Daryl had no idea what the fuck he was supposed to do about what had happened last night.
Carol had been cool as a cucumber, jerking him off like that and then just saying goodnight. If she'd been disappointed in how quickly he'd gone off, she sure hadn't shown it. If she'd wanted something in return from him, she hadn't said so.
Eventually, he decided the best thing to do was to just keep doing exactly what he had been doing in desperate hope it would continue to have good results.
He disappeared before she awoke, leaving a note on the fridge, just like the previous day. He found her in the late afternoon and offered her knife lessons, just like the previous day. He ate with the group, played D&D after dinner, went for a smoke, and then came back to his room, just like the previous day.
As before, he left the door wide open as an invitation and sat down atop the fresh blanket (he'd changed it after his little eruption last night) in nothing but a pair of black sweatpants and a white muscle t-shirt (he kept the colors the same, because he thought it might jinx it to wear different colors), this time with his book. He tried to read about those medieval weapons, but he ended up glancing at the open doorway…over and over and over.
Finally, Carol strolled inside, sat down on the second bed, and crossed her legs, like nothing unusual had happened between them last night. She was wearing red checkered flannel pajamas from the Kingdom of Sleep.
Hell, maybe he had dreamed it all.
"Brogan," she said.
"Nah. Ain't Brogan."
"Beck," she guessed.
"Ain't Beck."
"Benny?"
"Nah."
"I think my wrist is getting stronger." She bent it back in forth in something not entirely unlike a jerking motion. He flushed. "With all that knife throwing practice," she clarified.
He looked down and picked at the hangnail on his thumb. "Possum soup you made was good. Hardly could tell the meat was greasy."
"Is that what that meat was? Well, it's fish tomorrow. Then hotdogs. Then back to the small game."
"Out of beef?" he asked.
"No. Three full meals worth of hamburger still. But I think we should save it. Because once it's gone, we may never taste beef again."
"Save the bacon too. For a bit. Got to eat it before too long, though. Meat been in there near three months when we found it."
"You missed Rick and Lori fighting earlier," she asked. "Before dinner. I sent Carl and Sophia outside to play. Poor Carl. He didn't know what to make of it."
"What was she bitchin' at 'em for this time?"
"Going on the upcoming supply run. She thinks he should stay here." Carol stood and walked over to his bed to kiss him goodnight, like she'd done the past few nights. He raised his neck to meet her lips, like he'd done the past few nights.
This time, though, he ventured to put his hand at the back of her head to hold her deeper into the kiss, to savor her tongue a little longer. When he let her go, he was hard again, only this time, he didn't try to hide the fact.
Carol's eyes flitted to the erection straining against his sweatpants.
"Could use some help," he murmured, his chest as tight as if he weren't breathing, the fear of her rejection like a heavy ball in his stomach. "If you want, I mean. To help."
"I'm willing to help."
She went to the door and shut it, and when she turned, he turned the light down low. He slid down onto his back in the bed, and then slid his sweatpants to his knees to free his cock. She came to the bed and lay on her side beside him, took him in her hand, and began her slow, teasing strokes.
"Oh…fuuuuck…" He turned his head to press his mouth against hers, to breathe his pleasure into it. They kissed while she worked him over. Soft, lingering kisses and then deeper ones as his excitement grew. He had no desire to stop them, no desire to avoid the intimacy they implied. His orgasm was violent when it came, and he bent his head against her and moaned hard into her neck.
She lay on her side atop the blanket with him until his breathing had leveled. Then she kissed him once, softly. "Did that help?"
"Yeah. Helped a lot."
She smiled. "I'm glad I could help."
He was afraid this was all some kind of dream, and that if he did or said the wrong thing, it would all vanish like a mirage.
So he didn't do or say anything.
After a couple minutes of silence, she slid from the bed. "Goodnight, Daryl."
"Nite, Miss Murphy."
[*]
Brion.
"Nah."
Brixton.
"Nah."
Bill.
"Nah."
Kiss.
"Wanna help?"
This was the third night in a row Carol had jerked him off without him offering anything in return. He didn't try anything, either, not even to slip his hands up her shirt. He didn't do anything other than kiss her while she worked his hardened cock in her hand to explosion.
Carol was very good at this. She knew that much about her talents. She might not have many gifts in other areas – she didn't consider herself sexy or adventurous or beautiful or educated or successful – but she could make a man cum as quickly and as powerfully as she wanted with nothing but her hand. It was a talent she had perfected to delay losing her virginity as long as possible with her first overly insistent boyfriend and, years later, to avoid penetrative sex as often as possible with Ed.
"Woooh!" Daryl blew out that exclamation like he was on a roller coaster that had come to an abrupt stop back at the station. "Damn." He laughed. "I mean goddamn, Miss Murphy!"
