nuagederose

[nuagederose]

Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty-Four: Little Bones

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Despite the warmth of the afternoon, Chuck huddled up next to Christine there on the bus, and all the while, he kept his hands pressed down onto the crests of his knees. She sniffled as she struggled to keep the tears at bay: every so often, one would leak out, and she bowed her head forth so no one would see her crying there in the seat next to him. The two of them leaned forward and rested their heads upon the back of the seat in front of them: it reminded her of the times in which she would ride the bus to school with Ann, and they would sit exactly like that.

The memory felt so faint and so far away, but she could remember it through the fog bank which whirred about inside of her mind. Indeed, thinking of the memory bestowed a glaze upon her face, such that Chuck had to shake her a bit to garner her attention.

“I bet it is hard,” he admitted to her; he kept his face close to hers, such that she could smell the cologne on the side of his neck as well as the drink on his breath. The latter never fazed her for a second, but she knew that it could possibly give them a little run of trouble in the future should things ever manifest in the way that he had suggested to her before.

“I had him in my arms,” she whispered to him as the bus lumbered forward along the street. “I cried into his chest. I never thought I would bleed over a man so much as the way I did, but I did.” She could feel her throat closing up from the thought of losing him to her, to Captain Howdy.

“And what did he do?”

“He vowed that I would never lose him,” Christine recalled, “but the thing is I really don’t know if he understands the damage she’s done unto him. When she’s in the picture, it’s like he goes into tunnel vision of sorts and he forgets about anything and everything else that matters. The day of the wedding, I really could lose him.” She closed her eyes and felt her bottom lip tremble from the apprehension. Chuck shifted his weight, but he moved in closer to her. He was letting her vent and bleed on her own.

“So, when is their wedding?” he asked her in a low voice. “Do you know at all?”

“First night of Hanukkah,” she replied, and she huddled closer to him. “Or rather, the day after Christmas.” She sniffled again. “I really just… I love him, Chuck. He’s the love of my life. And he tells me that I won’t lose him at all, but I know in my heart that the second he signs his name on the dotted line, that’s it. He’s pushed into Captain Howdy’s arms and then I’m ancient history.”

Her bottom lip trembled from the thought, and Chuck rested a hand on her upper back.

“Well… let’s start from the beginning,” he coaxed her. “School starts after Labor Day so you can make it known that you’re sleeping with him before then.”

“Before?” Christine raised an eyebrow at the sound of that.

“Oh, yeah, you ever hear a wild rumor about someone at school before?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” she answered.

“The juiciest ones always start on the first day or before school starts,” he told her. “That’s when everybody is new, so to hear something like that from the start sets the tone for the year. It’s like laying the roots down for how the school year is going to go for that person as well as the periphery. Think of the time when you got back to school following the summer of someone’s growth spurt. It’s like that.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like that.” Her memory was foggy and dark, but she did have a slight memory of that particular summer and that particular first day of school. She could not recall as to whom it was that came back beginning to develop such as that, but it rang through her mind, however.

“How do you think I should do that?” she asked him with a knitting of her eyebrows at him.

“You leave that up to me,” he advised her, and he flashed her a wink. Christine gaped at him.

“You wouldn’t!” she replied in a hushed voice.

“I’m going to,” he promised her. “Really, it’s going to be mental, and I won’t hold back, either. Just as long as you’re comfortable with it, because that’s a huge rumor to spread.”

“It really is, and I don’t think I’m very comfortable with someone else spreading something like that about me, either. Let’s approach it together as well as slowly, like uh… how about…” She shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno, like Alex and I get caught in the act.”

“And I’m the one who catches you, too,” Chuck quipped.

“Yes! Yes, and then you spread the rumor from there. That way, I can have some sense of control over it. I can also do things like deny it.”

“Say I was drunk or that my eyesight is bad,” he followed along, and he had a particular twinkle in his eye that Christine found rather endearing.

“And that’s exactly what I’m going to do, too. We can go from there after that.”

“It’s just finding the right moment to do that,” Chuck followed along some more.

“He wants to take me up to Lake Placid before school starts,” she informed him. “The weekend before Labor Day, too, so we have the place all to ourselves. I’ll give you the full scoop, too. You could say like… you just so happened to be there and you saw us together.”

“I can’t just so happen to be there,” he pointed out, and he lifted his head right as the bus halted right to the next stop. He fluttered his eyelids at the feeling and then shook his head.

“You okay?” she asked him.

“Yeah, the bus just kind of… braked suddenly is all. I also couldn’t remember if this was my stop, either.”

“Surely, you would know,” she told him.

“I do kind of know and don’t call me Shirley,” he joked, and she giggled at that. “Anyways, I could say that I was visiting my friend up there before school started and I just so happened to see you there. How ‘bout that?”

“I like it,” she told him with a nod, and she raised her head up from behind the seat. “I can roll with that. But wait, what about Nelly?”

“What about her?”

“She got me into this in the first place,” Christine explained. “She’s the whole reason why this whole affair with Alex is as clandestine as it is. If she finds out about this rumor at all, she’ll wanna know what the hell happened and what we did to get caught.”

“I could just be an outsider to the whole thing,” Chuck suggested. “You know. New boy, just visiting his friend and he saw one of his professors with a girl from his class. He didn’t know what was going on but it wouldn’t surprise him at all. You could swear up and down that you thought you were alone together there. Takes the responsibility off of you as well as me because I could do the whole ‘I heard this’ nonsense, you know?”

“True, true… there’s a part of me that worries, though,” she pointed out. “You know, Alex could get fired and lose his teaching license, and I could get expelled and my parents will wonder where the hell they went wrong, especially since they don’t know about Alex…” She sighed through her nose. “This is a lot harder than I thought.”

“It really is,” Chuck confessed, and he once again leaned his head against the back of the seat before them. “Understand, you are older, though, so I don’t see it being that scandalous so to speak. It’s hard to say, though, especially when you bring up your parents.”

“Yeah, an affair is an affair,” Christine noted. “And it’s true that I am having one with him.” She showed him a wink, and he returned the favor with a smile.

“I remember when Eric tried to spark a rumor that Captain Howdy was a lesbian,” she recalled, and Chuck snickered at that.

“And how’d that go?”

“It actually didn’t get off the ground,” she said. “He tried to say that Alex was with a closeted woman, but I haven’t heard anything of it since then, though.”

“Actually, now that you mention it, I do remember that,” Chuck said with a wag of his finger to her. “I remember hearing about it in summer school, like on the first day I was the aide. It was one of those things that I heard in passing, too, and I had to stop and really pay attention to it.”

“Do you remember who said it?”

“I don’t. But it was a couple of girls, though, which means it does have some traction to it.”

It was as if a lightbulb had gone off in Christine’s head right then.

“Hey, yeah, that’s it!” she declared. “Let’s parlay on that.”

“Alex is with a lesbian and looking for a way out,” Chuck followed along, and he raised a fist to her for a bump. She gave him one, and then he raised his head again as the bus came to the next stop. “Oh, here I am now. You got my number, and I have yours.”

“Indeed, I do,” she promised him as he gathered himself and stood to his feet. She watched him pad off the bus with a few other people; through the amber light of the setting sun, she could see him walking up to his apartment building with the key to the front door in hand. Though she was risking something by sparking a rumor, she knew that she could work her way around it all once the dust had settled around her.

But she knew that she would have to dig back into Nelly’s realm before she went any further, however. If nothing else, she had to set the record with her lest the rumor find its way over to her at any given point: something told her that it would as Nelly knew everyone in the school.

The bus reached the curb outside of the front door of her apartment complex, and right as the sun disappeared behind the rest of the buildings on either side of her: the amber light began to shift and change color to bright pink interlaced with violet. She hoped that Nelly was home as she made her way to the second apartment on left side of the second floor.

Christine was greeted by the sound of Stephen Stills emanating from her mother’s apartment right across the hallway. She smiled to herself and hoped that at some point or another, Wendy would make that chocolate tres leches cake that was always wonderful in the thick of summer, in particular those dog days of summer when the heat seemed to drag on and out. If nothing else, she could take something back to Alex to further seduce and entice him.

She ducked inside of her apartment, opened the windows to let the evening air inside, and fetched her phone. She still had Nelly’s number in her address book, and she was quick to dial it.

It rang once, twice, three times, and then she reached the machine. It was so strange to hear Nelly’s voice after not hearing it for some time prior to then, but Christine had to think of the matters at bay.

“Nelly—it’s Christine,” she began, and all the while, her voice trembled a bit. “I just really want to talk to you, especially since school’s going to start soon. I don’t want anything bad between us, and especially not this year, either.” She closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. “I need you, and so does Alex. Give me a call if and when you can, thank you. If I’m being completely and totally honest, I want to tell you that I miss you.” She hung up and ran her fingers through her ponytail there at the back of her head.

With nothing more to add, she changed into her pajamas of a camisole plus some shorts, and then she padded across the hallway to have dinner with her mother. All the while, she never made one mention of Alex or the wedding to Wendy. Something told her that she was eventually going to have to come clean, even before Chuck had showed up, but she knew in her heart that she would have to prepare herself for the worst.

The next morning, Christine woke up bright and early to fetch herself a cup of coffee as well as a bite to eat, but before she even so much as put her shoes on, she picked up her phone once more and dialed Alex’s number.

