Chapter 87: Foppa VIII
He’d brushed his teeth twice, used the mouth rinse, twice, gargled, then ate a rich breakfast making sure to drink lots of juice. None of it had erased any of the taste from his mouth, off his lips, on his tongue. It even felt as if his teeth were tingling still, and his fingertips. The nasty taint was still there. That’s all he had done was just nibble on the kid some, nothing more. And it had been more than enough for that time to bring tears to his eyes and blood to the skin, and Peter new he had dangled over a line, but had the line snapped?
Desperately he had wanted the press his whole body onto Chris, move into him just as he had done to the prostitute and he could see her looking at him. She knew what he was doing and it brought a smile to her face. When he saw her gaze, he had held off some, feeling self-conscious.
Joe had kissed him too, on the precipice of that ravine in Lookout Mountain. It had been a sloppy, warm one but Peter had been so shocked at that point that he hadn’t thought to reciprocate or react and as a result, he couldn’t recall what that had felt like. Now he had something, the salt of Chris’s skin on his lips and that wasn’t going away.
By morning, Peter could see the extent of the damage he had done. He saw the red welts all over Drury’s muscled, hairy body. That’s when he had run into the bathroom, scrubbing himself violently all over until his skin was rosy, then brushing his teeth over and over, and over. The image of those welts was branded into his brain and so was the guilt of what he had done.
Did it count as rape? He hadn’t entered Dru’s body, he hadn’t received any protest from him or any other indication that Dru had objected to his touch or even noticed it. So it’s not like Chris was going to be crying, or angry or really mentally that violated.
Still, Peter felt guilty. He remembered almost going too far on a girl when he was a teen; she’d been a shy, quiet thing. She was so quiet that she only squeaked a bit, moaned a bit as he had held onto her, kissed her and pushed her skirt up. He had thought that’s what she had wanted, he had thought that he was fulfilling a fantasy of hers. But when he saw the terrified, surrendering look in her eye when he was about to push into her, he knew that he had thought wrong. Mumbling apologies he had let her go and when she started crying so had he. At that moment he had discovered the intricate lines between acceptance and forcing and the complex fabric that made up the desires of women. Were men built that way as well?
Men were so different, none of them were allowed to cry about what was really bugging them in a locker room, or ask for too much consideration for their injuries. He remembered that accusing, almost hating look Patrick darted through him the second he announced to the guys he was going to take the season off in Sweden to heal. Men weren’t allowed to be weak, men weren’t allowed to be soft.
Still, there had to be a common thread between men and women. There had to be some vulnerability. Or else why would they, as a team, feel so fiercely compelled to protect Joe from knowing about Modano? Couldn’t Joe know and decide for himself how to deal with it? What made Joe such a creature in their eyes that they had to protect him so? Why had Joe sparked these emotions within him in the first place? Why was he feeling this way?
The questions were battering him just as hard as the hot shower water had. And they continued to do so until he shut off the water.
He relaxed some when he left the bathroom finding an irate, clueless Dru counting up the bites and easily buying the hooker bit him story. Tangers, and Patty, Trep, and Keaner were there yanking his mind onto other things. When Pascal bit Dru’s ass though, Peter laughed and then thought about it. What was really up with Pascal anyway? What sort of world exactly was seething under his nose? Obviously things weren’t just black and white anymore, were they? He wasn’t sure what he wanted to find out about.
He had to tell Josefina, there wasn’t a way around that. He couldn’t hold up a charade with her and hurt her. She wouldn’t take it well, he knew that much. Women didn’t like being told about other women, but a sudden taste for men? He’d definitely tell her, that is, if she was still there for him. He hadn’t heard a word from her all that day and even after the game in Vancouver. There had been no phone calls for him and the hotel where she had been staying informed him that she had checked out. It hurt a bit, knowing that he may have just lost her so fast.
He didn’t sit anywhere near Dru on the plane ride to Vancouver or the plane ride home. In fact, he did his best to ignore him, but it was impossible not to think about it. And when he wasn’t thinking, he was sleeping. By the time he had stepped off the plane, he had resolved to come clean and straight, starting with Jo. And then he saw her.
Breathtaking was not even a phrase that could scrape the surface of her beauty and he couldn’t believe she had ever lost any sort of luster for him in his mind’s eye. When he saw her, standing out within the group of wives and girlfriends like a Spanish Poppy in a field of tulips, her eyes wide and waiting, her lips as delicious as ever, he realized what kind of idiot he would be to tell her anything that might make her run.
"Is that her?" he heard Drury’s voice at his side.
"Yeah.." Peter said helplessly.
"Damn," Dru said. "What the hell did you want with a hooker?"
"I don’t know.." Peter said. "I must be an idiot."
"I’ll say," said Drury.
"I’m so sorry I didn’t call you the past couple of days," Jo said as she started the car. Whose car was it? Peter thought.
"Oh... where were you?" he asked.
"Well like I said before," Jo said as she began to navigate the parking lot. "I had to fly back to Phoenix to clear up some things, my father wants me to tell you by the way that if you turn out to be a major rat he will break your knees. Anyway, back here, I realized that I haven’t even made an attempt at seeing the family here."
"Family?" Peter asked. As she pulled the car onto the open road, Peter started noticing the blue veins on her small wrists. And her skirt had bunched up some underneath her. He could see the hem of it ending partly up her thigh, a slice of bare, golden skin, and the top of her black nylon stocking.
"My dad’s brother and his family live here, haven’t seen em in awhile and I felt so bad after missing my niece’s figure skating thingie so I’ve been spending time with them," she continued. "They’re OK but if I ever have nine kids I think I may end it all. Either way, Phil’s a nice guy, lent me his extra car, I spent a couple nights at the house but I am definitely staying in the hotel now...."
Peter couldn’t help himself anymore; he reached over and stroked his fingers in a circle over the bare skin that was peeking above her stocking. Glossy skin, smooth skin, the skin of a woman, not the hairy, rough skin of a man. Jo went silent as soon as he touched her.
Peter slid his hand a bit higher, under the silken fabric of her skirt and then slid it back down. He glanced up at her, and her eyes were on the road but he could see the tightening of her slender throat. Her lips were parted slightly, her breast beginning to move a bit quicker with her breath. The skin was becoming warmer and he buried his hand underneath her skirt, and squeezed her thigh a little. Nothing could be prettier than the sight of her pink tongue flashing out, sliding over her bottom lip and disappearing back in her mouth.
"I’ve really missed you," she whispered in a low voice.
Peter didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to spoil anything with words. Instead he glided his hand down her thigh fingering the top of her stocking and then rolling it down, slipping it off her knee. The crevice behind her knee was almost burning to the touch and damp, and as he pressed his fingers up into it she moaned. "Peter, don’t make me crash this vehicle! Phil will kill me!"
They were silent and tense all the way to Peter’s apartment building, barely even looking at each other in the elevator ride up to his penthouse apartment. Peter felt almost as if he were suffocating because he wanted her so badly. It was confusing and aggravating. This was totally overwhelming all the lust he had had for Dru which at that time seemed to have overwhelmed what he had been feeling for that whore. His brain was caught on a weird carousel, and what was more, he liked it a helluva lot.
The doors of the elevator slid open with a whir and it was like the bell at the races. He grabbed Josefina and they fell out of the elevator, kissing and locked together. His back smacked into the wall, he gasped, and slid to the ground with her on top of his lap, her thighs squeezing him like a delicious vise.
"Shouldn’t we go inside at least?" he murmured, leaning his head back and letting her tongue flick over his throat.
"Why waste anymore time?" she replied, pulling her skirt up higher.
Links to other sites on the Web