Icarus Rising Read online

  She talks and talks for a little while longer but I see she is stifling yawns.

  “I don’t think you’re getting laid tonight,” she says finally, a little playfully.

  “I don’t think I’m getting laid tonight either.”

  We are soon both asleep.

  We sleep late and are in danger of missing our flight.

  We shower together, exchanging heated kisses under the steaming hot water, washing each other, she giving particular attention to my cock. She won’t, however, let things get started in the shower. “I’m not showing up at my parents with a freshly fucked look on my face and your cum running out of me,” she teases.

  She is full of nervous energy. She wants me to wear the dark wash jeans she gave me and the black woolen sweater. I do. Around my neck she drapes the purple scarf she loves me to wear. She appraises me. “Fuck, you’re hot!” she says.

  She dresses in blue jeans and a red sweater. I look her up and down. “Fuck, you’re hot!” I say. We laugh and are out the door.

  We make our flight to Detroit, her hometown where her parents still live, and it is uneventful. St. Claire’s parents have insisted on picking us up at the airport and they meet us at the gate. I give St. Claire’s mother the gardenias I had grabbed on the way to the airport. She is an attractive woman, a redhead like her daughter. She is in her early fifties, but I might have guessed much younger if I hadn’t known. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. St. Claire.” I offer a hand and she surprises me with a hug.

  “Call me Mom,” she insists. “We’ve heard all about you, Brandon.” I fight the urge not to laugh at the look I catch St. Claire shooting her mother. The look is a mixture of warning and “don’t embarrass me”.

  After “Mom” releases me, I give St. Claire’s father the box of Cuban’s. “Mom” hugs her daughter warmly. St. Claire’s father nods appreciatively and holds a hand out to me. “Nothing like a good cigar,” he says. He is taller than me by several inches. “You can’t get these in the States. Whenever Ducky’s in Canada I have her pick me up a box.” I smile broadly at the nickname. I can see St. Claire reddening.

  St. Claire’s father is a bit of an intimidating figure. Not only does he tower over me, but he has a broad barrel chest, and I know he was an officer in the military and has seen service in Iraq. Jumping from a helicopter he shattered his ankle and was forced into early retirement. None of this exactly sets me at ease as his daughter’s suitor.

  I take his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr. St. Claire.”

  “You can call me...” He has a firm handshake. “Mr. St. Claire.” I stammer and he chuckles. “I’m kidding. You can call me Pat or Colonel. Everyone calls me Colonel.”

  I nod and relax only a little. I am terrible at small talk, absolutely awful at this sort of thing. “Okay, Colonel.” My face seems to be frozen from the smile plastered on it.

  St. Claire takes her father in a big hug. Half a dozen or more preteen girls have somehow snuck up on us. They ask St. Claire for autographs. She obliges.

  It is a pleasant drive. St. Claire and her parents talk easily. I listen in awe. Is this what a family is like? I have nothing to compare it to. We arrive at the St. Claire’s.

  St. Claire’s childhood home is exactly as I pictured it. Exactly as she described it. It is a three bedroom, two storey, red brick townhouse. It is in the suburbs on the outskirts of Detroit on a street with a row of similar looking houses. The grass is green and all that is missing is the white picket fence to complete the picture of fantasy Americana. As we pull into the driveway, as if on cue, “Mom” starts a monologue as if reading from a script.

  “Ducky keeps bugging us. She wants to buy us a big fancy house,” she says. “This house is too big already. With Ducky and her brother gone, I don’t need an even bigger house, now do I? More rooms to clean. If I had my way I’d move into a one bedroom apartment.”

  “Ducky would get someone to come in and clean. Isn’t that right, Ducky?” The Colonel laughs but doesn’t let St. Claire answer. “I’ve lived in this house for thirty years. I’m not moving now.”

  “Fine. You can stay in this big old house. I’ll move to an apartment.” St. Claire’s mom jokes.

  I like her parents without reservation. When we get in the house “Mom” shows me to the bathroom so that I may freshen up. I have no idea what that means. I splash water on my face and pat it dry with a towel. I wait a minute and look around. There is potpourri in a bowl on the top of the toilet and little seashell shaped soaps beside the sink, all the small touches that make this a home. I wait another minute. I have no idea how long it is supposed to take to freshen up.

