Friday, October 15
"Brock."
"Nah."
"Bryant."
"Ain't a Bryant."
"Blaine."
"No."
Tonight, Carol learned that when Daryl nipped at a certain spot right at the base of her neck, it made her clinch her thighs together.
She learned that when he was eleven years old, he'd had his very first crush, on his fifth-grade teacher.
She learned that his favorite book was Call of the Wild by Jack London.
Saturday, October 16
Bastian.
Beowulf.
Bernie.
No.
Tonight, Carol learned the salty-sweet taste of Daryl's cock. She learned that his knees buckled when she swirled her tongue around the tip, and that their buckling made her feel powerful. She learned that it was okay that she'd never liked giving blowjobs to completion, because she could just tease him for a little while with her tongue before finishing him off with her hand, and he wouldn't complain. He'd just be grateful she put his mouth on him at all.
She learned that Daryl's first car was a 1960 Ford Mustang he'd bought from Johnny Lee Rooker for $950 and fixed up himself with parts he'd scavenged from junkyards until he got it running again.
She learned her orgasm was stronger if he lightly pinched her left nipple the moment she began to cum against his fingers.
Sunday, October 17
Barns.
Burns.
Black.
No.
Tonight, Carol learned that Daryl had never actually "gone down" on a woman, not once in his life, but that he was more than willing to try, if she was willing to teach him.
She told him she was no expert in the art herself, that she had only had one boyfriend offer to do it, that she hadn't much enjoyed his attempts, and that he'd grown bored and impatient and quit.
Daryl told her he could sit in one spot camouflaged in the forest in a ghillie suit for eight hours straight and not get bored, so he "certainly ain't gonna get bored lickin' your sweet pussy."
She laughed and told him, "Someday. We'll try. Someday. I'm not quite ready for that." The truth was, it required too much vulnerability on her part to be so openly exposed like that. He hadn't even had her pants completely off yet.
She learned that when Daryl was 12, he had a stray "pet" cat he named Wanderer, who would come to eat food he left it on the back stoop of his trailer.
She learned that his favorite color was, predictably, black.
Monday, October 18th
T-Dog, Andrea, and Shane ventured back into the small rural town where the last supply run team had looted the nursery, mechanic's shop, biker's church, and diner. This time, however, the mission was a little more risky – they'd be going to the most congested part of the town, where all the old, little houses were, to search every garage, shed, and workshop for a reloading press and reloading supplies. It was Georgia. Someone was bound to have one, and they were going to run out of ammunition eventually if they didn't start making their own.
The mission was successful. They found a progressive reloading press and a turret press both, thousands of bullets to use for reloading, brass casings, and dozens of canisters of gun powder. They even found a caliber conversion kit.
That might have been the end of their adventure if they hadn't decided to loot the local tavern. There, they ran into three men who at first seemed friendly. The men introduced themselves as Dave, Tony, and Randall. Dave sounded like, Shane reported, he had made his way down from New Jersey. It wasn't long before T-Dog was getting bad vibes rolling off of the men and Andrea was highly uneasy with Dave's leading questions about the number of other women back in her camp.
At one point, Shane sensed that Dave was reaching for a gun behind the bar and pulled his own piece first and fired. While Dave was dropping, Shane swiveled and shot Tony, who was at that moment raising his rifle. Meanwhile, Randall fumbled for the pistol at the back of his pants. Andrea drew the Ladysmith she'd inherited from her father and took the young man out. T-Dog watched it all in open-mouthed shock.
Michonne was right - they couldn't protect their little paradise forever without having to kill. The supply run team returned to Fun Kingdom with heavy consciences and six half-full bottles of liquor to lighten them.
Tuesday October 19th – Wednesday October 20th
Two more days passed, and each night, Daryl and Carol learned a little bit more about one another. Each night, her guesses for his middle name became more and more preposterous. (Banana, Bazooka, Battlestar. Bubbles, Bandit, Belfast.). Each night, they cuddled longer than they had the night before. Always, though, she slipped back to her own bedroom.
Carol learned she didn't like to be spooned for long from behind, that it made her feel trapped and reminded her too much of Ed's possession, but she loved to be curled around Daryl's side as he lay on his back and to feel his strong arms lightly resting on her. She liked when he curled against her, too, as they both lay on their sides, and bent one arm to stroke her hair while he nuzzled his nose in the crook of her neck, as long as he didn't put too much of his weight on top of her.
