Chapter 203: Mimi XXV—It Isn’t So Hard to Smile
Clean slates. Not many are allowed one, or ever have the opportunity to realize when they have one. Michele recognized hers. The air was thin here, it was dry and crisp, the city was young, casual, and the wide eyed, adoring fans had no initial idea of the gift they had received in this team, and yes, in her husband. Michele had been aggravated to no end by Jennifer Foote’s initial assumption that she was a whore when she had first arrived in the city, and it was at that point that Michele had realized that she was sick of the tag.
It was a slumber. It was a dream, a beautiful one. To fall out of a worn out, leering hell into an unassuming, innocent paradise to above all things, a Stanley Cup was a gift. For a brief spell, Michele had been happy in Patrick’s happiness, in his championship, laughed at how he did not even complain to her about not getting the Conn Smythe trophy. He really must like this Joe Sakic, Michele had thought with amusement, if Patrick was not trying to begrudge his award from him.
Relaxation. No one recognized her on the street; no one knew a thing about her. No one looked at her or cared. Michele had to smile, and no one had recognized Patrick either on the streets initially. He was not happy about that.
But they knew who he was now. He was an established public figure, they had been in this city for three and a half years now and things seemed eerily… familiar. People tagged him everywhere they went for his autograph, he smiled to them, was pleasant to them… and then he would come home. He sulked, all day he sulked. There was no Olympic medal for him earlier that year and Michele knew that it had embarrassed him a great deal, crushed something inside of him. It frightened Michele this time because she could see it on the ice, see it in his eyes and know that perhaps this was the twilight of his career. Could he survive it so soon?
I could lose him soon; Michele thought when she saw the night after night of long floating center ice goals he was allowing. If he loses himself too quickly, I will lose him completely. The honeymoon, the paradise, it was over.
Boredom. Michele assumed that a great deal of
her problem could be the stifling monotony that was the staple of a good hockey
wife. She liked Debbie Sakic, she was friendly, she was
curious and adorable. What’s more, she liked to listen to bawdy tales from the
old days, and Michele hardly kept a straight face watching Debbie brighten and
gasp as she told her of her amorous exploits in
The rest of the wives? Well they were wives, they were friendly, some of them whispered about her, she could tell, but this time Michele knew that anything they would say about her now would truly be a lie.
I am different now. Michele thought to herself.
His eyes were the first thing that caught her attention. They were a fiery blue in a face duller and sulkier than the depressed donkey in the cartoons Freddy loved to watch. He stood in the back like a wallflower, sipped alcohol and left early never with a girl.
You are a whore, and I don’t mean that as an insult because you never mean to harm. I don’t think it’s wrong for a girl to enjoy herself but don’t try to become something you can never be.
What is that?
Decent.
I am different now. Michele thought more furiously, squashing that voice from the past out of her head. I am decent. I am good. I… am…. Bored….
It wasn’t hard to find out where he lived. Michele reasoned to herself that she was not doing much out of turn, there was not much wrong with taking someone, especially a lonely sulking someone a plate of warm cookies. She knew the wives always brought little care packages like this for the lonely rookies… but they never went alone.
His eyes narrowed when he answered the door, such pretty blue eyes. What did he remind her of? “What are you doing here?”
“Are you busy?” Michele asked.
He sniffed, his eyes fell to the cookies and Michele felt her pulse quicken.
“Not really… no.”
He stepped back, opened the door and Michele glanced around his flat as she entered it. It was clean, shining clean and sparse in furniture. How unnatural for a bachelor! “Do you have a housekeeper?” she asked. She saw his eyes widen.
“No,” he replied. “I don’t need one.”
Michele cocked her head to a side and maintained eye contact with him as she placed the cookies on the table. “How can you not need one? A young man always does.”
He shrugged and mumbled something, hung his head as he looked at the cookies.
“They’re for you silly puppy,” she said. “Take one.”
He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
Michele smiled. “You don’t need to be hungry for cookies. You just need to have the taste.” What an odd boy.
He sighed heavily. “I don’t think I like you at all.”
Michele frowned. “Shall I leave?”
He shook his head. “No, not if you don’t have anything else to do.”
A very odd boy…
This was a mistake. Michele knew that now and she realized that it was perhaps a signal to her that it was done, the past was done, the games were done, and she was indeed the different person she thought she might be. How depressing. How dull… I needed to know, and now I do know.
