Better Than Burroughs

Callum
The Next Morning

I barely slept last night. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking but I almost fucked her and it took all that I am to lie and tell her that I was tired. I was still hard when I woke up and I had to take care of it in the shower. She’s so bloody responsive and so yielding. She should never worry about my not coming back to her. I’d come back just to shag her.

I got out of the flat at seven while the two sleeping beauties were dead to the world. The idea of leaving Marin all alone in that place doesn’t appeal. I don’t want her to be alone and I would get her a pet but I just don’t actually want to do that. It would be permanent and I wouldn’t want an animal living in my flat for the next twenty bloody years. Too much responsibility.

I just spent the time wandering about. I stopped over to see Charlie and talk to him, let him know what’s going on and take care of the cash issue. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone for so I paid ahead a bit. Just in case. Before I went back home, I grabbed some pastries at a tiny Mexican restaurant. They make great bloody pastries. Fuckin’ fabulous. God only knows why they open so early but it works for me.

When I get back to the flat, Marin and Deck are fully awake, arguing over complete bullshit in the kitchen. Who makes the best French toast? I’m not being the taste tester and I know that’s what they’re thinking when they look over at me, pastry box in hand.

“Oi! Come here and eat this,” Deaglan demands, holding up a piece of French toast speared on a fork.

“Sod off.”

“Oooh, someone’s found his tiddy bits this mornin’,” Deck mocks with a grin. “How’d you go about that?”

Marin laughs and eyes the box, “What sort of goodies do you have?”

“Goodies you two apparently don’ need ta be eatin’,” I point at their questionable breakfast toast. Marin pouts and she’s a bleedin’ tease.

“Fuck, I was hopin’ it was a ferret. They like French toast, ya think?” Deck asks.

“I don’ think so.”

Marina

“Don’ worry about rent, I took care of it,” Callum says, taking his worn brown leather jacket off the back of the couch and shrugging it on. The image makes me want to cry. I don’t want him to leave. What if he stays there? What if he never comes back? I want him to tell me that he will but I don’t ask him to. I want him to give me a date, a time when to expect him. But I don’t ask that either. I know that he cares and that he’s trying to do something, say something without the words. Sometimes, you need the words though. But I’m being a hypocrite, aren’t I?

The mood is tense and I don’t know what to say without saying everything. He’s looking at me and he looks uncomfortable. “I hope everything works out,” I say, not knowing what else to add. He cocks his head to the left and his brows furrow and I wonder what he’s thinking.

“You sure you don’t want me to drive you guys? I wouldn’t mind…really.” Maybe he’ll change his mind. But he doesn’t smile and he’s not changing anything.

“I’m sure,” he nods, scratching his stubbled jaw.

It’s said with such finality that I start to cry. Why am I crying? I know he has to leave and I know why and I’m fine with it. I understand. I want him to go. Why the hell am I crying? His brows are furrowed and the door is just hanging open, mocking me. He doesn’t want me to go with them to the airport and he never said why. I want to go, I want to drive him, spend as much time with him as I can. Deaglan didn’t make a sound about it earlier, when I first mentioned it, and I know he felt bad for me. He did this thing with his lips that people always do when they feel bad for someone. I don’t know what it is, an odd pursing. I’ve done it and I know what people are thinking when they do it. I don’t know why I’m thinking about that, I don’t care about that. I care about Callum standing in front of me, his bags already in the waiting taxi with Deaglan.

He bridges the gap between us in one long step and wraps his arms around me. Tightly. If the mood was light and playful, I would tell him that I needed to breathe. But the mood isn’t and I don’t mind the tightness anyway. He doesn’t make a sound and he smells so good. His fingers press into my shoulders as he pulls away to look down at me with eyes so green that they look unreal.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why. I want you to go, I do,” I say as a way of explanation. I’m at a loss though and I don’t know how to voice what I feel. I don’t even know how to explain it in my own head.