  I open the door and St. Claire is waiting for me. “I want to show you my room.” She takes my hand and leads me upstairs. There are dozens of pictures on the wall beside the stairs. St. Claire grows up before my eyes in those pictures. Baby pictures at the bottom landing and she progresses in age as we move upwards. I stop to stare at her as a baby, so beautiful to my eyes, a wisp of red hair on her otherwise bald head. I smile.

  At the top of the stairs to the immediate left is a closed door. She opens it. It’s her room. There are posters of David Bowie on every wall. Against the far wall is a double bed with a baby blue comforter. There is also a nightstand, a dresser, and a bookcase. All white wood. She ushers me inside. I’m curious what a teenage St. Claire would read. I move to the bookcase and read the spines of the books. Shakespeare shares a shelf with Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and Anne Rice shares another shelf with Hemingway. St. Claire has an eclectic collection of books.

  I hear her close the door and move behind me. “Icarus.” I look at the sound of her voice. She is lying on her bed, a wicked grin on her face. “I want to be dirty. Do you want to make love to me? Can you be quick?” She smiles and bites her lip.

  “Are you kidding?” I stammer.

  She spreads her legs, then closes them again. “I don’t know. Am I?”

  I move towards her. I honestly don’t know what I am going to do. The thought is certainly thrilling, and I am moving towards her, my manhood stirring in my pants. I don’t know if I can fuck her in her childhood bed with the Colonel and “Mom” only feet away downstairs, but I am moving towards her and she is grinning. I am saved, or interrupted, I don’t know which, when “Mom” calls out with a laugh, “No boys in your room, Ducky! I’m coming up there if you don’t come down in the next five minutes!” I wonder if I would have taken St. Claire right there with David Bowie watching. I think I might have. We join her parents downstairs.

  St. Claire and her family talk, tease, taunt and joke. This is what it is like to have a family. I envy them all, but am warmed that they have let me in. The Colonel curses like his daughter. His speech is peppered with the word ‘fuck’.

  “Okay. I’m going to ask, Ducky. What the fuck is a commitment ring? Your mother and I have never heard of the fucking thing. Is it like an engagement ring?” he says as the afternoon wears on. ”Does this mean I’m getting grandchildren soon? You better hurry up before your mother moves to an apartment on me.”

  St. Claire laughs and holds up her hand to show off the ring. “It just means we’re in a relationship. We’re not seeing other people.”

  “You moved in together. I hope you’re not seeing other people.” He turns on me with a grin. “And I’m not completely happy with that either, Brandon. I’m old fashioned. You get married. Then you move in together. That’s the natural order.” He stands, not waiting for a response. “Time to get the barbeque fired up if we’re going to eat. Come help me, Brandon,” he says in a tone that won’t allow me to escape. This is the part I have been dreading. The Colonel wants to get me alone.

  On the back deck, the Colonel prepares the barbeque and ‘“Mom” brings out a platter of steaks and a couple of beers in chilled bottles then disappears inside with a comment about letting the men talk.

  “I like you, Brandon.” The Colonel doesn’t waste time getting to the point. “I didn't like that damned a
sshole Wolf. You’re probably wondering how a father lets his sixteen year old daughter get involved with a man nearly twice her fucking age.” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I was overseas and Rachel’s mother and I thought Wolf was on the up and up. We thought he was all about her career. I didn’t know any different until I was home on leave and I dropped into the studio to see Wolf about something. He was showing off these pictures he’d taken of the two of them. Sick shit. Hardcore fucking shit. Pictures of my sixteen year old baby girl. I beat the shit out of him. I broke six of his ribs and his jaw. I put the fucker in the hospital for two months. I was going to press charges. I should have. Statutory rape, producing child pornography, a dozen other charges. Someone heard me say I was going to kill him. He was going to charge me with attempted murder. No jury would have convicted me, but Rachel begged me not to go through with it. Said she loved him. She was fucking sixteen, what did she know about love? Fuck, I should have put the sick fuck away.” He doesn’t pause and I’m stunned speechless as he continues. “I kept Rachel under constant supervision after that, didn’t let Wolf alone with her again. But the day she turned eighteen...” He runs a hand through his steel gray hair. “She moved in with him. Moved in with him! I thought I was doing the right thing. I should have killed the fucker.” He takes a long pull from his beer and throws the steaks on the barbeque, he falls to silence. I don’t interrupt his thoughts.