It rang once, twice, four times—

“Hey, it’s Alex—I’m either out teaching a class or doing something else. Leave a message and I’ll try and get back to you. Thank you.” The beeping sound followed, and Christine closed her eyes.

“Hey, baby, it’s Christine,” she told him, and her voice came out in a near whisper all the while, especially since she knew that Wendy had to be awake at that point. “I’m just getting back to you as promised. Um… give me a call back if and when you get this. I love you.”

No sooner had she set the phone down on the little side table by the couch when it rang again. She pressed the button and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey!” His voice hit her like a brick.

“Oh, hi!” She could feel her face growing warm from the sound of his voice. “I just left you a message.”

“Yeah, I saw it just now. What’s happening?”

“You wanted me to call you today,” she explained.

“Yeah, I did. Because I just… I wanted to hear your voice. I needed to hear your voice, actually. I honestly can’t stop thinking about yesterday and the way that you cried to me.”

“And I can’t stop thinking about it, either,” she confessed, and she could feel the tears welling up at the mere thought of it.

“I still want to take you up to Lake Placid,” he said; his voice was as tender and sweet as ever. “Week before school starts, we find ourselves a little cabin in the woods and have some fun, if you catch my drift.”

“Let’s go alone,” she suggested to him. “I want to go there with you and only you.”

“Of course!” he promised her. “The whole shindig wouldn’t be a date with my girl Christine Sixteen if it wasn’t just me and her.”

“I wanna take our mugs, too. You know. The mugs I made for the two of us—you and me, I mean. Let’s make this all our own because I want you to have a good memory to ruminate over before the wedding.”

“Oh, those! Yeah, I agree. Let’s take something of ours and then go to the place where we can be alone. We can camp out in the woods together in a little cabin and have those mugs on hand. I’ll make us some coffee and we can spend all the time in the world together.” He then cleared his throat. “Bring something baked, too. That apple Brown Betty was just to die for, let me tell you.”

“Oh, I can tell,” she promised him, and she couldn’t resist the smile on her face at that. “How about something sexy like… something chocolate and laced with some spices?”

“I vote yes,” he answered, and he cleared his throat right then. Something about the sound of his voice made her wonder, as if he was hiding away in the closet in the hallway or in the bathroom, away from those prying ears.

“My mom makes a mean chocolate cake laced with cinnamon and nutmeg—it just tastes like chocolate pudding with some Mexican hot chocolate mixed in,” she explained.

“Ooh, like a… a, uh, tres leches cake?”

“Yeah! It’s especially good this time of year given her kitchen gets so hot and everything.”

Alex cleared his throat again, and Christine wondered if he really was alone in his apartment, as if he had just ducked into the closet or the bathroom, away from Captain Howdy.

“Alex,” she began again.

“Yes?”

“Are you alone right now?”

“Yes, of course.” He paused right in his tracks. “Why?”

“You just sound like you’re trying to keep your voice down is all.”

“Nah, I’m laying in bed,” he replied, and she could hear him stretch after that. “When you called me, I had literally just woken up. It is still early after all. I’m laying in bed, flat on my back with my hand up my shirt to touch my chest. I wish you were here to hold me right now.”

“I would love to hold you,” she admitted. “In fact, that’s all I feel like doing right now, especially since you’re in bed and everything.”

“And believe me, if she was here, I wouldn’t be talking to you, period,” he assured her. “The very second she walks through my front door, she puts a monopoly on everything I have, to the point where I have absolutely no escape whatsoever.”

“I really wish I could hold you now,” she confessed in a soft voice. “Like, you deserve to be held so snug against me like a big teddy bear. A big teddy bear with a soft cute belly.”

“And you deserve a big teddy bear,” he said, “and god, I wish you could seriously hold me right now after hearing all of that.”

“I’m about to go and get some coffee as well as something to eat at the restaurant near my place,” she told him. “You wanna meet up?”

“Oh, god, I wish I could, but I have a professor’s meeting at the school today,” he replied with a sigh. “I have another one tomorrow so tomorrow morning is no good, either. I feel like I keep making promises to you and they just fall through because something always happens. That’s why I really want to take you to Lake Placid before school starts, you know?”

“Just you and me away from the world…” Her voice trailed off.

“Just you and me,” he echoed her. She heard him grunt on the other end, which was then followed up by his bed making a noise. He was telling the truth.

“You know what’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately?” he began again, and his voice remained low and throaty.

“What, making out with me?” And she couldn’t resist smiling at that.

“Well, that, too,” he quipped, and she could hear him chuckle on the other end. “I’ve been thinking about trying to be more romantic towards you, especially with summer almost over and school starting soon here pretty soon. There’s just… something about this time of year that makes me nostalgic in a way.”

“The days are still warm but the feeling of fall is in the air,” she followed along.

“It makes me all warm to think about, too,” he continued. “It gives me a tender feeling inside and… I want to come forth with this big Skolnick gesture towards you. Let’s go to Lake Placid. Let’s go to the ocean, too, and when I say the ocean, I don’t just mean Coney Island. I mean, further away. I’m talking Cape Cod and New England. She’s doing some wedding planning bullshit that I really just don’t want to think about the longer I’m talking to you, so I want to get away from that, and I know you do, too. What do you say?”

“When do we want to go?” she asked him, and she thought back to Chuck’s plan for a brief moment.

“How about next weekend? Gives the two of us some time to plan ahead and everything. I’ll just mosey on out of here without a word, too. She doesn’t need to know where I’m going.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Christine assured him, and she couldn’t resist the smile on her face, either. “She absolutely does not. Let’s do it.”

“Okay! I’ll get us a room and then we can sneak on outta here, lock, stock, and barrel. Go eat, dear Christine. I can tell you’re hungry.”

“I can tell that you are, too, baby,” she told him, and she heard him chuckling at that. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“And I shall return the favor,” he vowed to her. “I love you.”

“And I love you to death,” she followed up, to which he let out a low whistle.

“Phew. Words can’t say how long I’ve been wanting to hear that one.”

They hung up at the same time, and Christine adjusted her ponytail at the back of her head. She wondered what he meant by sneaking out lock, stock, and barrel, and if it had anything to do with slipping out in the middle of the night.

[nuagederose]

Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty-Three: Dancing Days

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Summer school only lasted until about the middle of August, at which point Christine was more than eager to see Alex more and more at regular school again. She thought about the graphic novel which she had started before the first year of school had ended, and she knew that she had to work on it some more before the first day, which was more than a month away at that point. The long summer days proved to be hot ones, and ones where she found herself retreated into the cool comfort of her apartment. She could spend the rest of that month drawing as best as she could to her own avail, especially when her mother eventually knocked on the door one day.

“Merry Christmas in summer, my girl,” Wendy decreed as she showed her the small green ceramic casserole dish filled with apple Brown Betty straight out from the oven. Christine could smell the cinnamon, the cloves, and the nutmeg embedded within, and she greeted her mother with an embrace because of it. It was the tenth year in a row that they had done Christmas in the summertime, although from what Christine could gather they had been doing it for quite a bit longer than that.

She remembered the first time that they had done so, and it was before Ann had left her life as well. It began life with a couple of fruit pies straight out of the oven, and then Ann had put on a Santa hat just for the laughter of it all. It then escalated with some garlands strewn over the kitchen counter.

Christine remembered that it was nearly a hundred degrees that day as well, and yet the three of them were sitting together in the heart of Wendy’s living room with warm pies and garlands around them as if it was the middle of December in the thick of a Nor’easter.

She then vowed to give the dish back to her mother once she had finished the Brown Betty, and all the while, she had it with a dollop of ice cream over the top of it.

When the sun went down, she thought of calling up Alex and telling him about it, but at the same time, she wondered if her mother would object to her having a man over, especially when she still hadn’t told her about him at all. She served herself a small plateful, complete with the vanilla ice cream on the side. It tasted just like the tail end of September, right at Alex’s birthday. It was right then she thought about treating him to something special for his day. Something more than just a little trip down to Coney Island, as well.

As she took slow, deliberate bites of the apple Brown Betty, she thought about trying her hand at baking something. It would be one of the many things that she would try out as she gazed on ahead at her thirties as well as the fact that she could lose Alex so easily in the coming months. If nothing else, she could take him under that way.

She wondered if that would be the perfect means of seducing him, through her art as well as through some finagling and baking that she was somewhat familiar with.

Wendy had given her a small casserole dish full of it, and thus, the first thought through her mind was that she could share it with someone else. Once the music of David Crosby floated on over from across the hallway right then, she figures that that was the best time.

Christine made sure that the plate was as clean as a whistle as she carved out another square piece of the cobbler and served it. She covered it up with a small sheet of tin foil, and she made sure that it was all in snug and taut. She slung her purse over her shoulder, and she swiped her keys from the bowl next to the front door.

The sun was beginning to set over the New York City skyline at that point, but the heat remained over the entire landscape like a hard and fast dome to lock them all inside: indeed, she could feel the heat emanating off the blacktop before her with such intensity that it nearly made her eyes water. When she stood at the bus stop with the plate in hand, she held still lest a few beads of sweat run about on her head and shoulders. She once again wore those little Bermuda shorts, but that time she had on a stretchy black camisole under a red silk shirt, much like how Alex himself dressed at that time of year.