Daryl listened to the silent messages of her body and responded to it whenever it tensed or relaxed, shifting this way or that as needed, lightening the pressure or carefully increasing it, like he was reading the sign on the forest floor and patiently creeping up to trap some wild, frightened animal.
She learned he didn't like to have his spine traced, that it made him tense like a creature about to attack, but he loved to have his head scratched or lightly massaged, with her fingers buried in the short strands of the hair of his bent head. He was like a much-neglected cat, and when she did it, he would almost purr.
Each day they learned a little more about one another and danced a little closer. But through all this, he never once mentioned the condoms he had pilfered, never once asked to take their love play any further than she openly offered, and Carol was relieved.
[*]
Other things were happening in the world of Fun Kingdom while Daryl and Carol were exploring each other by night. Michonne and Andre were settling in and becoming part of the family. Sophia was progressing in her swordsmanship lessons with Michonne and learning to fish from Andrea. Carol was pleased with both. It was as if, after being freed from the oppressive shadow of her father, the girl had begun to bloom.
Carl was becoming quite the little marksman, mostly at Shane's instruction, because Rick spent his days immersed in planting fall gardens in the old flowerbeds and tree beds throughout the park. He was up to five small fall gardens now (one for herbs, one for sugar snap peas, one for spinach, one for carrots, and one for broccoli) and had more planned.
They continued to implement security – the watch at night and a daily perimeter check around the entire park's fence line (either by Daryl on his motorcycle or Glenn on a Segway). No one went about the park unarmed, even if they were just going for a walk. Even the kids had their own small knives now, and Carol let Sophia carry her wakizashi sword about on her back. Carl had made noises about being given a handgun, now that he'd been training, but Lori put her foot down on that one. She did, however, consent to let him carry about a B.B. gun rifle from the carnival shooting game range. They weren't going to be caught unarmed again, the way so many of them had been when the quarry camp was overrun by walkers.
Park shops and restaurants were further looted. The Crystal Arts Shop a half block down from the House of the Future became their overflow storage warehouse. They got rid of the cumbersome display cases, threw all the crystal trinkets in boxes (except for a few Sophia selected to decorate her and Carol's room), and moved in metal storage shelves and bookcases and clothing racks from kitchens and shops to organize their loot. The two drink fridges and the main fridge were refilled with sodas, water bottles, beer, and wine from the downstairs hallway. The museum display room was turned into the armory and the reloading workshop, with the looted presses hauled in and set up on workbenches. The pantry and cupboards were re-stocked, organized, and inventoried.
In the House of the Future, the future was being built, one day at a time.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
"Beavis," Carol said.
"Nah." They were sitting up against the headboard of Daryl's bed, shoulder to shoulder, legs stretched out. Carol had a different set of flannel pajamas on tonight, and fuzzy slipper socks with unicorns on them, because it was getting cooler at night, and Daryl was a stickler about not setting the thermostat in his room above sixty-two degrees to conserve power. He even had a black, long-sleeve Fun Kingdom T-shirt on tonight instead of his usual sleeveless muscle shirt.
"Benedictus." She rested her arm on his leg, with her hand on his knee, and he covered her hand with his.
"Nah."
"Bodilicious."
Daryl chuckled. "Ain't that." He tuned to her, nuzzled her neck with his nose, kissed her shoulder, and then raised his eyes to her. "So…uh….we gonna start foolin' 'round soon?"
They'd been talking awhile. Daryl had apparently been waiting expectantly for her to make a move.
"Unfortunately…" Carol said, "while I could help you, you wouldn't be able to reciprocate by helping me, so I'm not much in the mood for fooling around. It seems my unwelcome visitor has arrived."
"Hell's that mean? Mean you're on the rag?"
"If that's the indelicate way you wish to put it," she agreed, "Yes, I'm on the rag."
"Huh. Don't seem irritable."
Carol rolled her eyes toward him. "That could change if you keep saying stuff like that."
"So uh…how long 'fore your visitor packs its bags?"
"I can't be sure. It's always been an erratic house guest. It doesn't come on a set schedule. It might stay three days, it might stay five. Sometimes it drops in five weeks after its last visit, and sometimes it waits as long as seven."
