LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD
So …early the next morning…
What?
Anyway… so early the next morning….
…What?!
…Oh…
… Fine. ..
We were in the laundry room. ..
Derek's hands roaming under my clothes and across my skin. "Casey…Casey…." His mouth pressed hotly into my neck. Fingers crawling under the waist band of my pants.
His hair smelled of the outdoors -- clean wind, pine, wet snow – his skin was smooth and warm. He tasted like that damn cinnamon Schnapps but also the way I remembered from five months ago – like honey butter, whipped cream, melting chocolate – everything that is too good to resist but so bad for you that you know you should try... to resist I mean…
I don't know what I had been thinking earlier, trying to hold him off the way I had been.
There wasn't any fighting this…all those years of opposing each other had barely kept the heat between us in check. But, after the way we had parted, the weak moments since our reunion, the half-confessions, the loss of any "insignificant-others" to stand in our way…it was hopeless – impossible—to even try. And why were we still trying, anyway?
After all that had happened and not happened --It didn't even make sense to be apart any longer.
Derek held me in place against the bulge in his jeans. He rubbed himself against me and ignored my sporadic efforts to push him off. When I tried to protest – it was the laundry room for Pete's sake – there isn't even a lock on the door! -- he swallowed my words. His tongue in my mouth; I could barely breath around all his need.
When he could tell I was gasping for air and dizzy he finally let me say something --
I didn't waste the opportunity, "Let's go upstairs."
"Yeah."
Back in the living room – Ugh! My mother's family "meet and greet" holiday party had disintegrated into something from a horror film.
I didn't even want to know what that puddle in front of the couch was, or how a piece of salmon sashimi had come to be smeared across the television screen.
I did catch a glimpse of Vicky kissing something a page of Derek's baby scrapbook before Lizzie could pry it away from her.
My aunt Sandra appeared to be giving a horrified George a lap dance.
My mom was obviously directing Uncle Robert to take his family to the hotel we had reserved for them.
Derek, chuckling, drew my face into his chest so I wouldn't have to see any more of this awfulness. He led me up to my room and locked the door behind us.
There was only the dim light from the window. That was good. I was doing a terrible job of trying not to tremble, (I doubted that I knew how to do anything that Derek hadn't already had done to him at least a thousand times already –and by girls far more expert than I was. And I wasn't sure what he wanted to do to me?! Was I really ready for something like this? So far, I'd only had cautious, missionary position sex (and not much of it) . Derek had probably graduated to circus quality stunts!
The trembling was worry, fear… the climactic image of my step-brother naked and in front of me – whoa! – and now – (most embarrassingly) -- I was trembling with anticipation.
His body was perfect. All muscle, tall, angular, – Derek had always been this undeniably enticing mix of hard and soft – the raised white skate blade scar on his bicep vs. the smattering of freckles on his chest -- the lanky boyish frame with the ropey firm muscle – the guarded, aggressive look to his eyes set against the long curling girlish lashes and full pretty mouth…
But I didn't need to worry: Derek was so romantic and gentle – he wasn't at all the boy I had heard on the other side of my wall during our high school years.
I think he kissed every inch of my body after he undressed me – he'd batted my hands away whenever I tried to help. His mouth was so warm and wet and teasing against my skin that it made me crazy with wanting him. I was panting and pulling at him.
Even when he was –finally! – inside of me, he still wasn't close enough.
I had worried he only wanted my body – that the act we had started before he left, just needed to be finished for the both of us to move on. But that wasn't it. I could tell from the moment he entered me – I know his face and all his expressions so well – that this was just as monumental to him as it was to me…raw and innocent.
"How did this get so screwed up, Case?"
Everything in the house beneath us had drifted to silence at some point during the "finishing of the act" happening in my room.
Actually, (and to begrudgingly give Derek his due), there were three different instances of "finishing the act" that could account for the time lapse.
We were both naked and exhausted (but in a really nicely satisfied way – which was a completely new experience for the two of us. Satisfied was something that neither of us had yet to feel in all the nearly four years of being thrown together in almost every imaginable situation -- and a few pretty unimaginable situations when taking the outside world (ie: family and friends) into consideration.
But all this taken into account… No, I can't say that I EVER experienced the kind of satisfaction I was feeling in that moment.