“Then why are you cryin’?” he asks, his voice soft and he’s not really asking for an answer. He’s just pointing the fact out, but I answer anyway.

“Because I don’t want you to go you prick!” I curse at him but it doesn’t hold the malice that I hoped it would. A small smile breaks out across his face when I say prick and I hope his drinking doesn’t rub off on me.

“I’m comin’ back and things’ll be different.” His voice is quiet and earnest as he leans down to kiss me. It’s not deep, just light and on the surface. He kisses my lips over and over, almost frantically, the stubble on his face scratching my skin. I like the feeling. It makes my skin tingle. He should somehow just magically always have stubble. There should never be any shaving. He moves up and places a kiss underneath each eye and I slowly quit crying under his tenderness.

He moves back to my mouth and with each light kiss, his body moves farther and farther away and I know that at any second, he’s going to leave. A hand comes up to touch my cheek bone as he pulls away, muttering words in a language that I don’t understand, turning and walking out the door. I miss those hands already.

Callum

I stare intently at the seat belt light, waiting for it to switch off. The plane has just pulled off the ground and it’ll be a bit before we’re free to roam about the cabin. I don’t exactly need to roam about, I just don’t like not having the choice. Deck’s babbling about the flight attendant. She is a cock tease, I have to admit. Now the woman sitting to my right, not a fuckin’ looker. I gave Deck the window; I’m not really in the mood to see the sights. However, if I had known that the person sitting to my right would be such an effing arm rest hog, I would’ve been glad to see those sights. She’s too meaty to be sitting coach. It’s not fair to the rest of us. She's reading absolute trash about skinny celebrities.

I look away from the light when my eyes cross and I find nothing to stare at but air. I don’t care what’s on the other side of that air. I’m annoyed and angry. I had to leave Marin for fucksake and it was horrible. The worst fucking feeling. Well…not the absolute worst but pretty god damn horrid.

“It’s a long flight, Spud. Ye may wanna relax a bit,” Deck says from beside me, his elbow nudging. My lip twitches but that’s my only response. He continues, “That attendant, bloody gorgeous. Plastic, but still a twitcher."

Two hours into the flight, I’m bored enough to strike up a conversation with the meaty bird. She tried a couple of times, but I was in no mood to turn on the charm. I’m so god damn desperate now that Deck passed out and it seems that no amount of jabbing will wake him. He always was a heavy sleeper, the git. I glance over at the magazine the woman is reading and watch her casually flip through pages. It’s a different one, it seems to be a little better than the last reading choice. Lots of ads though. Each page now seems to be a little blurp on the most random people. Nice photographs though. Some anyway.

She flips the page again and Nick fuckin’ Cave’tastic is on the left side. What in the soddin’ world? Apparently feeling no need to stop and read the paragraph on him, she begins to turn the page. I now turn the charm on and casually set my hand down on her arm, “Can I see that for a tick?”

“You know him?” her voice is rough but she pushes it towards me.

Nodding, I quickly read the text and laugh at the guy’s little title. Actor, screenwriter, songwriter, yada yada, brooder. Gotta add that. Flipping it over to see the cover, it’s Vanity Fair. Means nothing to me. He’s rocking the mustache in the photo and it’s pretty fuckin’ hard-on inducing.

I hand the magazine back to the woman after a few minutes and thank her as politely as I can. Sadly enough, now that I did that, the gate to conversation has been opened in her mind. She asks me who he is and blah blah fuck. It quickly turns to the fact that she’s visiting her sister in Cork and she’s just always found the Irish to be so bloody fascinating. I’m not fascinating and she giggles when I say so. Listening to her rough voice grows on me though and it’s actually quite interesting. It’s not rough in a cock-havin’ way but not overly husky. It’s nice and I imagine pretty damn sexy if used the right way. So yeah, I make her blush with telling her so. It keeps my mind off Marin, flirting with a woman who I have no interest in but who will probably give her something to really twitter on about when she reaches her sister. I provide a service.