"Huh."
"Now you don't know what to do with me, do you?" she asked.
"Wanna glass of wine?"
She smiled. "Or maybe you do."
He slid out of bed. "Which color?"
"They have names, you know. Chardonnay, Cabernet, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc…"
"So a pink one then?"
Carol chuckled. "Yes, a pink one if there are any left. Otherwise white."
He came back with a little single serve bottle of Barefoot Chardonnay and an actual wine glass in one hand a can of Miller in the other. He shut the door behind him with his foot and walked over to the bed and set down his beer and the glass on the nightstand. He cracked open the little bottle of wine, poured it into the glass, and handed it to her. She thought, perhaps, he was actually trying to be romantic, and the little gesture made her smile.
But then he threw himself on the bed beside her with a "Wooh Whee!" Her wine sloshed up the sides of the glass, and he dragged himself up into a sitting position against the headboard to crack his beer open with a hiss.
She ran a finger up the outside of her glass to catch the bit that had spilled over and then sucked her finger. She felt his eyes lingering on her mouth and so slid her finger slowly out and then back in. Then she smiled and began to move it in and out rapidly while making a satisfied face.
"Stahp!"
She slurped her finger out, chuckled, and sipped her wine. "I will learn to do that for your eventually," she said. "I just…I never got the hang of it. My second boyfriend never asked again after that time I threw up all over him. I guess it wasn't very sexy."
"Well, it was sexy as hell when you started me that way the other night," he said. "Don't care how ya finish it."
"I don't know what's wrong with me when it comes to that." It wasn't Ed. She'd never liked it pre-Ed, but Ed certainly hadn't helped.
"Ain't shit wrong with ya. I'd gag if someone shoved something that big down my throat, too."
"Well, they're not all as big as yours," she teased as she lay a hand on his thigh.
"Watch where you put that hand, Miss Murphy, if you don't want to start nothin'."
She smiled and lowered her hand to his knee, which she patted before she took another sip. "Did you remember to cross these off the ration list?"
"Yeah, yeah. You got three left for the week."
There had been arguments over who had been too quickly depleting the fridge of beer, wine, and soda so that it had to be refilled from the stores every few days. The solution had been a ration list, with a cap of five alcoholic drinks per adult per week, at which rate they still had about five months before all the beer and wine in the whole park ran out, at which time it would probably be starting to turn anyway.
T-Dog had stopped drinking altogether and had started squirreling his rations away in his closet, "to trade later," he said.
"What do you think T-Dog thinks he's going to trade that beer and wine for?" Carol asked.
"Gonna try to get 'Chonne drunk on it one night and try to get in 'er pants."
Carol laughed. "No. I think he really likes Andrea. He was joking around at first, but…I think he really likes her now."
"Yeah, but Andrea's with Shane."
"For now. You notice how tense things have been between them ever since they killed those men in town? I think Andrea wants to talk about it, and Shane refuses. So she's turned to T-Dog to talk about it."
"Hell is there to talk 'bout? Them men needed killin'."
"You think you could kill another person that easily?" she asked. "And then just…go on with your day?"
"Sure. If they needed killin'. Those men? They'd have gathered their boys and rolled in here if they found out where we lived. Killed our men. Done a hell of a lot worse to our women. "
"I don't think it would be that easy for me. I think I'd have a hard time living with it."
"But you could do it, right?" he asked. "If ya had to?"
She nodded. "I think so. I know so if it meant protecting Sophia. Or you."
"Or yourself!"
"Or myself, I suppose," she agreed. "I hope I never do have to." Carol didn't like this heavy topic. "Did you notice Lori has finally started being a lot more attentive to Rick?"
"Pft. Yeah. 'Cause he's been gettin' chummy with 'Chonne."
"Well, so have you."
"What?"
"I'm not jealous," she said. "It's just an observation. You're getting chummier with everyone. You're settling in. To the group. In a way you never did at the quarry."
Daryl shrugged and sipped his beer.
"Except Lori. You haven't quite warmed to her yet."
"Have you?" Daryl asked.
"A little bit. We've been sharing pregnancy war stories. Want to hear mine?"
"No."
"See, that's why I had to get chummy with Lori. She wanted to hear all about my water breaking in the laundry detergent aisle of the grocery store and the ten hours of labor that followed and how when they gave me – "
"- Think I said I didn't wanna hear it."