The next bus ride took her down to his neighborhood in Brooklyn, and all the while, she kept the little plate perched upon her lap. She could hope that he had ice cream or at least some good crème fraîche on hand, especially with something so warm and sweet. She also hoped that he would understand this something of a tradition that followed her family for an entire decade as well. Christine closed her eyes when the late afternoon sun cast down over her head and shoulders: even with the air conditioning on her head and shoulders, she could still feel the heat of the late summer on her disposition, the immenseness of the humidity and the fact that the concrete jungle which surrounded her gave her no relief. There was a big part of her that wanted to escape from the city, to find her way out and into the countryside where the trees could give her all the more protection from the sun. If she left town, then she would have to think of a way to bring Alex along with her as well.

If anything, he seemed more than open to find a way out as well. That was a man in pain, and she couldn’t afford to leave him behind. There was also the crazy idea which crossed her mind once more right as the bus rounded the next corner, and she would soon be met with the rows of trees in the center of the street, that was his street. She could ask Alex to come along with her and Eric back out to California in the next spring lest they plan on doing it again.

Out to California, and perhaps go even further than that, out to the remoteness of Hawai’i.

She reached up and rang the bell, and the driver pulled over to the side of the street for her. Christine thanked the driver, and she stepped off into the hot afternoon sun. No sweat appeared on the side of her face as she crossed the street and reached the other side of the street, but the heat was unmistakable. She reached his front step, whereby she could feel something cold looming over her; she took a glimpse over her shoulder to find the rather scraggly tree right behind her still shuddering in the breeze as if fall had arrived early that day.

With her free hand, Christine knocked on his door, and she waited for a second. Alex opened the door and showed her a little smile filled his buck teeth. He had tucked his glasses into the V-neck collar of his white shirt, which hugged the shape of his body perhaps much better than any of his black shirts, and he wore some dark short pants which showed off his legs to her.

“Hey, you,” he greeted her with something of a nervous tone to his voice. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, what’s going on?”

“My mom made some apple Brown Betty, and I thought of bringing you some.” She showed him the plate shrouded in tin foil, and his face lit up at the sight of it.

“Oh, wow! That sounds marvelous.” He took the plate and lifted up a corner of the foil for a whiff of the inside. “Mmm. Smells amazing, too. Um… you wanna come in? Have some coffee?”

“I would love a cup of coffee,” she promised him, and she stepped inside of his apartment, which was even cooler than her own place. She closed the door behind her and adjusted her ponytail at the back of her head.

“I didn’t even know you could enjoy something so warm and sweet this time of year,” he confessed to her as he made his way into his small kitchen.

“We’ve been doing this thing for the last ten years now—it’s like Christmas in July but it’s just ‘middle of summer,’” she explained in a single breath.

“I like that,” he said, and she heard him peeling the foil off the plate. “I like that a lot, actually.” She padded into the kitchen doorway, where he brought the tip of his nose down to the cobbler itself for a whiff. Something about the look on his face seemed a little bit off, however, as if he was distracted by something.

“Is this a bad time?” she asked him, and he shook his head.

“Not at all, actually,” he assured her with a shake of his head; he turned around and opened the refrigerator door, and he fetched a can of crème fraîche out from the crisper drawer. “I just… didn’t expect to find you here at this hour.”

Christine nibbled on her bottom lip. “She came here, didn’t she,” she guessed in a low voice.

Alex sighed through his nose and bowed his head a bit. Indeed, the wide-brimmed fear escaped his eyes and face, but nothing could deny the sinking feeling that she had in the pit of her stomach.

“We have a date tonight,” he informed her in a low voice. “It was sort of last minute, too, like she got it out of me. But I’m going to tell you this, though. I won’t be eating much at dinner.” He flashed her a wink, and then he scooped out a dollop of the crème fraîche and lay it over the apple Brown Betty. Indeed, there was a small part of her that wanted to make him some more food, some more baked goods to fill his belly and spoil his dinner some more. She could not let Captain Howdy win this battle. She wanted it to be the mother of all Pyrrhic victories if nothing else.

Alex picked out a clean fork and shoveled in a bite of Brown Betty with a bit of the crème fraîche into his mouth right there at the counter. He lifted his head and closed his eyes.

“Delicious?” she asked him, and she couldn’t resist the smile on her face right then.

“Oh, man, that’s wonderful,” he said with his mouth full. He relished in the flavors for a moment before he swallowed it down. “It tastes like Rosh Hashanah.”

“She also thinks of doing a blackberry Brown Betty at some point, too,” she pointed out, and she strode up behind him. The shape of his body was still full and shapely, much to her liking.

“Sign me up for a whole baker’s dozen of it,” he joked as he took another bite. Christine put her arms around his waist from behind, and she rested her hands on his soft, still slightly rounded belly. He was still like a little pillow there, and she never wanted to let him go. He rested his free hand on her hands where they met up in the middle of his body. Christine flexed her fingers over the soft white fabric of his shirt: to never let him go and hold him in her arms forever.

He swallowed again, and that time, he hesitated to take another bite. Christine lay her head against his back. The cool air in his apartment kept them glued together as it would in the rainy winds of the fall and the snowy darkness of the winter. Alex breathed in deep and bowed his head a bit: she could feel the pad of his thumb on the back of her hand. She closed her eyes once she heard the metal tines of the fork hit the plate again.

“I owe you another date, too,” he confessed to her, once more with his mouth full. “At least before school starts again.”

“Upstate or to Coney Island,” she suggested in a muffled voice.

“I’d be happy with either one,” he said. “I also think of taking you all the way up to Lake Placid. Just you and me, too, no Eric or Valentina or Sabrina or Nelly. A little five-hour road trip starting at the early hours and we get there at lunchtime.”

She opened her eyes and gazed on at the wall off to her right. There was only one other time she had been to that lake, and it took place before Chris was killed as well. A big part of her worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle being there for long, but at the same time, she wondered if going there would uncover some unresolved pain that she had long forgotten.

“I haven’t been there since I was little,” she told him with a lift of her head. She raised herself up on her toes a bit so her face could be right behind his ear, even with a face full of his hair.

“So, it would be all the more special, then!” he declared. He turned his head and showed her a little smile accentuated by the full tip of his nose. “I say, let’s go the weekend before Labor Day weekend. You know, before the place gets slammed with those end-of-summer crowds.”

Christine cracked a wistful smile at that.

“I’ll start packing, baby,” she promised him, and he had to lean back a bit so she could nudge his long black hair back and kiss him on the side of the neck. He showed her a tender smile, and with her arms still wrapped around his body, she watched him finish that piece of apple Brown Betty. He licked the fork clean of the crème fraîche, and then he turned around to face her. He put on his glasses so she could have a smooth space between her face and his body. Christine gazed up at him, and she rested a hand on his chest. She ran her hand down onto his belly, which was so snug and warm, even in the fading summer light.

“I could eat about… three more plates of that,” he confessed, and he let out a hearty little chuckle.

“I want you to eat some apple pie with vanilla ice cream,” she told him. “And then I want you to follow it up with a big fat Reuben sandwich.”

“With pastrami or corned beef?”

“Whichever you want, baby,” she said, and she brought her hand up to his chest again. “With the rye bread and the French fries on the side, too. I want you so full, so warm and sweet… such that I can’t help but cozy up next to you.” Christine gaze up into his handsome face, right as he showed her a little smirk. “I want to cozy up to you and make love to you like you’ve never been made love to in your life.” She was about to stand up on her toes to kiss him on the full lips, when his phone made a noise. He had placed it on the counter behind him, but she never noticed it until that point. Christine stopped, and Alex turned around to pick it up for a look. He then sighed through his nose, and she knew what that meant, such that it made her bottom lip tremble.

“Fucking shit, right as I got into the mood,” he groaned.

“Right as I got in the mood, too!” She couldn’t resist it: her eyes filled with tears and a hard lump formed in her throat. Alex gaped at her and threw his arms around her.

“Oh, dear Christine! Don’t cry!”

“I just love you to death,” she wept, and she buried her face in his chest. “I don’t ever want to lose you!”

He brought his hand up to the back of her head, and he kissed her on the forehead. He then leaned his head over hers, as if he was protecting her. His chest shuddered and shook underneath her body, and she could tell that he was crying as well.

“You will never lose me,” he promised her, a delicate whisper right into her ear. “Never… never, never, never, never, never…” As a tear fled down from one eye, he nudged her ponytail back away from her neck. He pressed his lips onto her skin, the softest caress that she could ever wish for. More tears fell from her, but he cupped her face in his long, lanky hands. His lips locked onto her own, and he let his fingers creep up into the very back of her ponytail. He let go and she gazed into his eyes, which seemed much glossier and brighter than before.

“You will never lose me,” he repeated in a breathy whisper.

“I have to go,” she breathed out to him as another tear fell.

“Call me tomorrow,” he told her with a sniffle.

“Always,” she vowed, and she wiped away her tears. She ducked out of the kitchen for her purse, and more tears fell right then, such that she had difficulty seeing anything. She nearly tripped over the leg of his coffee table from the clouding of her eyes.

“Christine,” he called after her. She turned to him as her eyes cleared again. He stood in the doorway with his hands on the edges of the frame. “Thank you for that Brown Betty. I am… going to eat more cream once you leave just so I don’t have to eat a lot of dinner with her. God, I am… such a fucking idiot.”

