, because seriously, how are either of us capable of coming this hard after the night we just had?

  I’m pretty far gone by the time I come down from the climax, and only vaguely aware of Colin pulling away from me and getting out of bed. A few moments later, there comes the feel of the warm cloth again.

  “I’d suggest a joint shower, but I don’t think either of us could stay on our feet too long after that.”

  He’s right. My body’s little better than a mason jar of my grandma’s peach jelly at this point. I can’t see myself rolling over, much less standing up.

  Colin ends up doing all the work for both of us. He’s cleans me up, this time, I dimly notice, not bothering to stay away from hot spots. He probably knows he’s wrung me all the way out and it doesn’t matter anymore. After he’s done with that, he rolls my limp body all the way over to the other side of the bed, and settles in beside, spooning me from behind.

  I’d take this as a kindness. Rolling me out of the wet spot, because Lord knows I don’t have the energy to do it myself. But when one large hand settles over my pussy—his pussy—I’ve given it to him twice now and I know this isn’t him being sweet.

  I’m now in the spot he’d originally told me to lie down. And even if his arms around me feel sweeter than anything I’ve ever known, there’s no doubt about the message he’s sending me with his cupped hand.

  My sex belongs to him. And even if I wanted to say the safe word, it would be too late, because in the moments before we fall asleep, we both know the truth.

  I didn’t say it then, and I’ll never say it again. No matter what.

  21

  He’s gone when I wake up. Not just from the bed, but the entire house. I open my eyes and can sense his lack of presence as soon as I sit up. The cabin somehow feels even more empty than before. Devoid of the sexual energy I’d felt thrumming through the entire place when I’d first set foot inside it.

  Apparently Colin, not the cabin itself, was the source of that energy.

  Realizing I’m all alone makes me want to cover myself. But… I soon remember my clothes are now ash at the bottom of the fireplace. I go over to the small closet on the other side of the bathroom and find a few of Colin’s vintage concert t-shirts hanging there.

  I pull out one with “Nitty Gritty Dirt Band” emblazoned underneath a mountain sunrise graphic. Remembering the great cover of “Fishin’ in the Dark” that Valerie used to do, I put it on.

  It fits me like a very short dress and paired with one of the flannel shirts I also find in the closet, it could almost pass as a whole outfit. If I was skinny with long legs and fake glasses, people would probably mistake me for a hipster. In any case, it’s enough clothing to get me through the one gas station I’d have to hit for a fill up before reaching Alabama. And thank goodness, I think, spotting my shoes under the bed, at least he didn’t burn those, too.

  I search the main room’s floor and find my purse on the ground right beside the door. Where Colin must have dropped it when he carried me back into the house over his shoulder.

  Surprised he’d risk me running off while he was gone, I pick it up… and find everything’s in there—except the keys.

  A sinking feeling replaces all my plans. But I yank open the door anyway. I’ll walk back to town, I think. Find a phone. Call Triple A. Prove to Colin that I’m still my own person no matter what I said last night.

  And maybe I would have done it, too… if the faint sound of guitar strings hadn’t hit my ears when I step outside.

  I follow the sound of the guitar playing like a sailor to a siren.

  Colin, I find out after a few minutes of walking, has a creek, too. More like a brook or stream, though. Whatever you want to call it, it’s a lot bigger than the dinky one at my grandma’s house. But it’s just as respectful to the songwriting process. It quietly babbles in the background while Colin sits on the couch afghan, working out the melody to a song that sounds both dark and sexy. Like the hook to Chris Isaak’s “Baby Did a Bad, Bad, Thing” decided
to marry a Top 40 country standard.

  I can tell the moment he knows I’m there, because he stops playing, the melody breaking off in an awkward twang of guitar strings.

  He looks over his shoulder at me, his blue eyes glittering and hard.

  “I didn’t say you could put on clothes.”

  “You didn’t say I couldn’t either.” I come over and sit down next to him on the afghan. “It’s cold out here.”

  “September in Tennessee. You never know.”

  I chuckle. “You got that right.” But he’s only wearing a t-shirt, I notice. “You’re not cold.”