He reached for the hand towel he'd left on the nightstand (likely in anticipation of her helpful visit) and wiped himself clean. Then he used his feet to pop himself up in the bed just enough to yank up his sweatpants to his waist again. The bed bounced slightly when he settled back down. He swallowed and breathed out and then just…sat there. Like he was waiting for her to go. Which, to be fair, she had done that first night. And, well, the second, too.
He wasn't going to offer to reciprocate.
She didn't know why that was. She didn't think it was selfishness. He hadn't been selfish toward her in any other way. In fact, he'd shown her a lot of kindnesses – comforting her when Sophia went missing, rescuing her daughter, teaching her to use a gun, giving her that special knife, teaching her to use it, changing that light bulb in the evil room, leaving a note on the fridge to say where he went every day even though he must have thought it was stupid, playing tedious games of D&D with her daughter, and other little gestures too numerous to list.
If it wasn't selfishness, what was it?
Carol thought maybe he was afraid to do anything but follow her direct lead, afraid to ask for anything she hadn't already given him, afraid to offer anything that might frighten her away.
She couldn't simply leave the ball in his court. He might never return the serve.
"Will you help me?" she asked. "I could use some help, too. The same kind I just gave you."
There was a look of sudden stunned fear in his eyes that reminded her of a deer caught in a car's headlights.
"You don't have to of course," she said, feeling the disappointment begin to sink into the pit of her stomach. "If you don't want."
"'Course I want." He rolled on his side. "Roll over on yer side. That way." He rolled his finger to indicate he wanted her back toward him.
"Why?" she asked.
"So I can reach 'round and finger you."
She laughed. It was a crass way of putting it, but she could certainly use some help to put out this fire between her legs that had grown at seeing his excitement. She did roll on her side, beside him in bed, and rest her head on his pillow. From behind her, he slipped his hand into the band of her sweatpants, beneath her silky underwear, and between her legs.
His hand was strong and warm and at first the mere presence of it down her pants made her tingle harder, but then he pulled her legs apart and went straight to her clit with one callused fingertip and started flicking.
She jerked backwards, away from his hand, so fast that her ass hit his stomach hard. "Not so rough!" she cried. "And don't go there right away."
"Sorry," he muttered. He slid his hand to her hip where it completely stilled. Then, very quietly, he said, "I ain't done this before."
"What?" That was an issue Carol hadn't considered: he'd hesitated to reciprocate because of simple inexperience.
"Mean…I have had sex. But I ain't got a woman off this way before."
"Never?"
"It was always…" She could hear him swallow nervously. "It was always straight to the fucking." He bent his head and sighed into her neck.
Well, she wasn't ready for that. She wasn't ready to go straight to the fucking. "It's okay," she said, trying not to sound as disappointed as she felt. "I don't really need the help. I think I'll just head ba – "
"- Teach me," he interrupted, his voice a gravelly plea in her ear. "Like I taught you how to hold the knife. Hand over mine. I'll pay attention. Promise I will."
Carol slid her hand inside her own underwear and put her fingers over each of his, like he'd done on the hilt of the knife. She slid his hand from her hip, parting her legs by bending one knee as she did so, and positioned him, like he'd positioned her over the hilt of that knife. "Feel that?" she asked, just as he had that first day of knife training.
"Uh-huh."
"Does it feel good?" she asked.
"Uh-huh. Real good."
Carol guided him as he had once guided her, slowly and gently moving his fingers, as if she were playing the keys of a piano and bringing a song to a slow crescendo. She closed her eyes and gasped at the pleasure she was helping him to give her. She spread her legs open still more and continued to move his hand and fingers in places and ways she wanted.
She rocked against his hand and jerked her hips and whimpered as she grew wetter. When he seemed to have the hang of it, she let go of his hand and let him take over. He chased her pleasure and then caught it – and when he did, she trembled and shuddered all around his hand. She bit down on the pillow to stifle her cry.
When she had mostly stilled, Daryl slid his hand out of her sweatpants, rested it outside them on her hip, and left it there while she recovered her breathing. When she had, she rolled over to face him and kissed him softly on the lips. They kissed for a while, slow, soft kisses, until she pulled away.
"I should be going," she said.
It wasn't just that Sophia would wonder what was taking so long. This thing with Daryl – whatever it was – was strange and precarious. It felt like it hung by a thread, and leaving seemed the safest way to make sure the thread didn't snap.
"You're a'ight, though?" he asked. "It felt good?"
She laughed. "Wasn't that obvious?"
He ducked his head and smiled. "Mean…felt like you felt good. Sounded like it."
"It did." She kissed him again. "Goodnight, Daryl."
"Nite, Miss Murphy."
She slid out of bed, still tingling from his touch. When she had her hand on the doorknob, he called after her. Not Miss Murphy this time. Carol.
She turned to face him. He'd sat up and swiveled out of bed. He had his feet on the floor and was leaned forward slightly with his arms resting on his knees.
"Yes?" she asked.