She sniffled, sobbed a bit, and nodded her head. He blew her a kiss, and she bowed out of there and back to the street. The sun was beginning to go down at that point, such that the heat was starting to subside to a degree. Christine wept the whole walk down to the bus stop, and she hoped no one else would see her. Not even that boy Chuck, the boy who aided Alex’s class a couple of months before. 

He had taken his spot on the narrow top of the brick wall behind the actual closure itself. His long molasses-colored hair seemed much more lush in the summer sun, and more so when she noticed the joint in between his fingers on one hand and the can of cola in the other. His old stone face seemed to soften when he saw that she was a sobbing mess even from across the street. She stalked across the pavement to reach him.

“You okay?” he asked her, and she rubbed her eyes.

“Yeah, I just… I worry about the fact that I’m going to lose Alex at some point,” she confessed with a slight break in his voice.

“Ohhh, because of his wedding and everything,” Chuck followed along.

“I just… I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” Christine sputtered. “I keep saying it but I mean it this time…” She buried her face in her hands, but then she felt a hand on her shoulder. She lifted her head and looked on into his bright eyes and his softened face.

“I think I can help you with that,” Chuck told her as he put out his joint on the top of the brick wall right next to his thigh.

“What?” She could hardly keep her composure in front of him.

“I can,” he insisted. “There are ways of at the very least making the experience awful for them, and for her, in particular. I can think of ways right now.”

“Could you really?” Christine was taken aback by the gesture.

“Yeah. I’m going to be the teacher’s aide for the fall, so I have a bit of an inside view to the whole shebang.”

Christine ran her fingers through her ponytail, and she peered behind her to find if anyone was eavesdropping on them, and even with the crowded streets at the helm, she knew that no one would be paying much attention.

“What do we do?” she asked him, and she could feel the tears already beginning to dry away.

“We sabotage the days leading up to the wedding,” Chuck began.

“And how do we do that?” she asked him, slightly baffled by the gesture.

“Ruin the dinners leading up to it,” he explained. “Spread a wild rumor about her that makes it seem like marrying her would be the worst thing in the world.”

“Or, I could admit that I slept with Alex,” she suggested with another sniffle. “You know, just say that there without any context whatsoever.”

“That would make it so spicy, holy god,” Chuck said with a laugh. “We could also find ways to lead her astray, too. You know. Do a little deception and make sure that the wedding gets held off as long as possible.” He then paused and shook his head. “I know, I’m just spitballing here.”

Christine shook her head at that. “No, no, these are fantastic ideas,” she assured him. “It’s just… finding out ways to execute them is all. Getting the timing right and everything. I also have to make sure that I don’t lose Alex, either. That’s my main worry is I inadvertently push him away.”

“That’s true,” he said with a nod of his head. He took a sip of his cola, and he offered her a sip as well, but she refused.

“You should at the very least tell Nelly about it,” he pointed out.

“But, she lied to me, though,” Christine insisted.

“I’m sure she would be more than happy to see you and bury those things between the two of you, though,” he encouraged her. She then clasped a hand to her head. A dead weight had been lifted off her shoulders right then, and more so when the bus lumbered up around the corner before them. He hopped down from the wall and took his wallet out of his snug shorts pocket.

“Can I get your number?” she asked him.

“Of course! We’ll sit together and I’ll treat you to a brief dance on the outskirts of the wide, wide world of Chuck Billy.”

[nuagederose]

Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty-Two: Shadow of the Season

ao3 link

Over the next few weeks, and under the weighted heat from the summer sun, Christine bode her time and picked out the right day to join Alex in his new class. She took the bus up to the school with the paperwork in hand, of which included his signature and even a gentle kiss on the paper right next to the little “x” whereby he had signed it for her. A brand-new elective and a new excuse to be close to him again, and she knew that if Captain Howdy was to be nearby there again much like that day in summer school, she would have to plan around it all. 

She kept the paper rested upon her lap, and she rested her hands upon the top of the paper. Underneath it all, she had a thick paperback book all about Bernini courtesy of him: he had given it to her that day that he signed her paperwork.

“Something to stick it to her, if you know what I mean,” he told her in a soft voice.

Indeed, she slid the papers under the back cover of the book, and she glanced over the front part of it. Bernini, the sculptor and the architect, the latter of which made her hair stand on end and her horns rise up from the crown of her head in proverbial fashion, and yet it was his sculpture that caught her eye and the raise of the eyebrow. The statue of Apollo and Daphne made her think of herself with Alex, in the way in which she held her arms up over her head as if she was falling forth to the ground and he kept his arm around her hips as if to catch her. She cracked open the book to find that Daphne had her arms up in the midst of a metamorphosis into a tree. Apollo kept his hand on her hip

When viewed from the right side, all details could be seen in utmost delicate fashion. The thought of that made her think of all the times she woke up next to Alex, and his sleeping face seemed all the more delicate from the right side. He would lay flat on his back and roll his head to the side so the full tip of his nose held over the edge of his pillow. The roots of his gray streak appeared almost pure white from the morning light. His skin was smooth and lush, filled with the warmth of the morning and having been cozied up in bed next to her.

The thought of being warm, laying next to Alex during a morning rainfall, was enough to beckon a bead sweat from her even on the air conditioned bus.

Christine had on that little white blouse which he had bought for her birthday back in April, while she paired it with fitted red wine-colored Bermuda shorts lined with lace which made it resemble to lingerie. She kept her hair tied up in a snug ponytail at the back of her head, and she pinned back her bangs to expose more of her face to the world. Some days during the summer, especially these particularly hot ones, she just felt a need to peel off her top and bear her bra and bare skin to the world. Something about having gone to California with Eric for a whole week opened up something in her mind.

She was more than willing to head into the brand-new school year with her new devil horns and a willingness to flirt with disaster. New boys at the helm and Captain Howdy appearing more and more, and all the while when she least expected it as well: she could go about with it from the side of the room and she knew that she could keep her fingers linked up with Alex’s long guitar player fingers. That morning in the upstairs spare room in the Iridium gave her everything that she needed to know going into the new school year.

The bus lumbered up to the curb right near the stop, and she kept the paperwork and the book tucked under her arm as she padded out of the cool safe haven and into the heat of the city. The morning sun beat down on the buildings making up the Lower East Side with the tail end of an early August heat wave, such that she could feel it even in shade. The heart of summer bathed her in a thick envelope all the way up the sidewalk to the front of the registrar’s office.

It wasn’t that long of a walk but under the summer heat, it made her think of the one dream she had had where she and Alex were walking across the desert together. She may as well be wading through sun-scorched sand up to her knees, especially when she left the shade for a brief moment.

“Too bloody hot,” she bemoaned, even when she returned to the shade and tugged the door open. She was once again hit with the air conditioner, which only coaxed out more beads of sweat on the side of her neck. But Christine gathered herself and turned to the women at the front desk. She set down the paperwork with a smile and told them everything. A new ID card for the year followed suit, and she returned to the front of the building in a flash and a blur.

It was done. She was going to have three classes with Alex as well as her two art classes. She was going to be utterly swamped come the fall, but she knew that it would absolutely be worth it. She could seduce Alex from all angles, from all right angles to examine all soft details of his face and his body, and if Captain Howdy wanted to join along, she would have to bear witness to it.

The thought was crazy, and she knew that she was going to be walking through the fire with her lingering behind her like the omnipresent demon that she was, but with the thought of Chris and Ann in her mind, she knew she had to take a gamble with it all.

They had slipped from her so fast, and she knew that she could lose Alex. She was going to lose Alex. She was going to lose him to Captain Howdy come the holiday season.

She had to be brave.

Christine returned to the sidewalk and the patch of shade cast down from the crown of the building. She clutched the book and pressed it against her chest as if she was about to meet up with Alex himself for lunch during the school week.

Somewhere about the campus was that new boy Chuck, the one with curly hair, but she looked about the place for Chuck the teacher’s aide from the day in summer school. Both were recognizable even from clear across the grass.

She thought of meeting someone for a round of lunch followed by a ride down to Rockaway Beach, but she wondered if the beach itself was crowded from the immense heat. She suddenly got the thought to meet Alex down by Coney Island once again before school started.

They had to be down on Coney Island again, and once more when no one else was around. She gazed out to the grass as it basked out in the hot sun. She knew that things could be even hotter in the remaining time that she had left with the summer term, and she and Alex could have their moments alone in other places. New York was big, and Captain Howdy couldn’t rule over the entire place.

“To the Museum of Sex,” she said under her breath, and she glanced down at the book nestled within her hands. “And of course, to the Museum of Modern Art.”

She caught the sound of familiar voices on the far side of the courtyard, and she turned her attention to see those smooth heads of hair over there, those smooth heads of rich darkness like fresh molasses, the reminder that fall was coming and she would soon be snuggled up next to Alex, with her head tucked under his chin and her hand down his shorts, all in the safety of her bed once again. Keeping in the line of the shade, Christine made her way along the sidewalk in the hopes that she could keep up with them over there.

Eric took a glimpse over his shoulder, whereby she even recognized him with his sunglasses over his face. He nodded over at her, and Louie turned his head for a look over at her. They both flashed her a wave and big smiles all around; the latter playfully blew her a kiss and she followed it up with sticking out her tongue at him. The two of them laughed and then walked onward to the other side of the building, down by the cafeteria. Christine thought about going in there to fetch a bite to eat and perhaps catching up with them, but she also wondered whether or not she would be predisposed to Nelly.