"Well…" I was pondering his question, rolling it around in my mind like it was the essay portion of my sociology final. "I think I would have to begin my answer by detailing several events that occurred before the wedding…there were most definitely sparks of this when we planned to break our parents up so that we wouldn't become step-siblings…"
Derek rolled back on top of me and I gasped…surely he didn't?… But he was only pinning me underneath him to better lock his hand under my jaw.
"I forgot what I was dealing with here…" he muttered.
"I meant…how can we get things unscrewed up enough for me to be with you?"
"Be with me?" I tried to say but because of his hand locking my teeth together it came out more like "eee wif me?"
Derek smirked then and released me. He plopped back beside me to stare at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head.
It was classic Derek –scheming posture and it made me nervous – probably a latent symptom of Post traumatic pranking. "What are you thinking?"
I'd had a lot of experience with this Derek-scheming look . It usually morphed into a suspicious and narrow-eyed "What's it to ya?" – and then some sort of threat was issued against my ratting him out.
I'd had even more experience with the Derek-scheming look morphing into an evil, smirking "You'll find out soon enough" – meaning soon my clothes would all be missing or my homework would be mysteriously dipped in honey or my cell phone was waiting for me in the mayonnaise.
But this was the first time I'd EVER seen Derek-scheming turn into something soft and protective. He curled me into his side, "I'll take care of it. Don't worry. Let's go to sleep."
Oh okay. That made sense.
No. Not "really"!
Of course not!
When had Derek ever "taken care of " anything in a way that would also allow me not to worry?!
NEVER – that's when!
LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD
The next day it became clear that my mother had completely returned to the original set of plans I'd drawn up for her reunion.
I think she was hung-over (Well, naturally they were all absolutely and thoroughly hung-over ) but I think my mother in particular was so hung-over that she was clinging to my plans like a like a drowning person.
"Skating? You expect all of us to go skating?" Derek was standing over me, fully dressed, with wet snow dripping off of his hair and onto my face. Somehow it had become morning and I hadn't been the first one in the house up and ready. Ah – because last night was just so…
More wet snow dripped from Derek's hair onto the bed.
"Skating?" I croaked.
Derek nodded at me sardonically, "Is it all coming back to you now?"
And he looked really pissed off about something…and …totally hot in that tight thermal t-shirt and those jeans with the holes in the knees!
I stretched under the sheet – my whole body felt sore and …used…but in a really, really good way. I guess I was…relaxed. It had been so long that I didn't have the word for it at first.
Like he could read my mind – and if anyone could then it would be him – my conceited step-brother smirked at me so we both knew that he was giving himself a mental pat on the back for having done such a great job the night before.
"Feeling a little proud of yourself, Derek?" I grumbled at him.
I could follow the pale line of hair leading under his naval and into the waffle-knit waistband of his long-underwear. Damn. Did he have to make everything look so good?
Another shower of slush sprayed me. This one was more deliberate than the last.
"Der-rek!"
"You might want to wipe that "do me again Derek" look off your face and get some clothes on before the entire family…"
But he couldn't really finish that sentence because – the entire family managed to file into my room looking like reject models from an L.L. Bean catalogue: Marti wearing a long underwear with a tiara and ballet tutu (cracked-out Sasha Cohen?) , Edwin in a beige ski-mask and puffer jacket (Mr. Clean as a super-villain?), my mom with a flannel nightgown tucked into her jeans –bags under her eyes and a greenish shine to her skin (Mrs. Claus after an all-night eggnog party with the elves?), George with an even greener shine, three sweatshirts and a pink -- mine? -- rain-slicker (homeless person?). Finally, and -- most frighteningly of all -- Lizzie was wearing all of Derek's old high-school J.S. Thompson High School varsity hockey gear (Derek?!).
I drew the sheet up to my chin and tried not to look…naked...
"Umm…Hi everybody….what are you all doing in here….dressed…like…that?"
My mom was shaking the contents of an aspirin bottle into her mouth so it was difficult to make out her answer "Skating and riffle miffle miff." She handed the aspirin bottle to George and started gulping coffee from her 'I am a sensitive and powerful woman' mug (it was the biggest one in the house and usually functioned as a cereal bowl) .
Derek waved the lavender pages of my reunion plans and schedule in front of my face. "You signed us up for the …" his face scrunched as he read my curly script "… "Santa Fun Bus' and a" … (gagging noise) "…magical morning of ice-skating and hot cocoa set on a picturesque Canadian woodland pond." Derek dropped the pages onto my stomach in disgust and I glared at him.