  “Nah. Just came back from freezing my ass off in Scotland. I can deal with the 50s just fine.”

  I wrap his shirt around me, wishing I’d found some socks, too, as I bend my legs to tuck my feet underneath my bottom.

  “You ready to eat?” he asks. “I ran into town earlier. Picked up some chicken.”

  I am more than ready to eat. Can feel my stomach gurgle at just the mention of chicken, reminding me I haven’t eaten since yesterday.

  But there’s something I’m more curious about than eating. “Was that a new song you were working on?”

  “Yeah,” he says. He looks away, like the shy kid he might once have been before all the money and the fame. “Thought my well had run dry, but the melody hit me as I was driving back from town. Figured I should come here and work on it before I lost it. Songs don’t come to me as easy as they used to before…”

  He trails off.

  “Before your mama died?”

  He nods, his jaw setting, like his mother’s death is on his list of stuff he can’t do anything about like seasonal hunting laws and property taxes. And that’s when I notice it, hanging under the neckline of his t-shirt. His mother’s silver cross, the one she was wearing when she passed. I can see its simple outline underneath the shirt’s cotton front.

  “You’re lucky then,” I tell him, reaching out. I lay one hand on top of the covered cross, letting him know as best I can without words I’m happy he kept it.

  “I couldn’t write for years after my Paw Paw died,” I tell him. “I thought the music would never come back, and I should get used to being a home aide for the rest of my life. But then one day it did. Kind of like it did with you. I woke up and there was this little song all worked out in my head.”

  Colin’s hand covers mine on top of his mother’s cross, and I can feel his heart beating, painful and fast, like an angry song. Which is why I’m completely unprepared when says, “Alright then, play that song for me.”

  He pushes his guitar toward me, a Gibson, shinier and prettier than anything I’ve ever played, and my hands go up on instinct, afraid to touch it. “No, I don’t… I don’t really play in front of other folks. That’s not my thing. But thank you for the invite.”

  “If we’re going to do this, you need to learn the difference between an invitation and a command, Purple.”

  “I know the difference, but—”

  He let’s go of the guitar, maybe sensing I’ll catch it before letting it fall to the ground. He’s right, and I break off to catch it by the neck and body.

  “Go’on ahead,” he says.

  This, of all the things we’ve done over the course of us knowing each other, makes me the most shy. I shake my head, feeling my face heat up for a different reason this time.

  “No, I really can’t…”

  “You got stage fright.”

  He’s probably expecting me to deny it, like the tough girl I am, but I don’t. “Yes, I do. Real bad. The only reason I played in front of you that one time was because I didn’t know you were there.”

  “How were you planning on recording a demo, then?” he asks.

  I throw him a wry smile. “Oh, it’s one of the things I’m planning to work on next year. My number one resolution. I even downloaded a few e-books on overcoming stage fright from Amazon. I had a plan.”

  His expression doesn’t change, but his eyes are twinkling now, like he’s laughing at me. “Alright, you got stage fright. Know how to get over that?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t gotten around to reading any of the books yet.”

  “And you don’t need to read ‘em either. Here’s how you’re going to do this, Purple. Close your eyes.”

  I close my eyes. But I can still sense the world around me. The sun, bright and high in the sky. Colin sitting in front of me. The beautiful guitar in my hands.

  “Now I’m going count to three. And when I’m done, you’re going to start playing that song I want to hear. Don’t think about it. Just play. One… two…”

  I wait for three, knowing I won’t be able to do it. My heart is beating in my throat, so fast I’m pretty sure it’s going to punch a hole in the bottom of my esophagus any second now.

  I wait for the three, but it doesn’t come. I know Colin’s still there, but all I can hear is my heart in my ears. I wait. And wait. And wait some more.

  But Colin still isn’t saying three. Eventually my heart slows and I can hear the brook in the background, cruising quietly past as I wait to hear three. Small animals rustling in nearby trees. A birdsong or two. With my eyes closed, it feels just like my creek back home.

