Chapter 60: Adam & Melly Encore |
MELLY writing--
I've read what Art wrote about Addy's homecoming. And the part about
how he'd rather let Adam and Melly tell what they felt, leave them some
privacy, etc. Yeah, well here's Melly unloading her heart on everybody
again.
Okay, Adam was a little shocked by what I'd written about our private
moments. He'd always tried to protect me from the "scandal of our
unacceptable unnatural love", and all that. And well yeah okay, when
I reread it later, after my passions had cooled off from all the waiting
and wanting, I had to wonder if it wasn't a teensy uncool. I mean, I'd
almost put it on the Internet, I was so eager to offer myself for Addy.
Luckily, Art wouldn't post it on our Adam website for me. Maybe I can
try to control myself a little better this time.
But I doubt it. I have to write what I feel--okay, I don't HAVE to--but
that's what I end up writing anyway. Passion is the whole point of this.
For example, that first day Addy came back, when we'd stayed up all night,
him and Art, Elaine and me, I ended up emotionally exhausted. I'd gone
so long not allowing myself to feel anything about Addy, for lots of
reasons. Then WHOOSH up to the giddy heights of reunion, and BRRRR,
down to the pits of feeling like I was in the wrong place with the
wrong guy all over again.
Finally I had to go home to sleep in my own bed. Addy'd asked me to
stay, but I'd refused, somewhat bitchily, I guess. He politely walked
me out to the car.
"Look Mell, I can tell you're feeling weird about me," he said, "but
I'm sure not feeling that way about you. I'm just so happy to see you
again."
"Guess that makes me one of your many women, eh?" Yup, I was definitely
feeling bitchy.
"Well, certainly the woman most beloved by me." He said it without
apology, honestly candid. I'd shot for some abject wheedling, but he
was being cool. I liked that, despite myself.
But I wasn't going to melt for him that easy. I'd thought a lot about
him and me, how nuts it was, how impossible. Star-crossed lovers, Romeo
and Juliet, Buffy and Angel, who needs it? I was tired enough to be
tired of it all, just had to challenge him.
"Addy, you were fucking your brains out at some rampaging Full Moon Sex
Orgy two nights ago. Now you've come back to your delicate little
Nokhso childhood sweetheart for a nice dose of eternal celibacy?
I mean, what do you need me for?"
"For us. For completion. For my link to this world. For your kind of
love in my life, which can't be found with any Nokhon girl. For-ever.
For..." Sometimes Addy is just too clever with words to take seriously.
"But the squatch chicks screw like really big hairy bunnies, which should
be pretty good compensation. You seemed to do all right with whatshername,
Magga. Maybe you should have stayed."
He shook his head, "It was time to come home. I've missed you all for
too long."
"Missed us ALL..." I couldn't help saying it with a nasty tone.
"Oh come on, are you really jealous of Art and Elaine?"
"No... no, I'm not. And I'm not jealous of all your squatch girls either.
I'm just...it's just that I can't..."
He had stepped closer and I smelled his familiar musk scent (oh yeah, it
had just been full moon), and he could probably smell my wetness down
there. No fair.
"...We still can't...you know..."
"Doesn't matter, Mell, just seeing your face makes me tingle."
Now I wanted to melt, but resisted, turned up the nastiness: "Has it
ever occurred to you that I might have some other love life of my own
going on these days?"
"No, because I had a Magic Vision and you were in it."
"Oh, that's right: you had a Vision!" I said, with a wee trace of irony,
"Great, so now I really must be your woman."
"Listen: I've been through some extreme reality-altering experiences out
there with the Sha-hakas and the Elders, it's all about visions and magic.
Things I've seen tend to make me believe that my Vision is valid."
"Okay, you HAVE been Out There, all right," I had to admit. "So what WAS
your Vision? What did you see?"
"Well, I can't TELL anyone. That has to remain my secret for the magic
to work."
"So you've had a secret magic vision...and I'm supposed to tag along?"
"Together all the way, partners for life. Look, Melly, this is Orator
stuff, the same force that makes me keep promises and never lie. All I
can reveal about that Vision is that we are..."
"...soul mates bound by fate, yeah, yeah, I know. Addy, you're good at
words, but I need something more real."
"You're right. And I know just what we both need. Climb on."
For a second the sexual connotation confused me, I didn't know what he
meant. But then I caught on.
"Oh, I don't know, Addy. Going for a run..."
I could see how tired he was, and he was offering me that anyway. I
couldn't help thinking that was sweet of him, but let bitchiness prevail.