If I wasn't so busy holding up this damn sheet he wouldn't be standing over me so superior right now…Oh…he'd be shedding that clingy long underwear shirt and letting me lick that snow off his…
Focus Casey! -- Entire Family standing in room and waiting for direction.
"It'll be fun?"
They all stared at me, dumb, angry, afraid – (the three major ingredients to an angry mob).
Derek sighed – but he was secretly laughing at me –of course I could tell: his eyes, the set of his shoulders …
"Well it won't be fun but it WILL be HERE in less than fifteen minutes so LET'S GET CRACKING PEOPLE!" He ushered them all out of my room and down the stairs. (No one ever thought to turn angry mob on Derek).
I would have been resentful if he hadn't poked his head back into my doorway to smile –slowly, sexily – at me.
Damn!
LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD – LWD
"Santa's Fun Bus" was mercifully more of a van than an actual bus – so it was a comfortable 90 minute ride through the woods to the little cabin we would have access to while we skated.
There was a quick stop to rent skates for the out-of-towners – the van took us in shifts – so the McDonald-Venturis were alone on the serpentine frozen pond for some time before everyone else joined us.
The pond was actually three connected frozen mini ponds: all jagged edged with overhanging frozen branches and tall banks of snow cleared to make skating surfaces. It was beautiful.
Too bad most of the family couldn't appreciate it thanks to the previous night.
While we waited for the relatives to arrive, Lizzie took the time to impress Derek with her various hockey moves. She had completely dropped soccer in the last year to devote herself to girls' hockey. And she was good.
I was beaming proudly at her while Edwin stood by me scowling (not easy to do in a ski mask).
"Do you know how bad it sucks to be Derek Venturi's less coordinated and less attractive younger brother? Now, with Lizzie being nearly as big a hockey star as Derek, I seem like some sort of family mutant."
It was hard to disagree with someone sulking in a puffer coat and beige ski mask.
"Your not a mutant, Edwin." ( It was the Christian thing to say.)
Just then Marti hit him in the back of the head with a poorly formed (read: wet and slushy) snowball. Water dripped off the skin colored top of his head and into his eye-holes.
The cabin itself was slightly less impressive than "Santa's fun van." With a little wood-burning stove in one corner, braided rag rugs, Styrofoam cups and an industrial sized, self-serving thermos of watery cocoa, it was clearly just a place to warm up. Obviously "Santa's fun helpers" wanted to make sure nobody got hypothermia and decided to sue before the fun bus could haul our asses out of the "picturesque Canadian woods" and back to wherever we came from.
When the others got there it was fairly cheerless display of hung-over people skating listlessly in circles, desperately hoping not to vomit or freeze to death before they could return to the warmth of their hotel rooms.
Uncle Robert and Aunt Sandra had the saddest marriage I had ever witnessed. The light of day and sobriety had done nothing to make it seem like they were at all aware they had arrived at this reunion together.
Uncle Robert had all his attention on his Blackberry as he shuffled along the ice and Aunt Sandra was alternately trying to skate seductively in front of Derek (who ignored her) and George (who would stop dead in his tracks and switch directions whenever she approached him) .
Finally (and pathetically) my aunt turned her creepy attention to Edwin who seemed delighted that someone, anyone, had noticed him-- I tried to be happy for him.
"You think the kid will get laid finally?"
"Gross Derek."
He would cross in front of me every so often to try out all his new penalty moves – knocking me to the ice, cross cutting, elbowing. It was a ploy to touch me, of course. His inappropriate methods of "helping me up" proved this, so I didn't really get mad.
"Is this the way you always help up your fellow skaters after you charge at them?" He'd managed to slide one hand up the side of my jacket and was running his thumb over my breast.
"Hah. I never help anyone up."
"And you shake off your own teammates when they…" I was trying to pry his hand out from under my turtleneck but he wasn't letting me. "Arg. ..When they try to help you…"
"I don't want their help," he yanked me up against him and started skating me backwards at a pace that he knew I couldn't keep up. I had to cling to him to keep from crashing to the ice.
If he thought that would shut me up then he was wrong. "You know Derek, there were times…that I watched you…when…"
It was kind of terrifying to be at his mercy like this as he flew us over the ice and around all the curves and narrow twists of the pond. "Can you slow down?!"