  I’d thought I’d been cornered for the big “don’t hurt my daughter” speech. Instead, it was a confessional, a bearing of his soul. Maybe he feels better now, I hope so; I’m enlightened. We talk for a while. I might be getting better at this small talk thing. Eventually, he brings the conversation back to St. Claire. “As a father I should say: ‘If you hurt my daughter I’ll kill you’ or I should ask if your intentions are honourable,” The Colonel chuckles. “You make Rachel happier than I’ve ever seen her. She’s been so lonely this past year. A father knows, she’s fucking crazy about you. Do you love her?”

  “I do,” I say earnestly and now it is my turn in the confessional. “I’ve never loved anyone more than I love your daughter. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I’m fucking crazy about her too...”

  Anything more I might want to say is cut off with the sound of glass shattering behind me. St. Claire is just outside the door to the deck. How long had she been standing there? How much had she heard? Likely enough, judging by the reaction. She had brought a couple more beers for the men and had let them slip from her hands at my words. She blushes furiously. “I’ll get a broom,” she stammers.

  Monday, Day 15

  St. Claire sleeps in my arms with her head on my chest. I wake before she does and gaze down at her. She is the most beautiful woman in the world to me. She wants to spend her life with me. I want to spend my life with her. If I can I will sleep with her in my arms for the next hundred years and it still won’t be enough time for me. But time is my enemy, as always. The alarm clock rings at 5 a.m., it is time we started the day.

  “I don’t want to get up,” she echoes my thoughts.

  “Then don’t. Let’s just lay here for the next year or so.” I sound a little desperate even to my own ears.

  “Order room service.” She runs a hand up my toned chest. Finding my nipple she pinches it playfully. “We can eat in bed.”

  I reach for the phone on the nightstand. I have to disturb her to do it. She props herself up on one arm as I connect with room service. I know what she eats for breakfast. It must be love. I order for both of us. “Two western omelets. Egg whites only. A pitcher of orange juice, and an order of whole wheat toast...”

  St. Claire interrupts me. She holds up two fingers and whispers, “Two orders of toast.” She laughs, throwing back her head. Her red curls dance around her face. “Make it three orders of toast.”

  I shake my head. “Three orders of toast,” I say into the phone. I’m always astonished at the sheer quantity of food St. Claire can eat, and there isn’t an ounce of fat on her. Twelve to fourteen hour days of rehearsals will do that, I suppose.

  I lay back down and St. Claire returns her head to my chest. Her hand slides back up my chest. Her fingertips circle my nipple.

  I don’t know how my enemy, time, steals the minutes but it does. Room service arrives, we eat in bed, and it is time for St. Claire to leave the bed for the shower. I watch her go. Reaching the bathroom door she turns back and looks at me. She is about to say something. She is about to say those words I ache to hear. Those three words. I can see it in her eyes. She sighs heavily and settles for: “I’m so retarded for you.”

  “Shut up, St. Claire.” I throw a pillow at her. She scurries to the bathroom.

  In a towel she rejoins me in bed. She straddles me and we kiss, her damp hair tickling me. I flip her over, and I’m on top of her. The towel is discarded. The thinnest of fabric separates us, only my boxer briefs between my hardness and her beautiful pussy. She grinds into me as we kiss. Her tongue slides between my lips.

  Her phone rings. “Fuck, just fuck.” Her hand goes to my chest to gently push me off. “I have to answer that, Icarus, I’m sorry. I think I’ve found out who bought “Icarus Ascendant,” some rich socialite, and I’m waiting for her call.”

  I move off her but not before I steal another lazy kiss. She answers her phone. It’s not the buyer of my painting, it’s Guy with another problem only St. Claire can handle, apparently. She exchanges quick words and hangs up. Reluctantly she leaves the bed.