“Well then,” she said, “I’ll just leave, I don’t want to be a bother.” She turned around and reached for the snubbed plate of cookies and that’s when she felt him. His arms, his hands were rough as he grabbed her from behind and squeezed her.
“My God!” she gasped feeling the breath leave her body, felt the hear of his arousal pressing into her, his breath on the back of her neck.
“Why did you come here?” he hissed. “Why? Are you asking for it? Is that what it is?”
Michele felt her pulse racing to explosion, felt her brain throbbing with adrenaline and fear. It wasn’t a pleasant fear, she had felt it before. “Let go of me,” she whispered.
I am different now. She closed his eyes and he let her go.
“You’re trembling,” he said in a low voice. “You’re that scared?”
Michele opened her eyes, looked at him. “You can’t scare me Chris,” she snapped.
Drury nodded, “I can try.”
Michele felt the smile twist on her mouth, a smile that she had thought had been abandoned, left behind in a different world. She felt the dampness on her skin, the dampness of lust, her heart throbbing. She ran her tongue over her lips and he pounced.
His mouth was on her throat, his hands were tugging at her shirt and Michele lost her balance, cried out as her elbow jammed into the floor with his heavy weight on top of her. She laughed through the pain, felt the crisp, thrill of her shirt lifted off her body, her bra mangled off and his burning mouth eager and tight on the tips of her breasts.
He finished quickly on that floor; Michele would have been surprised if he had lasted more than a minute. She had even counted each one of his deep, frantic, violent thrusts into her body, amazed at how painful it was even though she wasn’t being forced. What amused her was did he know she wasn’t being forced? When he came, trembling and moaning, she began to realize what it was about him that was attracting her but she didn’t want to think about it.
She stumbled to her feet, blinking back tears, feeling a torn pain inside her and she tugged her clothes back on, ran away from him. She leaned against the outside wall of the apartment building, gasping and knowing that she would be back for more, a lot more.
Free time, she had an abundance of it that was the easy part. In fact, after that first time, after the first blush, the first fumbled parting, the rest was laughably simple. Patrick was out drinking at night, sleeping for hours during the day. Jana had just started Kindergarten, the little girl already leading a mass take over of the class, her classmates were enthralled with her and she helped them in infuriating the teacher in a pattern Michele knew would repeat itself with each new school year. For half of a day, she had nothing to do and more than enough will to fill it.
The second time, he met her with more fury. She had made no phone call, no plans with him; she had just appeared at his door. She knocked, it swung open and he snatched her, slammed the door shut, his kisses brutalizing her face, his hands pulling off her clothes, he pinned her on his soft, goose down bed. Again, he waited for no pleasantries; he allowed her no moment to collect her composure, to prepare for him and she bit her lip, inhaled deeply, closed her eyes shut and again marveled at the intense pain he was tearing into her.
She spurred him with her nails, feeling his unbelievably hard muscles, something so sculpted and manufactured. She had never known the men to be like this, she had always remembered them to be wiry, lean, in shape but not the products of hours of bench pressing, this was something new. Boys, young men, they shouldn’t be built like this.
“Oh,” she gasped, as he grabbed her wrists tightly in his hands and pinned them to the bed, not allowing her the slightest amount of freedom, “I know you,” she whispered.
He let go of her, covered her in kisses, he was slowing down, finishing…
“Is that all you have?” she said and she slapped him, watched his eyes spark, saw the anger there, the pain, the indignation and she laughed as he gritted his teeth and began to absolutely bore her through with his fury, he was looking to annihilate, to harm, to destroy the demons dancing in his brain through her body, “I know you, I know you!” she exclaimed.
“I’m so depressed,” Chris gasped when they were finally finished and he rolled away from her, pressed his hands against his face.
Michele closed her eyes and grimaced as she tried to move. Had she let it go to far this time? Had she underestimated what her body could take? She knew she had to be injured, just a little. She sighed, and turned over onto her tummy and pressed her cheek onto his shoulder, ran her fingers over his chest… she smiled to herself…
“You were right,” Chris said. “I’m lonely, God dammit I’m lonely. I hate it here.”
Ooo I know your pain, I recognize it, I’ve missed it. You’re a fresh one…
“Is it so bad?” Michele asked.
“You have no idea,” Chris said. “No one likes each other in that locker room, all they do is fight no one even wants to take the team to teach us anything, show us the ropes. And Patty, what a fucking son of a… I mean…”
Michele smiled. “You can say it, he is an asshole.”