He finally did on the edge of the farthest ice pool. "Jeez Casey – I had hold of you the whole time – I do this for a living you know…"
The reminder of his "living" sobered things between us. He let go of me.
"There were times when you watched me …" he prompted me again.
I didn't want to get into it. Everything had been so sweet the night before – we were happy and I didn't want to ruin that. "Nothing."
"Tell me." He already looked guilty. He knew what I was going to say.
I'd seen him shrug off help and skate carelessly – and we both knew how unhappy he was. I mean when you thought about it… the things he did off the ice… the things he did ON the ice. He didn't care if he got beaten up and he didn't care if he got hurt.
But was he actually trying to get hurt some of the time?
Oh I didn't think he was suicidal or anything! Still… just the right injury…a knee getting torn bad enough or a leg break…an eye injury… would end his career (or dampen it enough that he would no longer be so valuable to the Cannucks).
"You watched me …" he prompted me again. But, he didn't wait for my answer this time, "You thought I might not mind getting hurt. Sitting out for a while?"
He glared at the ice like he was remembering – maybe thinking of all the instances of his getting knocked around, taking risks, seeming almost disappointed when fights didn't escalate, when wild skating feats went off without a hitch. "Sitting out for good?"
I still didn't answer and his guilt slowly morphed into something darker.
"Just now. " He gestured in back of me to mean the jagged pond edge we had just careened down. "Did you think I was being careless like that – with you? You think…what? I wouldn't take care of you – be different with you – if I could…"
I couldn't follow his train of thought anymore. He couldn't follow himself!
"Just forget it," he muttered and glided away from me.
I didn't even try to catch up to him. He was too strong and too good at this. It took him like two strides to go sailing back into the next rounded pond area, leaving me stranded. I sighed and made my way slowly back.
Derek had smoothly entered into a little hockey game between Marti, Lizzie and my cousins Jessica and Dave.
He followed expertly behind Marti helping her swing her little hockey stick and keeping her upright when she stumbled. He was incredibly graceful on the ice. Oh hell, he was pretty graceful doing any sport. But, something about being on the ice highlighted Derek's agility, speed and reflex like he was born to be there. So, of course, my cousin Jessica couldn't take her eyes off of him.
Marti got the puck right by her.
"Yay, Smerek!"
Derek picked his little sister up and swung her around.
I wasn't the only one watching them. George was across from me watching them too – he was standing with my mom and they were looking on with faces shining with pride and happiness.
I wanted Derek to turn around and see them – for once it was his being a big brother that made them proud and not just the hockey.
Why couldn't they be like this all the time with him?
It was always the things that Derek did wrong that got our parents' attention and never the good things about him. Like how caring and sweet he could be and how great he was with kids or how creative he could be. It was always only the hockey.
As exhilarating as it was to watch him play hockey, and as naturally good as he was at the sport, I wondered what his life would be if he hadn't been so talented. Maybe not a terrible hockey player but just… an average one.
There would have been no contract right out of high school.
No penthouse, no sports car, no maid …he wouldn't have lasted with Sally.
He wouldn't have been the great Derek Venturi of our high school years – I know a good portion of those girls he'd been with were only with him for that.
Lizzie would be the family hockey star.
Edwin wouldn't be a mutant…
"You're a lucky girl, Marti!" George yelled out to where she still smiled adoringly at her big brother. "The star of The Cannucks just gave you a private lesson in winning a hockey game!"
Derek's eyes met mine in that instant and he caught my wince. He set Marti back down and gave his dad a half-hearted smile.
"That wasn't the star of The Cannucks, George." The words were harsh out of my mouth. I didn't exactly intend to sound this way. I intended to say it teasingly and light. I'd never been good at that though. Sweet-talk was Derek's specialty, not mine.
"That was her big brother helping her, not some hockey star." The last words came out in a scoff.
George looked confused but then smiled sort of offhandedly, "Oh…yeah…that too."
Derek smirked at me and glided over with Marti's little hockey stick.
I thought we were going to skate together again so I tried to match his stride – what was I thinking?
He hooked me with Marti's stick and I crashed face-first off the pond edge and into a pile of brown slushy snow.
"Der-rek!"
- TBC –
LWD –LWD – LWD – LWD- LWD
I think I have one chapter – maybe two left.
Thank you, thank you for reading and…
Happy belated birthday to my sister – it means so much to me that you are always willing to read the stuff I write. I love you!
pheobe