  She dresses and gets ready to leave. From the bed I watch her. I love watching her. Before she leaves she comes back to me, crawls towards me across the king size bed and gives me a lingering kiss before she is gone.

  The building’s fitness room is impressive. I do my cardio, shower, and it is nearly seven when I am ready to start my day. I want to paint. I miss painting. I want to paint St. Claire. The concierge has assured me that today the furniture from the office, what is to be my studio, the room St. Claire and I christened last night, will be removed. Wayne has collected the phone numbers and addresses of several art supply stores and galleries. I am confident that I will find all I need. I settle on the couch to read for awhile until the stores open. This is contentment. This is happiness. I hate shopping so I hurry through the task, eager to get back home.

  I return to the condo to find St. Claire waiting for me.

  Her eyes are red. She’s been crying.

  I move towards her to take her into my arms. She holds up a hand to stop me. Her hand is shaking a little.

  “I found out who bought “Icarus Ascendant”... Darwin Oaks.” She struggles to keep her voice even. I can see the effort.

  “Darwin was a long time ago, St. Claire...” I start.

  “Don’t you call me that. Don’t you ever fucking call me that again!” her voice breaks. “You’re a slut. Nothing but a fucking slut.”

  She wanted the words to bite and they do. I’m confused. I have no idea what is going on. What had Darwin said to her? What could Darwin have said to her?

  “Darwin and I had a long talk...” A tear rolls down her cheek. Another follows. This is torment, I never wanted to see her cry. I certainly never wanted to be the one to make her cry. “You want to spend your life with me, Brandon? Did you say the same thing to Darwin before you fucked her!” Hurt is giving way to anger, and she had used my name. She never uses my name. If her goal is to hurt she is doing it.

  “I never felt about Darwin as I do about you, St. Claire. Fuck, St. Claire, Darwin was years ago. This is ridiculous.” I am utterly confused and ‘ridiculous’ was the wrong word to use. I don’t remain confused much longer. St. Claire’s voice is rising.

  “Don’t you fucking call me that! And I’m ridiculous? Ridiculous!” she half screams. “Darwin told me how you’ve been fucking her! Did I suck your dick after you had fucked her? Did I kiss you after you had finished going down on her!”

  It’s all suddenly clear to me. Darwin, the vindictive bitch, was trying to ruin
what I had with St. Claire and was doing an extremely good job of it. “St. Claire,” I implore her. “When would I have time to sleep with Darwin? You and I are together all the time. How would I have the energy?” I try to lighten the tone but am unsuccessful.

  “When do you have time? While I’m at rehearsal! Ten fucking hours a day! Is that why you don’t have a cell phone, so I don’t interrupt you when you’re with her?!” She is screaming now. “We bought commitment rings! I took you to meet my parents! Fuck! I let you come inside me!”

  I shake my head. I start to get a little angry now. She believed Darwin before she had even asked me. She had condemned me with no evidence save the venomous lies Darwin had spewed. I start to get a lot angry.

  “Fuck, St. Claire, you believed that bitch?” My voice is louder than I intend.

  “Did the two of you laugh at me after you fucked her?! Did the two of you laugh at how stupid I am?” St. Claire is screaming.

  “Ask her! Go ask your friend, Darwin!” It is completely the wrong thing to say. I know it is the wrong thing as soon as the words are gone from my lips. It sounds like an admission of guilt.

  “You deserve her! You’re nothing but a slut and she’s a gold digging whore! What whore house did you find her in anyway?” she screams.

  There is nothing I should say. I should just shut up. That doesn’t stop me. “You know, St. Claire, why don’t you just go back to Wolf? I’m sure you’ll be happier with him. If you’re looking for him try the nearest grade school. But you’re too fucking old for him now!” I am furious. I can’t believe she believed Darwin without a word from me.

  “Get the fuck out!” She is still screaming as I leave.

  I go back to the Ritz and they haven’t rented my old suite yet, so I book it. I don’t go to my rooms, instead I go to the hotel bar. I drink the afternoon away. One scotch races the next. I lose count of how many I have. I want to find oblivion. I don’t want to feel. I want to be senseless. I want to be numb.