  And suddenly I hear something else. The intro to my song about West Tennessee, and then a soft voice singing about blue grass, and the sons of sharecroppers, and farmsteads that nobody tends. About monthly Sunday chicken dinners and an old lady who doesn’t sit on the porch as much as she used to because the man she loved got sent home.

  Eventually the song is finished and quiet descends. The creek is still flowing, but the animals no longer chatter. They seem to be listening, too.

  My eyes are still closed. I’m afraid to open them, because it feels like that would break some kind of spell.

  And then comes Colin’s voice. “Play me one of the ones you’ve been working on since you started your new job.”

  I shake my head with my eyes still closed. “I can’t. I didn’t bring my journal with me.”

  “That’s even better. Play me whatever you wrote that’s so good, you already got it memorized.”

  Colin’s words pull on my hands like a puppet master’s strings, and before I know it, I’m playing him the song I wrote about watching my mom get on a cross-country train bound for LA. The one he suggested I write.

  There’s more quiet when I’m done with that one. And I begin to feel like a fool, sitting there with my eyes closed, because I’m too afraid to open them.

  But Colin’s voice is all business when it comes again.

  “Go back to that part where she steps on the bus and says ‘See you soon,” but you know she ain’t coming back. That’s your tear cue—the lines that are going make anybody listening cry—so you don’t want to be playing over them. Try that whole verse again, but stop playing on those two lines.”

  I do as he says, and he’s right. It’s way more poignant and I can almost hear the young girl’s broken heart vibrating inside the words.

  Then I’m done again, and this time there’s no quiet. Just Colin taking the guitar from me. I hear the sound of him setting it aside. Then his hand is on my face, cupping it, as he says, “Open your eyes.”

  I do and I’m immediately startled by his tender look. “You have a song about how you got this scar yet?”

  I begin to move away.

  “No don’t.” He uses the hand cupped around my face to pull me closer and a moment later, I’m in his lap, his legs folded under my butt, my legs sprawled out on either side of his. My naked core against his hard length.

  “I just want to know about you, Purple, that’s all,” he says, laying my head down on his shoulder.

  Not having to look at him is a relief, but it’s doesn’t make the bad memories his question brought up go away.

  “I don’t have a song about the scar,” I tell him. “I don’t sing about it. I don’t even talk about it.”

  His body stiffens against mine. “Not even to m
e.”

  Especially not to him. “No, and please don’t make me. It’s not a story I want to tell.”

  He abruptly stops holding me and starts shoving my clothes off. The flannel shirt is stripped off my body, and the t-shirt pulled off over my head. When I’m fully naked, he catches my arms behind my back and says, “Purple, look at me.”

  My heart freezes at the same time I feel myself clench down below, my body helplessly responding to his rough action.

  His eyes bore into mine, “You understand I could make you tell me.”

  I do understand. And the knowledge scares me to my very core.

  “Nod if you understand.”

  I nod. Scared of him. Even more so of myself.

  And he suddenly lets my arms go, stroking both hands into my purple curls. “But I wouldn’t do that to you, baby. I’m fucked up, and I’m curious about you—” he breaks, kissing one of the shoulders he bared when he stripped me naked. Again. “Damn curious. But I’m never going to force you to do something I don’t think you really want to do. Tell me you get that.”

  I do, and my heart warms with an emotion I haven’t felt for any other man but Beau in a very long time. An emotion I know I shouldn’t be having this soon, or this fast.

  And then he’s pushing into me, and this time it doesn’t even occur to me to fight him. It’s not that kind of fuck. Though somehow the feelings are just as intense as the first time. Colin’s arms around me, his hands holding my wrists prisoner, his head bent and pressed into my shoulder. In this position, there’s no question of whether I’m getting enough clitoral stimulation.

  I am. I so very, very am, and I soon fall apart, my cries echoing across the backwoods along with the animalistic grunts he makes as he thrusts up into me.

  I slump into him, just in time to feel the muscles in his shoulders bunch and hike up. His body stays tight a long time, his whole face squeezed shut, like he’s barely withstanding what’s happening to him. I can feel his release flooding my core in a stream I become afraid will never stop. But then it does, and soon after I feel his large hands back on my body, stroking my back.