She knew that she would have quite the story to tell her, and she knew that Nelly would have a difficult time in grappling with the reality of it all. She also couldn’t believe that Nelly would even lie to her, as well.

Christine lingered in the shadow as she knew that she would have to wait a long time before the bus returned to the stop once again. A long time, and she could not bear to walk through the hot sun for very long, much less stand out in the open for a great deal of time with nothing more than the protective awning of the bus stop to protect her from the immense heat.

If the registrar’s office was open, then surely the library was open.

She thought about all the times that she and Chris would retreat to the library together at school, and it was always to help expand their minds when class did not suffice things.

With a quick glimpse up and down the street before her, she breathed in deep, and then she ducked out into the hot sunlight. She padded across the pavement towards the safety of the grass, and she kept on going to the next building for the quietness and stillness of the library. If nothing else, she could seek out solitude amongst the books and papers away from the world, barring the fact that Captain Howdy stayed away from there during the course of the school year.

When she stepped in through the front doors, Christine was again greeted by the blast of cool air from the overhead vent. She glanced about the vast room and the tables strewn across the floor before her. The feeling of the book pages welcomed her. The taste of knowledge at her every whim. The desire to challenge herself and step away from the wounds of the past.

Alex did promise her the Smithsonian in the future, after all. The world and anything that could give her a new feeling of life.

She thought about the night they stayed together over the Iridium, and even though Alex wanted them to stay a second night, there was no way they could, at least not without breaking into the club and finding their way upstairs without anyone looking in their direction. The mere thought coaxed a bead of sweat out from the side of her brow. While Alex always kept her warm during the hard winter days, when she thought about him there, she began to feel the sweat again.

The sticky summer heat on her arms and shoulders, and she yearned for the cooler days of fall with the feeling of Alex cozied up next to her, and more so when she sought out the history books off to the left side of the room. Books about Bernini, but also Frida Kahlo and Vincent Van Gogh, about the Romans and the Egyptians, about the Chinese, the Japanese, the Aboriginals and Māori tribes, and even the ancient Israelites and Persians, and she found herself at the end of the shelves with culinary history.

So many to choose from, but she decided to treat herself on the ride home.

With her book on Bernini, she chose a book on Jewish art as well as a book on bread making: something different and something to challenge her. She checked out and returned to the heat of the day.

Fall was upon her, but so was the thought of the wedding. There still was no plan to thwart things or even so much as postpone them. The mere suggestion of the wedding gave her such a feeling of melancholy that she could only walk on back to the bus stop with her books tucked under her arm.

She knelt down before the tree closest to the bus stop so she could put them into her purse. It was there she remembered that Marlene had taken it and protected it in her purse. Whoever was guarding the tree seemed to have missed the fact that she had been there before and taken it.

She stood back up and continued on to the bus stop. Luckily, she only had to wait for a few minutes under the awning, and the bus returned to the curb before her. She rode all the way back to Queens with the vent over her head, and she ensured that the cool of the air conditioning remained over her head and shoulders.

By the time she unlocked her door, and she was greeted by the sound of Crosby, Stills, and Nash from across the way in her mother’s apartment, she ducked into her apartment, which was still cool from when she left that morning.

Christine peeled off her blouse and let her skin breathe from the heat of the day. She carried her purse into her bedroom, where she left her door open, and she took her books out of the safety of her purse.

She lay down on her back and gazed up at the ceiling overhead for a moment before she cracked open the book about Bernini again. She had no idea if it was from the dog days of summer weighing down on her or the fact that she had gone out and spent a great portion of the day at school again, but she could feel her eyes drooping closed within a few minutes. 

She then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Christine awoke on the shores of a stormy island somewhere. The beach was vast and black, and she lay under a thick heavy blanket of dark gray clouds. A cold high wind blew all around her, and she could feel the weight of snow against her legs and shoulders. She lifted herself up off the sand right as she spotted a schooner down the shoreline from her.

Even with the volcanic sands underneath her feet, she ran towards the boat. She could feel him waiting for her there. Her bare feet made no sound as she ran along the cold blackened earth. The wind whipped her hair back away from the back of her head like the tail of a galloping horse on the desert.

As she came closer to the docked ship, she recognized his silver streak there over the railing. His silver streak whipped in the high winds while the rest of his helmet of rich black hair spread over his shoulders. He looked like a hero waiting for her there on his mighty boat.

Panting, and with her legs sore from having run a great distance, Christine reached the boat and ran up the narrow ramp. The notches on the ramp seemed to rise up like cold stones, stones to keep her away from him. Indeed, she tripped and fell against the ramp, right before she reached him.

But Alex reached out a hand and tugged her aboard. The ramp lifted up behind her and the winds picked up a great deal as they stood up on the deck together like a couple awaiting the arrival of the Carpathia. As they left the island’s shore, Christine could see the slight horseshoe shape of it even from a distance, with the notch in the southern side.

“Deception Island,” he told her as he put his arm around her and tugged her in closer to his warm body. Christine’s hair was wet from the ocean, but she was warm as she pressed herself up against him.

“Where are we going?” she asked him as one of the crew members offered a blanket for them.

“Antarctica,” he replied as he tightened the blanket around her shoulders and her chest, and then he did the same for himself. “We’re going to go on a studying expedition of sorts. You and me and the amazing crew who have organized this whole thing. We’re gonna hang with the penguins and study the whole grand scheme of things from the final frontier.”

A hard gust of wind hit the side of the schooner, such that the entire vessel rocked hard against the waves. Alex kept his arms around her as he guided her into the safe interior of the ship. But the wind howled all around them, and they were hit with cold spray from another high wave. Not a single significant landmass to protect them from the high rogue waves, but they were about to dance with the realm of knowledge at their fingertips even if it meant falling overboard into those icy swirling waters and the vast stretch of unknown.

Christine leaned against the doorframe and Alex kept his arms around her. They still had their blankets wrapped around them, but for whatever reason, they never slid in all the way.

“Stay with me always, my Strawberry Girl,” he whispered to her. Even over the howling winds of the Southern Ocean off to the side, she could hear the tender tone of his voice. 

She could still hear it even when she opened her eyes and found herself back in her bedroom, and the cold of the air conditioner had acted as the cold southern winds. The waters and the sea spray was something to ponder over, however.

[nuagederose]

part two of my something of an advent calendar ❄️

Nelly, Christine, and Alex in front of Chris’ grave

John and Tina on the bus to West Virginia

l’chaim!

“dying of a broken heart”

the return of “Billy Crystal”

[nuagederose]

mid-december 2006: i made my first cartoons.

welcome to adulthood, gang!

[nuagederose]

Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty-One: When You Sleep

ao3 link

The blue lights over the stage shone down over Alex and Nathan’s heads to the point it bestowed them with soft sapphire crowns upon their heads: Christine was alone at the smallest table closest to the stage, and yet, she considered doubling back into the darkness towards the bar on the side of the room just to meet up with Eric and Valentina again. But she kept her eye on Alex the whole entire time: on the way his fingers seemed to so effortlessly move about the frets and give off the most elegant of sounds. Indeed, one song they played, which he had titled “Unbound”, made her think of walking through the woods with a warm cup of coffee in hand, with the lush aroma of the coffee to surround her like a warm blanket. All the while, she was completely unaware of the look on her face: when she looked over at Nathan and the playful smile on his face and the twinkle in his eye, and she wondered as to what he was thinking about. It was then she glanced at the room behind her and she noticed more people looking at her in a similar fashion. She returned her attention back to Alex right as he gave his hair a toss back with the quick flick of his head.

From behind his glasses, she could see the hooded look to his eyes and the warmth to his face. Christine sat about five feet away the edge of the stage, close enough for Alex to keep his eye on her the whole time. She was the only one who stayed that close to the stage’s edge, and it felt as though everyone could see her there. And yet, she wanted people to see her. She wanted the world to know that she had her eye on Alex this whole time and she would always have her eye on him. There could be other men who would garner her attention, but at the end of the day, she always returned to Alex and his open arms, open and ready for her to fall back into to feel the softness and warmth of his body.

There was a song around halfway through the set, one where she had a feeling he dedicated to her, of which he called “Hot and Heavy.” He added a healthy dose of distortion to his guitar while Nathan brought some extra overdrive to his bass and Matt’s drums seemed deeper as well. Christine leaned back in the chair with her hands rested upon the edge of the table, and she let the music run through her like water under the thick layered veil of the summer heat. She closed her eyes and let her ponytail fall back over the back of the spindly chair.

She thought about the first time she and Alex had had a moment alone together. He may have been the teacher who carried himself to where the Sundaes all fawned over him, but she had warmed up to him first. She got to feel his skin and taste his lips first. Moreover, she let him see her naked. Captain Howdy could never take that from her.

She let the music guide her to where she could feel herself swaying whilst even in the seat. The lights over the stage turned a lush rich scarlet as well as a rich dark orange, but then there was a small kiss of violet mixed in there. The colors of wine and passion, as well as the color of temptation. Everyone knew what Captain Howdy didn’t, and Christine couldn’t help but relish in that very thought.

The song turned out to be a six minute jam session with a slower groove near the end, and she couldn’t help but think of all the times she had been sexy for him. She kept this thought firmly in mind by the time the applause erupted behind her, and she lifted her hands up over her head to give them the biggest round of them all.