“I gotta be honest with ya,” Drury said. “I hate his guts and I want to hurt him.”
Michele yawned. “I can tell, you’ve done a good job, I think you’ve drawn blood on me, I’m quite sure of it.”
“Aw Christ,” Drury said. “I’m sorry.”
“Sssh, I am fine, I like it like this yes? Now go on,” she whispered.
Drury was quiet for a spell and then he continued. “I mean god dammit I know I sound like a baby but they’re being the babies pouting about shit that…” he was quiet again and Michele could feel his chest burning with anger, fire. This is what she wanted. She wanted his attitude, his fire, the raw energy boiling and consuming him, she wanted to own it, channel it, feed off it.
“Why not get yourself a nice girl? A woman’s touch in this room?”
Chris sighed. “I don’t like the girls here, they’re all too skinny, and bitchy, and obsessed with stupid things. I hate it here, it’s like a cow town, there’s nothing to do.”
Michele frowned. “Have you tried to find something to do?”
“No,” Chris said quietly.
Michele giggled. “It sounds like you were doing that on purpose, you’re lazy and waiting for a woman to take pity, to notice you and dote on you.”
“No!” Chris exclaimed. “I was not…. HEY are you petting me!”
Chris sat up, his eyes flashing fire again and Michele laughed and pulled a pillow over her body, as if he would attack her. “You WERE weren’t you! You were petting my chest like.. like I was a cat or a dog!”
“I’m sorry!” she laughed feeling tears in her eyes. “It’s irresistible you’re so… so…” She glanced at the soft black hair covering his chest and she went helpless with more laughter.
“Dammit,” Chris snarled and he crossed his hairy arms over his hairy chest. The attitude of his pout was the only resemblance to that angry boy she had fallen in love with twelve years ago. It was what she was looking for, she knew it, she couldn’t afford to lie about it to herself.
She saw him glaring, she laughed harder, and then she saw his nose wrinkle, he cursed, looked away and then he grinned. What a beautiful grin he had, the way he lit up with just a small smile, and then it spread to a large one and he was laughing as well. She sat up, felt the physical pain tear between her legs as she did so, and she leaned forward, cupped his round face with his soft cheeks in her hands and she kissed him softly. “It isn’t so hard to smile,” she said. “Yes?”
“Yes,” he said softly and he wrapped his arms around her body and he slid on top of her body, she felt a panic inside knowing that she couldn’t take another round… but he didn’t do that to her again, he contented himself with kissing her, his lips on her throat, then one hand on her breast and his mouth on the other. She closed her eyes, allowed him for what seemed like an extremely long period of time, ran her fingers through his thick, freshly cut black hair, until she pushed him off. “Stop it!” she exclaimed. “I nursed three babies I don’t need a fourth.”
He looked away with a sheepish face and then he grinned. “Hey do you want to have my baby?”
Michele laughed until she realized he was serious. “What?”
“Maybe you’ll be pregnant now,” Chris said. “And I thought, hey, I’d like that, I mean a baby.”
Michele frowned. “Whatever for?” Inside there was a panic in her breast as she realized that in their fury neither of them had thought to use protection. When had she ever forgotten something like that?
Chris shrugged. “I like your eyes, I didn’t at first but I really do now. And… and I want to have a daughter and I want her to have your eyes, even if I were with another girl I’d want the baby to have your eyes…. It isn’t fair! I want to keep you and that asshole gets to keep you every night! So I’d be content if you had the baby and… and… you didn’t have to tell Patrick I mean I would be content just knowing… you know?”
Michele rolled her eyes. This boy’s arrogance was amazing. “That’s impossible because I have my daughter and I would have a boy next if I were to have another.”
“You can’t control that!” Chris exclaimed.
“Why not?” Michele replied. “I did for the first three.”
He narrowed his eyes; she could see him gauging the believability of that statement. Silly boy. “Besides,” she continued. “I would have a boy and he would be covered with black hair and Patrick would know immediately it wasn’t his and then you would be dead, and I would not stop him, yes?”
Chris smiled. “OK,” he said. “Is this the last time? Are you gonna leave now and that’s it?”
Michele yawned and glanced at her watch, nestled back into the bed. “We’ll see,” she answered. “No one ever knows one thing from the next.” She pressed her hand over her tummy, sighed in bliss. Something was reawakened within her, something she should never have ignored. The old man was right. Decency was beyond her so there was no point in pretending.
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