“She’s a pediatrician but she just hates her job. I keep telling her that she should quit and go back to what she always wanted to do, she always wanted to be a third grade teacher.”

“What doesn’ she like about bein’ a healer?”

“She hates kids.”

“I believe those little short ones in third grade with the jam hands are considered to be kids,” I point out. Deck needs to wake up already. I miss the sanity.

Marina

Unlocking the front door, I walk in and hang my shoulder bag up on one of the pig shaped coat hooks beside the door, “Muriel?”

“Out here sweetie!” she calls out from the back yard. I walk through the living room and out the sliding glass door and see her sitting on the edge of the pool, her bare legs resting on the second step leading down into the chilled water. She doesn’t do it to cool down, it’s because the water feels nice on her feet. Through all the pills that she takes and all the doctor’s visits, I haven’t noticed the swelling going down and I think it’s just something she’ll probably have for the rest of her life. It doesn’t look to be going away any time soon. Poor circulation is a bitch.

“The appointment isn’t until four, I did tell you that didn’t I?” she asks, turning her head back to look at me.

“Yeah, but I had nothing to do over at home so I came a bit early.” Glad that I wore shorts, I sit beside her and lay my legs down against the steps underneath the water. I should have brought my suit, she’s always saying that I can come over and swim at any time. Now sounds like such a good time to do so. I love to swim and I haven’t done it in years. I literally haven’t been in a pool in years. It seems shocking. When I was a kid I was always in a pool or at the beach. A neighbor used to let me come over and swim whenever I wanted, I would just let myself in her backyard whether or not she was home. For a kid, it probably wasn’t too safe swimming unattended but I didn’t like swimming with bunches of kids. And as for the beach, I still adore the ocean but I can’t stand the sand. The feeling of dry sand beneath my feet and between my toes makes me want to kill myself. It’s my ‘nails on a chalkboard’ feeling.

I’m really glad that I had set the alarm on my cell phone to remind me about this appointment because I would have forgotten. I had forgotten. With Callum leaving and everything, Muriel was the last thing on my mind. Thank god for modern technology because I just don’t do well with those day planners.

“Where’s that man of yours?” Muriel asks with a slight smile.

“My man left at noon. He’s on his way back to Ireland as we speak.”

“Ireland? That was sudden wasn’t it?”

“Very. A friend of his showed up and Callum went back home with him. He has some stuff to finish but he’ll be back.” I realize that the way I say he’ll be back sounds oddly too convincing. There is this part of my brain that’s trying to tell me that he won’t come back even though I know that he will. He has to. Whether or not he’ll stay here again is another question.

“Have things progressed at all between you two? Sexually?”

“Muriel!” I’m shocked even though I’m used to her saying stuff like that. She can be pretty straight forward and blatant with her questions.

“Well don’t you think it’s about time? No sense prolonging the inevitable,” she says with a laugh, pushing her fingers through her short brown hair.

“No matter, he’s gone for a bit so we don’t have to talk about that.”

“I have to live through you so shush. Here’s what you do sweetie, when he calls, you make him suffer in the way only a woman can make a man suffer,” Muriel says, turning her body towards me and setting her hands on my arm.

“And how exactly am I to do that?” I know what she’s getting at but it’s nice to see her with such excitement in her eyes.

“You know exactly what I am talking about, don’t play innocent with me. I may be old but I know what goes through the minds of the young.”

I laugh and she continues, a mischievous grin on her face, “You have to make him go wild with being able to hear your voice but not being able to touch you. You do that a few times and he’ll be on the next plane straight back here and stubbornness will be a thing of the past.”

“Speaking from experience?” I ask slyly and Muriel takes on a look of scandal.

“Such a thing to ask an old woman! I’m offended you even need to ask!”

We share a laugh and sit chatting about nothing in particular, our legs floating in the cool water. I think she has a point and I don’t see how I can possibly talk to him on the phone without attempting to kill him. Nicely of course.