There was a five minute break between the main set as well as their encore, and this gave her time to double back to the bar to talk to Valentina and Eric, both of whom were still at work on their drinks.

“Is it just me or does it seem like he’s showing off to you?” Valentina asked her in a loud voice.

“I have no doubt in my mind that he is,” Christine replied with a nod and a knowing smile on her face. Valentina flashed her a wink and a quick raise of the brim of her hat at her. Eric showed her a smirk and a nod as he took a sip of his drink.

“I reckon the dragon lotion right here behind me has been trying to show off to you, too—and big time, no less,” Valentina continued with a lean into her face; given it was noisy in there, there was no way Eric could hear them. Christine smirked and nodded her head at that. A boy then strode on up from behind her in a plain white shirt tucked into nicely fitted blue jeans, to which he greeted Eric with a firm grip of the hand followed by a quick hug.

“Also… this is Chuck,” Valentina introduced him to her. “He tells Eric and me he’ll be joining us at school come the fall.”

Christine raised her eyebrows at him and the head full of mousy curly hair about his head. She could not explain it but the way he looked made her think he was somehow related to Alex: indeed, she flashed back on the old picture of Alex which she had seen the year before, and she wondered if this new boy was, in some way, his long lost nephew. When he smiled, he showed her a pair of cute little dimples in his cheeks.

“Mr. Chuck,” Christine greeted him with a firm handshake. “There’s Indian Chuck and now there’s curly-headed Chuck.”

“Nah, I would be ‘evil Chuck,’” he corrected her.

“Why ‘evil’?” she asked him.

“Why not?” Eric then chimed in.

“It would make hell of a nickname for a culinary student, too,” Chuck then added.

“One of those culinary kids, eh?” Christine asked him with her hands pressed to her hips.

“It was either that or become a vet,” he explained. “And I love animals too much to have to watch them die.”

“That’s so sweet,” Valentina declared.

“You play music, too, don’t you?” Eric asked him.

“Yeah, I’m a guitar player like Alex,” Chuck said with a crane of his neck. When he said that, the lights turned low again and Christine clapped her hands.

“Part two!” she declared, and Eric followed her back up towards the stage with his glass in hand. Christine didn’t mind in the least, but she was somewhat curious about that other boy Chuck, especially when he posted up next to Valentina there at the bar.

The curiosity was somewhat short-lived as Alex laid down some blues for her and Eric as well as the rest of the Iridium. At that point, he had opened up the top buttons of his shirt to show off most of his chest and the way his sprigs of dark hair seemed to bloom like leaves of grass; Christine thought about going up there and running her fingers through his chest hair, just to feel him some more. She had no idea what to expect that evening as Alex gave his hair a toss back with the flick of his head, and his hair spread back over his shoulders once again.

His face was warmth, rosy even, and his lips seemed a little fuller than usual as well. She could tell that he had had a bit to drink backstage, a little wine from the cooler back in the dressing room.

There was a big part of her that didn’t want him to drink so much, especially when his body seemed so soft and tender: she grimaced at the thought of alcohol doing considerable damage to his softness. But at the same time, she loved how loose he got after even a single glass of wine. The barrier and that calm cool demeanor lifted, and she was met with his sweetness and softness in its rawest form.

The trio played four songs for their encore before they doubled back into the backstage area, at which Alex bestowed Christine with a single kiss blown in her direction. She patted her chest from the gesture, and then she glanced over at Eric, who raised his eyebrows at her. She could see the droop in his eyes and the slight rosy quality of his face, a much more prominent glow to his skin than the one Alex had just a moment ago.

“Are you drunk?” she asked him with a slight chuckle. The lights lifted and the floor of the Iridium stirred itself alive to head on back home.

“Maybe just a little bit,” Eric replied with a nod. “If I am, you know it’d be more than worth it. I think I took a cab here.”

“I think you did, too,” she recalled, also with a nod. She stood to her feet, and she put her arm around him. Eric rubbed his eyes, and he stood up, albeit with a slight wobble to his step. He hiccuped and giggled, to which Christine set her free hand on his chest.

“I gotta get home,” he breathed out as Christine guided him towards the door by the bar.

“I know,” she cooed to him.

“I gotta get home and in bed,” he repeated.

“I know you do…” She craned her neck to see Valentina was walking out of the club by herself: for a second, Christine believed her to be interested in that new boy Chuck. But she waved over at her and brought a hand in the shape of a phone to her ear. She mouthed the words “see you later, call me” to her, and Christine nodded at her.

“I need to find a way back home,” Eric continued blathering.

“I’ll flag down a cab for you,” she promised him as she pushed open the door for him. They were greeted by warm evening air and orange light from the street, and Eric turned to her with a sleepy smile on his round face.

“Oh, Chris,” he said with a gentle tap of her nose. “You’re the best friend I could ever ask for.”

“Oh, you know, I’m just doing what I can,” she assured him, and she raised her arm up for the few cabs coming down the street before them. One pulled up in front of them, and she brought Eric closer to the side door. She opened the door to greet the driver. “He’s had a little too much to drink. He lives all the way down in Queens.”

“You got it—good thinking, lady,” the driver replied in a thick Long Island accent.

“I got the forty-five bucks,” Eric sputtered out, and then he returned to Christine.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” she told him as she held out her arms for him.

“Ohhh, yeah, of course—hugs—” They embraced, and then she guided him into the backseat. He strapped himself in, and she shut the door and patted on the roof with both hands. Eric rode off into the darkness, and once she saw the cab round the corner, she returned to the door of the Iridium, and she began on back into the backstage area. Nathan and Matt were packing up for the night, but Alex was nowhere to be seen.

Nathan showed her a grin.

“He’s upstairs waiting for you,” he told her.

“I certainly hope so,” she said in a singsong voice; she gave Matt a fist bump and then she strode over to the stairwell at the far end, of which led up to the second floor.

Indeed, there was a small spare room up there, one with the door slightly ajar: a narrow ribbon of golden light cast on the wall to the right of her. She peeked in through the door to find Alex reclining back on a queen-sized bed with his arms spread over the pillows on either side of him. Nathan was not exaggerating when he said he was waiting for her.

Christine slowly pushed the door open with one hand, and Alex showed her a little grin.

“Hey, you,” she greeted him; it was a small cozy room, big enough to contain the bed as well as a chaise lounge and a small bedside table with a heavy, wrought iron lamp without a shade: the single lightbulb cast pale yellow light over his face and his smooth hair to where he seemed softer than usual.

“Quite a night,” he replied with a flick of an eyebrow: his glasses stayed perched just on the bridge of his nose, such that he could look over the top of the rims at her. She padded into the room and nudged the door closed right behind her so they could have privacy.

“Indeed it was,” she remarked. “I really liked that one song, ‘Hot and Heavy.’”

“Had a feeling you would,” he told her. “I wrote it yesterday, in fact. I wrote it with you in mind, too.”

Christine licked her lips and leaned over the top of the board, right by his bare feet.

“You look really sexy with your shirt open like that,” she told him in a low voice.

“Come on closer, and I’ll open it more for you,” he promised her.

Christine then kicked off her shoes and hung her purse over the poster of the bed. She peeled off her shirt and let it hang over the footboard; she crawled over the bed to be close to him. He hooded his eyes, and indeed, against his cologne, she could smell the wine on his lips. It was then she realized that he had opened the window over the bed, and they were met with the sounds of the city and the warmth of the evening as they both flooded into the room.

“I actually never want this summer to end,” she confessed to him, “even with as much as I love the fall now and as much as I think of the day that you and I met each other. I’m always going to associate fall with you and me on that day.”

Alex ran his fingers through his hair, and the roots of his gray streak poked out like a flash of lightning, and he fluttered his eyelids at her.

“You know what, I think I will, too,” he replied. “Fall and pieces of pie.”

“Pieces of pie for your little belly.” Christine reached over and lovingly patted him there, to which he bowed his head and showed her a coy little smile. Even after he had taken the stage that night, his skin still carried a soft rosy glow to it, as if he had been tucked down in his bed all night.

She leaned in closer to his face as if to kiss him, and he closed his eyes and slightly parted his lips as if to prepare for the feeling. But she instead moved in closer to the side of his face.

“I want you to lay down next to me,” she whispered into his ear, at which she took in the warm aroma of his cologne as well as the soap embedded in the roots of his hair; he still smelled good even after a night of sweating and letting down loose on the stage. “I want you to lay down next to me, and I want you to be so close to me that you can scarcely breathe.” Christine slithered her tongue along her bottom lip as if she prepared to taste him. The taste of sin and decadence on the back of a glass of lush red wine.

Alex kept his eyes hooded at the sight of her in front of him, and very carefully, he nudged the glasses up the bridge of his nose. She brought her face down to his chest to kiss him on the collar bones. She then ran her fingers through the hair growing on his chest at the same time: the fine little curls wound around her fingers. He shook a little bit from the feeling, and he let out a low whistle as well.

She lifted her head to be face to face with him and his cherry lips: a stray lock of hair dangled down into his face, right across his glasses.

“Let’s stay the night here,” he offered her in a near whisper.

“Please,” she whispered to him. She lifted her hands to undo the buttons of his shirt for him. He returned the favor by unbuttoning her bra for her. He brought his lips to her breasts as part of a good night kiss to her, and he tucked his hand in between her legs once she lay down next to him. Christine slept in that bed with her breasts pushed against his bare chest, and she awoke the next morning still with her arms around his thick waist and with the kiss of the morning breeze on the crown of her head and the crest of her hip.