He looked down at the laced-together fingers of his hands. "Are uh…are you my girlfriend now?"
Her heart seized at the innocent way he asked it. "Do you want me to be?"
"Mean…wouldn't mind. If it was a'ight with you…be a'ight with me."
"Yes," she told him decisively. "Yes, Daryl, I'm your girlfriend now."
She left him there, smiling at the floor.
[*]
In the morning, Carol found his note on the fridge:
Gone hunting.
Back in time for lessons.
- Daryl B.
Which lessons? Carol wondered with a satisfied smile. Perhaps he'd been deliberately vague, and she chuckled to think he might be joking with her. He probably meant knife lessons, however.
She started the coffee and thought that taking the initiative and simply telling Daryl what she wanted – exactly what she wanted - had gotten her exactly what she wanted. Maybe it was a tactic she should adopt more often.
She grabbed her planning notebook from the kitchen counter and flipped to a clean page. At the top, she wrote Chore Schedule and made seven columns for Sunday through Saturday. Then she began writing things like –take-out trash, cook breakfast, cook dinner, tutoring kids, hunting, fishing, scaling, butchering, wash dishes, clean up kitchen, clean bathrooms, clean butchers table, fence reinforcements, perimeter check, refill drink fridge, organizing inventory, and so forth. She began filling in the columns with names.
Shane emerged from his downstairs bedroom. Yawning and scratching his head, he walked through the living room to the kitchen. "Coffee on yet?"
"Yes."
"Breakfast ready?" He patted his stomach.
"No." Carol turned her chore list in his direction. "Because you haven't made it yet." She pointed to his name next to breakfast for Sunday. "And you can bring me my cup of coffee in the living room when it's done."
Smiling, she walked to the living room, snatched a Reader's Digest off the end table, and settled onto the couch. Shane looked down in confusion at the chore list, then at her. "How do you even know what day it is?"
[*]
Holding a grouse by its tail feathers, Daryl emerged from between the trees of the small wooded area and began walking parallel to the train tracks. He came across T-Dog and Glenn finishing up the fortifications on the chain link portion of the back fence. "Looks good," he said.
"I think so." T-Dog wiped his sweating, bald head with a handkerchief.
"Just so you know," Daryl directed his words to T-Dog, "so you don't waste your time or nothin', Carol's m'girlfriend."
Glenn smiled uncertainly, and T-Dog laughed. "Does Carol know this?" T-Dog asked.
"'Course Carol knows!" Daryl grunted defensively. "She's the one said it!"
"Well, all righty then." T-Dog chuckled. "I just can't say I've ever seen you two so much as hold hands, but, if she's your girl, more power to you!"
Daryl glowered.
"Don't worry, man," T-Dog assured him. "My interests lie elsewhere."
"Yeah, good luck with that," Glenn told him. "She's back at the house with Shane right now. Taking a nap."
"That may be," T-Dog said. "But it's only a matter of time, Glenny, my boy." T-Dog clamped a hand down on his shoulder. "Only a matter of time."
[*]
Carol noticed a lot of snickering at dinner between Glenn and T-Dog. They'd look at Daryl, look at her, look at each other, and then snicker.
Rick noticed it, too. "Care to share with the class?"
T-Dog waved his hand, shook his head, and went back to eating. He paused and asked Andrea, "How was the fishing today?"
"They weren't biting today," she answered. "Still want me to teach you how?"
"I'm done with that fence reinforcement. How about tomorrow?"
"I guess you better put your name down under fishing on the chore list, then," Andrea told him with a smirk.
"Why doesn't Daryl ever have to wash dishes?" Shane asked. "That's what I want to know."
"Because he does perimeter checks every day," Carol replied. "And he hunts or fishes every day. And he skins and scales and plucks and butchers it all. He brings more meat to this table than anyone else."
"I'm sure Daryl enjoys bringing you the meat, Carol," T-Dog said.
Glenn snickered.
Daryl glowered at both of them.
"Well, I've added supply run to the chore list," Rick said. "We're going tomorrow. Me, Daryl, Glenn, and…Carol." He was clearly reluctant to include her, but he apparently wasn't going to cross Daryl on that one. "We're leaving at the crack of dawn, so be ready. We'll look for seeds, garden supplies, more canned food, charcoal, propane, gasoline – whatever will serve us here for a while."
"I still don't understand why it has to be you," Lori said. "With Carl here and me pregnant. But you always were the volunteer, weren't you? For every overtime shift, every risky warrant." She shook her head and picked up her glass of water.
Carl looked from father to mother, his face glum.
Sophia gave him an out of the uncomfortable exchange: "Hey," she said. "Are you done eating? Let's get back to that D&D game."
Carl nodded, pushed his plate forward, and stood.
Daryl downed the last of his iced tea and scraped back his chair. "Yeah, let's load up on mead at the tavern and then kick that orc's ass."