"Do we have any scalpels?" she asked.
"Huh?"
"From the medical supplies, from the emergency clinic in the park. Do we have any scalpels?"
"Probably. Why?"
"Because Lori might need a C-section. She had one with Carl. And usually when your first is a C-section, so is your second. I need to practice. On a walker or something."
Daryl turned his head and peered at her with narrowed eyes over his beer can. "How the hell you get stuck with that chore?"
"Because no one has any medical experience in this house."
"Why you then?"
Carol swallowed. "Because I have a little."
"Yeah?"
"I…uh…I used to patch myself up sometimes rather than go the ER and draw attention. I learned to sew my own stitches."
"Motherfucking asshole," Daryl muttered through gritted teeth and then took a swig of his beer.
"Anyway, can you go outside the gates one day and get me a female walker to practice on? In six weeks, maybe. The risk of miscarriage will be really low by then so I won't likely be wasting my time."
"Yeah, sure, go out and bring you a walker, if that's what ya want. Want some wildflowers while I'm at?"
Carol chuckled. "You know Shane brought back baby bottles from that supply run, along with the reloading presses. And formula, just in case. Lori was very grateful."
"Shit. They ain't gonna start up again are they? Don't need that trouble."
She patted his knee. "At least you don't have to worry. No one else would want me."
"What?" he asked sharply, and at that moment, she realized what she'd said.
"I don't mean that," she said. "Not like that. I don't think like that anymore." Most of the time.
"Damn well better not," he muttered. "Everyone wants you. Why the hell wouldn't they want you? They all wanna piece of your pie."
Carol snorted. "I'm pretty sure Michonne doesn't want a piece of my pie."
"Only 'cause she wants a piece of Andrea's."
Carol laughed.
"Nah. 'M serious. C'mon, you ain't seen that look she gives Andrea?"
"In your fantasies, maybe." She turned her head toward him, slipped slowly and deliberately, and then lowered her glass. "Have you ever had two women at once?"
He flushed. "Fuck no," he muttered. "Think my life is a Penthouse letter?"
"Well, it sounds like you've managed to get random women to screw you more than a few times, with almost no introduction. Rough and raw, as Andrea says."
"Hell you mean, as Andrea says?"
"I'm just saying, how would I even know if you'd had two women at once? You never talk about your past sex life."
"Ain't much to talk 'bout," Daryl told her. "And I ain't been collectin' notches on my belt."
"But you have had women…" Holding her wine in one hand, she flung her other hand forward. "Just throw themselves at you?"
"Is this how it's gonna be every time your visitor is here?"
She sighed. "I just feel inexperienced compared to you."
"Pffft. You're the one said you had five boyfriends. I ain't never had a single girlfriend before you. Not a real one anyhow. Not like this."
"The third and fourth boyfriends don't really count. They lasted less than two months each. And the first one only lasted as long as it took for me to lose my virginity to him, and then I guess he thought he'd accomplished his mission and he dumped me a week later."
"Then he was a moron," Daryl muttered.
"I guess I just worry I might be too plain vanilla for you. In the sex department. I've never been adventurous sexually." She hadn't even ventured to have actual sex with him yet. Neither had mentioned those pilfered condoms.
"Nah? Never? 'S that why ya just walked in my room one night and offered to jerk me off?"
"I had never done anything like that before in my life. And I haven't really since, have I? We've gotten into a routine. We've gotten into this routine because that's what I'm comfortable with. I'm comfortable with routine."
"Hell's wrong with a routine if every damn part of the routine feels good?" he asked.
"Well…" She laughed. It was a reasonable question.
"Like our routine," he insisted.
"I like it, too," she admitted.
"And I like plain vanilla. Best damn flavor of ice cream there is. Always been my favorite."
"Really? But didn't you love those ice cream cones we used to have in the freezer?"
"Well, yeah, that's vanilla."
"But it has nuts on top."
He smirked. "Happily put my nuts on top of your plain vanilla any time."
She chuckled and shook her head. Then she drained her wine and settled her head on his shoulder. "I like you," she said. "You make me laugh."
He put his hand over hers on his knee and tilted his head against hers. "Kind of like you, too, Miss Murphy."