Alex stirred a bit, but she could tell he was awake.

“Never leave me,” she breathed into his ear. “Please, on the tail of a sunrise… never leave me.”

Alex never opened his eyes as he moved his lips over to her own lips: a smooth lock of hair swept over the side of her face and her nose. He let his hand slide up the curvature of her back towards her shoulder blades, and he tugged her in closer to his body, as close as she knew he could take it. Christine buried her head into his chest to hear his heartbeat.

She closed her eyes, only to be met with the buzzing sound of his phone up on the table right next to the bed. She pictured Captain Howdy’s name on the screen there on the back, especially when she knew that it was the early hours of the morning. The phone kept on buzzing, even as Alex gripped onto his own wrist at Christine’s upper back.

“I am never letting you go,” he vowed to her in a soft voice. “Hell or high water. Damn the torpedoes. Even with the wedding band on my finger, I am never letting you go.” She could feel his fingers creeping up the crest of her back, to which he let his fingers twirl around the locks of her hair, and it was there she was glad she took out her ponytail, even in the face of the summer heat, hell or high water.

[nuagederose]

octavius | alan 🌹

[nuagederose]

eric and alex 🥧

[nuagederose]

alex and christine 🖤

(different one: in seasons grey, her last name is peck; here, her name is blackwater)

[nuagederose]

“I ain’t quitting you ’cause we’re taking over this town.”

[nuagederose]

this bloody awful year wasn’t going to end without a final insult to injury, wasn’t it.

this whole thing is actually giving me physical symptoms, too: i woke up with a headache this morning and my poor stomach’s acting up again. “fyp syndrome” has very real consequences, especially when it means potentially completely nuking artists’ careers.

threads is going this way, too, and fast. it used to be i’d go on and see art galore over there: now it’s all political stuff, recommendations, and things friends have retweeted. it quite literally went from 2012 to 2017/2018 twitter within a manner of weeks.

in fact—this sounds hella weird when i say it out loud, but—i’m actually seeing it on facebook of all places: recommending posts to me that the algorithm thinks i would like rather than seeing my friends’ posts or from pages i follow (i guess there was a way to rectify this but… keyword there is “was”. either i’m an idiot or they moved it because i can’t do it now). this whole thing has become the echo chamber effect of 2016 but worse; i was naïve to think the world learned from 2016.

the only places that, i feel are not falling under the spell of this are, ironically, tumblr and the fanfic archives (ao3 and squidgeworld). though if i’m honest, tumblr is getting dangerously close to this: the tags are a complete mess (they’ve actually been a mess for several years but more so the case now), ads and videos are a dime a dozen, i feel like an old lady scrolling through the tags and seeing lingo and “humor” straight out of tiktok, and aside from tumblr radar… art is fading from view, despite my following several art blogs.

i never thought artists would be the canary in the coal mine, but here we are. when art starts disappearing, that’s a sign of something going horribly wrong on a social scale. and to really make matters worse: the tiktok generation, brainwashed and incoherent as they are, has been trying to tiktok-ify ao3, even though ao3 (god fucking bless them) simply doesn’t allow it to happen, they just put it in the “freeform” tag and call it a day—or they delete it because op was treating it like their tumblr instead of making a fic, god forbid.

“you have to create content!” i will never “create content”, ever. you can’t make me. we may have been at your wedding, but you got another thing coming if you think we’ll be at your wake.

[nuagederose]

❄️ drawcember 2024 // day four: angels ❄️

101 pounds down and still a lil chubby 🤷🏻‍♀️😇

ig: badmotorartist

[nuagederose]

if you follow me on ig, if you’ve seen my story, you might have seen me mention that instagram is actually going to remove the ability to follow hashtags i think it’s next week—i guess it’s to resolve the whole thing of people adding completely unnecessary tags to posts, but who knows—but doing this will render them basically useless. it’s going to go by way of the “for you” page (“fyp syndrome” as i like to call it) and recommend shit to you based on what you like. the whole tiktok-ification of every social media platform in existence is singlehandedly going to destroy art because it’s going to force us to either jump ship or “create content” rather than art.

so, it really makes me question my place there.

[nuagederose]

❄️ drawcember 2024 // day three: mistletoe ❄️

who wants a kiss? 💋

ig: badmotorartist

[nuagederose]

❄️ drawcember 2024 // day two: penguins ❄️

vostok and her crew 🐧

ig: badmotorartist

[nuagederose]

❄️ drawcember 2024 // day one: evergreen ❄️

“lotta sap, lotta sap… looks okay!” 🌲

ig: badmotorartist

[nuagederose]

Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Twenty: Lucky You

ao3 link

The heat of the heart of summer was immense come the trio show, and Christine was still expecting the insider’s deal that Alex had offered her at breakfast. As far as she knew, it had to do with the way he kissed her and grew close to her, but there was a part of her that felt it had to do with school. The first day came after Labor Day, which was coming faster than she realized, and she knew that there was still time to change into a different elective of any sort. She thought about the deadline for new electives, and she remembered to ask him once he came to pick her up for the show.

All she could think about was the feeling of fall on her face and neck, the scent of the leaves changing colors and falling forth from the trees on his street once again. The return of her green jacket once again. The return of laying snuggled up next to Alex in the safety of his bed, and of course, the school day following their encounter once again.

Even with the heat of the summertime, she still wanted to do those things. Fall was only two months away after all.

Christine put on a stretchy green camisole under a light silk shirt paired with little denim shorts which showed off most of her legs: she remembered how much Alex would let his eyes wander down from her hips all the way down to her feet, even with her thick shapely legs. Her hair up in a snug ponytail and a spritz of her perfume which smelled of cherry blossoms across her chest and neck, and she headed out the door towards the street: Wendy was running some errands that evening, and thus, the apartment across the hallway was completely silent. Nevertheless, Christine headed out for the street with her purse over her shoulder and her hands tucked into her shorts pockets.

She stood by the curb of the sidewalk with the sides of her silk shirt pushed back by her forearms. She hoped that Alex would recognize her thick figure even with the light of the day fading out into nightfall and the amber lights of the street lamps casting down over her head and shoulders.

Indeed, after a few minutes, a pair of headlights turned the corner up the street and headed towards her. She shielded her eyes with her hand, and the car rolled up to the curb before her, and she noticed the passenger window rolled down for her to see inside. Alex showed her a little buck-toothed smile and those horn-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, close to the tip.

“Who’s that girl!” he sang out. “Who’s that girl!” He reached across the seat and nudged the door open, and then he reached down and patted the seat next to him. Christine gave her ponytail a good toss back, and then she climbed in next to him. She greeted him with a kiss on the side of his neck and she buckled into the seat.

“You smell good,” he told her, and he kept the smile on his face.

“As do you,” she retorted, and she showed him a smile as well. Through the dim light, she noticed his lowering his gaze to her chest followed by her legs, to which he responded by a gentle nibble on the bottom lip.

“Feel my legs,” she invited him, and he reached down and caressed the tops of her thighs. He hooded his eyes at her and the smooth feeling of her skin, and he ran his tongue along his bottom lip out of sheer desire.

“I’m guessing I’ll get it later tonight,” he said in a low voice.

“If you’d like,” she said, and she leaned in closer to his face. “If you would like… but maybe…” She lowered her voice to a near whisper as she came within his full cherry lips to beckon a kiss from him. “…just maybe, we could have a little bit of ice cream following the gig.” She swiped his lips, and he shivered from the feeling. Christine giggled at him as she leaned back and rested her hands onto her knees. Alex fanned himself with the side of his hand and let out a low whistle. He then put his car into drive and they rolled forth into the incoming balmy darkness.

The windows rolled down, and not a single thought of Captain Howdy to be found there in the safety of his car.

“So, we’re going to be there before Matt and Nate show up,” he told her as they pulled up to the first stoplight, “which means you and I can have a little bit of pre-Fourth of July festivities of our own.” He flashed her a wink.

“Oh, you know I’m down for some pre-show partying,” Christine vowed to him, and she couldn’t resist showing him a smile in return. He then reached over and stroked the top of her thigh again, that time with the mere tips of his fingers. At the same time, she let her eyes wander over to the full, rounded shape of his waist, and with fall coming in two months, she hoped that he would keep that belly intact for when the days grew shorter and the nights grew colder and she needed something to hold onto on those nights.

Indeed, as they sat there at the stoplight, a gentle breeze blew through the street before them. The Fourth of July and the middle of summer, and yet there was something about that breeze that made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

“My hope is that there will be some good pies there tonight,” he said in a low voice.

“Like a cherry pie?” she asked him.

“Cherry or blueberry,” he replied, and the light turned green. “Either of those with some whipped cream on top.” They rolled forth up the street into the thick of Queens in search of Broadway. On any other night, it would have been a straight shot from Queens across the river and into the East Village, and then into Manhattan. But since it was the Fourth of July, they crossed the bridge and then he hung a right onto FDR Drive once they had cleared it: they skirted along the black waters of the East River to avoid that dense, midtown traffic. Christine peered out his window to see the Flatiron Building and the Empire State Building, both of which rose high up over the city skyline in glittering fashion: the latter of which showed off the red, white, and blue highlights for the occasion. The sun had gone down, and the fireworks were about to launch off in about an hour or so.

Alex took the left turn at 51st Street, and something told Christine that they had completely avoided all that midtown traffic, especially when she realized that Rockefeller Center was the next block over.

“God, you’re good,” she remarked as they caught the lights green all the way down to the heart and soul of Broadway; they passed Radio City Music Hall, which looked to be as alive as ever that evening.

“Says the girl who’s from here!” he declared with a hearty chuckle.

“Says the girl who’s from here, yes.” Christine couldn’t help but chuckle at that herself.

“The challenge now, of course, is finding a parking space,” he remarked as the next light turned green and he crossed over for the back side of the Iridium. The entire curb outside of the neon-clad club had been slammed with cars, even on the one-way street of 7th Avenue.

Alex rounded the next corner up, which turned out to be Broadway itself, but it made Christine think of an alleyway: he was the band, after all, and he was bringing her along with him.

But he was careful to pull in there, however, given the Gershwin Theater and the vast Paramount Plaza right across the street looked to be slammed for the evening as well.

“All else fails, we go over to the diner next block over and park there,” he said, and then he hung another right. “I get paid after tonight’s gig, so I only have money for either that or parking at the Paramount.”

“Because if it’s too late for us to go back home, we can always have a late dinner,” she followed along. 

“And right you are, Christine Sixteen.” He massaged her knee again, that time with only the very tips of his fingers, and that time, she flinched her leg back. He showed her a smirk as they crawled up the block for the cozy-looking diner on the corner. There were plenty of spots for them to take, even though the dinner rush was about to take place. Alex bounded into the parking lot and took the spot closest to the driveway.

“A bit of a walk but,” he said as he switched off the car, “it ain’t that bad.”

“It’ll be romantic, too,” Christine pointed out as she picked her purse up from the floor.

Alex fetched his guitar case and the accompanying amp from the back seat, whereby he slung the former over his shoulder and carried the latter in one hand. Before Christine could offer to hold onto his amp, his fingers curled around the side of her hand, to which she responded by interlocking her own fingers with his. She glanced up at him and the little smile on his face: he wasn’t showing off his teeth or presenting her with a smirk, but rather, a sweet smile, something as sweet as the summer heat around them. It was only about a block away but Christine wished it was a little longer than that, just so she could feel Alex’s hand for a little while longer.

Longer. More. That was all she wanted, more.

He never let go of her hand even as they crossed the street and reached the smoky front doors. He held the door for her, and she treated him to a kiss on the cheek.

The Iridium was alive that evening, with people from all walks of life coming forth to see Alex’s trio on the Day of Independence. Red and blue neon lights suspended from the ceiling shone down over their heads like a shower of sparks courtesy of the fireworks show down by Lady Liberty. Alex huddled closer to her as if to hide his hand from any prying eyes around them.

Christine meanwhile glanced over to her left to see the bar on the side of the room, whereby she noticed the black cap with the head of matching black hair underneath, as well as the smooth black hair next to it—

“Valentina!” she called out.

“Where?” Alex glanced about the intimately lit room.

“Over there—” She pointed over to the bar, and right as Valentina herself turned her head so they could see the side of her face.

“I’m gonna get ready,” Alex told her right into her ear. “Tell them I said ‘hi’.”

“Gladly!” Christine finally let go of his hand and scurried over to the bar.

“Val!” she declared, and she waved her arm over her head. Valentina’s face lit up and she returned the favor, and then she stood to her feet and opened her arms for Christine. Eric nodded over at her, and his smooth black hair shimmered right across the crown of his head. He then offered her hugs, to which he held onto her for a good long time.

“I’m so glad you guys could make it,” Christine declared as the three of them congregated there at that side of the bar..

“We got here early,” she replied. “Well, when I say ‘we’, I mean me. I came here alone while Eric showed up at the same time.”

“We were just gonna order drinks, too,” Eric told her. “You want anything?”

“Oh, yeah, I could definitely use a cold one,” Christine declared, and no sooner had the words left her lips when Alex returned from behind them.

“A little bit of Irish coffee for the little lady in green over here,” he declared to the bartender.

“Irish coffee and not a mudslide or a Dirty Monkey?” she asked him with a raise of her eyebrow at him.

“I just overheard someone say they’re out of chocolate syrup,” he told her with a shrug. “It was either that or a fuzzy navel.”

“The fuzzy navel or your fuzzy navel?” she teased him.

“When the show’s done, I’ll turn you to my fuzzy navel,” he teased her right back with a straight face, and Christine playfully swatted at him.

“Shhhh!” She couldn’t help but giggle at that.

“What? Valentina and Eric don’t seem to mind, and Nate and Matt aren’t here yet.” He continued to show her the little smile on his face, that playful, lopsided little smile filled with his bucked teeth accompanied with a little twinkle in his eye, as if he was up to no good.

“Ooh, Nate and Matt aren’t here yet,” Valentina teased right then.

“And yeah, we don’t mind at all, either,” Eric assured her. “Have a little sex on the beach with a screaming orgasm on Alex’s fuzzy navel.” The four of them erupted into laughter, complete with Alex himself playfully slapping Eric on the back.

“Missed you, Sluggo,” he said.

The bartender then returned to Christine with a glass of Irish coffee in hand, in all its rich dark texture like that of melted chocolate with a thick foam on top like a pint of Guinness. Valentina then asked for a sex on the beach while Eric took a Manhattan for himself.

“Ooh, that sounds good, hit me up for one those, too,” Alex then chimed in. Christine sipped on the Irish coffee, which was a little bit on the strong side but not too much, however. She could drink it down and feel the creaminess of the foam with the bite of the whiskey and the warmth of the coffee. Once Alex had his Manhattan in hand, he turned back to her with a slight hooded look to his eyes and a gentle nudge of his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“So… since Nate and Matt aren’t here yet, you wanna go backstage and chill for a bit?” he offered her.

“Please,” she replied as she sipped on the coffee again.

“We’re going backstage back here, Val,” she heard Eric say to Valentina, who then giggled and flashed Christine a knowing look.

“Yeah, I’ll see you guys later,” Christine assured them in a low voice, and she followed Alex to the dimly lit corridor around the far side of the stage to the back part. Once he stood before the dressing room door, he set down his amp and took out a key.

“Yeah, they literally are not here,” he told her. “I had to get the key to my dressing room really quick.” He unlocked the door and nudged it open for the two of them, to which he reached inside and turned on the light. It was there that Christine picked up his amp from the floor and carried it into the room.

“Why, thank you, my dear,” he said with a certain warmth in his voice.

Once inside the cozy dressing room with the one wall painted red and the other three being pale, cleanly scrubbed brick, she closed the door behind them and set the amp down on the floor next to the sofa. She sipped on her Irish coffee some more, to which he responded with a sip of his Manhattan, which was that rich, sensual amber color to complement the darkness of her coffee,

“You sure you wanna be drinking before the show?” she asked him.

“Sometimes it helps,” he assured her with a wink and a picking of the cherry on top. He rested it on his tongue, and he set the glass down on the table before the vanity mirror, and he closed his mouth and adjusted his glasses once more. “Especially in this setting here, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, I do catch your drift,” Christine promised him. “I catch your drift so well, you lucky nerdy boy you—” She still held onto her Irish coffee as she stood up on her toes and lightly kissed him on the lips, which thus tasted of cherries: cherries and the sweetest of sin. He rested a hand on the small of her back while she leaned in closer his body. It was a balmy summer night, and yet she still had the thought of fall firmly on her mind: the thought of fall with the thought of curling up next to him.

“Alex… Alex… what’s the deadline for selecting a new elective?” she whispered into his face.

“August twenty-sixth,” he replied as he held back for a glimpse right into her face. “We’ve got to get on that paperwork stat lest we not see each other again during the quarter.” He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and then he showed her the tip of his tongue. “I wish I had another cherry, I can show you how to tie the stem with my tongue.”

“Ah, I think you should beware the stem on my tongue,” Christine retorted, to which he let out a low whistle at that. She slipped her tongue into his mouth for the dance of the hallucinogens when a knock on the door interrupted them.

“Alex? You in there?” Nathan’s voice sounded through the door panel.

“Yeah, I’m in,” Alex called back, and then he returned to Christine. “Let’s put a pin in that.” He flashed her another wink, and she showed him a little smile as she backed off. She all but stumbled out of there as Nathan and Matt filed in for the preparation before the show: the two of them grinned at her there with her glass of Irish coffee still very much in hand.

“What, you guys took a cab?” Alex then asked, slightly taken aback.

“Yeah, why not?” Nathan asked back, and that was the last thing she heard before she headed back out to the floor section.

Christine, Valentina, and Eric were down in front together as Alex resurfaced out from the backstage area, guitar slung over his shoulder and his little amp down on the floor next to Matt’s drum kit. He then gestured for Christine to come in closer to him, especially with the wall of sound already forming between the stage and the floor.

“You wanna spend the night here?” he suggested to her. “We both have had a little too much to drink, and I know I won’t feel like going home after all of this, either.”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s sleep in the back seat of your car, though. You know, just because I worry about us getting caught in there.”

“Of course! But… let me tell you something, though.” He glanced back right as Nathan and Matt resurfaced as well and the lights turned low.

“There is something of a spare room upstairs. I’ll show you afterwards.” She smiled as she sat back down with her coffee and Eric and Valentina, both of whom were going to be in for one hell of a story afterwards.