"...it always just makes me want to have sex with you. And we can't."
"Yeah, me too. So what?" he said.
I had to smile, but shook my head anyway. "I don't want to feel that.
Not now anyway, I'm too tired, going home, bye." I kissed him on the
cheek and drove home.
I went home to deal with some issues. I really didn't want to start
getting involved with Addy again. Seeing him so trim and wild-haired
from living out in raw nature woke me up to the fact that he was not
human. I'd always thought of Addy as very human, but now I could see
that he really was an intelligent wild superhuman beast. So superior
to me that I could never justify any claim to him.
Thing is, I'd just broken up with a guy named Dan a few days before.
I almost called him when I got home from the Forest's place at 9:30 in
the morning; get him to beg me to come back. Maybe even have sex with
him, just to remind myself that I didn't have to settle for the kind
of sterile and sexless love-life Addy and I had been trapped in.
Dan was a nice, handsome, sweet young man. I let him pick me up in
Biochemistry 101. Once I knew that Addy was alive and would be coming
back someday, I started to feel horny again--that had been so dead while
I was feeling guilty for maybe having gotten Addy killed. Horny in
general, and since I then knew about Addy's promise to my Dad, I assumed
there wouldn't ever be any relief from that horniness, even if he did
come back. Bleak outlook.
Problem was Dan fell for me like tons of bricks. Like Peter did. And
the more he wanted me the more unsure I became about it. I don't have
to tell you if I had sex with him or not, so I won't. Besides, I like
to keep my readers hanging on, paying attention, just like my guys.
Who am I kidding? Me, the Wanton Temptress, who can have anyone but the
one guy she really wants. I dropped Dan because Addy came back, there
wasn't a second's hesitation. Broke his heart, I know, and I'm sorry,
but at least nobody got shot this time.
Besides, I've seen how a temptress lives, sharing an apartment with
Lissandra Cunnings. She is one party girl, guys coming around all the
time. Liss is sexually adventurous, often has two or three guys going
on at once and rarely is there just one real boy friend. Lately it's
been bikers, some of them kind of scary. Those guys get a little
too wild for me, drinks and drugs, lots of testosterone boiling,
egos clashing. Some of those guys get jealous or greedy...or hurt...
there have been fights, threats, destruction of property.
It's on the edge.
For a while I wondered if Liss even liked men at all. She said she's still
not sure, but doesn't seem to care when they give up and leave. She's so
beautiful she can get any guy she wants, so she doesn't worry about the next
one, he's already waiting in line. She likes being admired and desired,
catered to, obeyed, but she sure doesn't let any guy win her heart.
And just when I'd decide that I never wanted to be a bitch like her, she
revealed that one person does have her heart after all: Me. She loves me.
Not in a gay way or anything. Actually she's got kind of an aversion to
gayness, her own mother being a confirmed lesbian who lives with her girl
friend (they're both very nice).
And I love her too: she's a really good friend, loyal, fun, great roommate,
a sister. Still, it's a good thing I'm not a guy.
When Addy called the next day inviting me to dinner out at the ranch, I
didn't want to go. The Forests are his family; I shouldn't be in the way.
But it took him 17.5 seconds to coax me into coming anyway. Then we all
had such a nice evening, because Art and Elaine Forest have always been
my family too.
Up in his room later, I read aloud to him everything I'd written about him
in our Adam out of Eden document. Could have been embarrassing, for
both of us, but instead it felt so cozy being with him.
Rereading aloud all those passionate words I'd written about him reminded
me of how much desire I had felt and could feel. Thought I'd lost all
that. Been afraid I'd lost that.
Then we turned off the computer and were quiet. Art and Elaine had gone
to bed hours before, so we were alone in the middle of the night in the
study. I took Addy's great big hairy hand and easily pulled all 500
pounds of him outside onto the front porch. Without discussion I climbed
onto his back and off we went into the night.
We crossed the clearing, me up on my old familiar perch, Adam walking
slow at first, but deliberately building speed. This was our tradition,
smooth start, wild ride. By the time we went into the forest the trees
were already flashing past, the brush parting or passing under us, him
leaping over everything. Then the wind, getting intense as he kept
running faster and faster, me hanging on with fingers dug into his fur,
still faster, trees blurring now.
Fun at first, then that familiar fright as I realized once again the
power of this stallion I had mounted. This thing was not human, it was
a monster, a demon of the woods, literally a force of nature. Then the
fear evaporating into joy and personal power, because I could steer him
with unspoken wishes, because he was MY monster! MINE! Arrrg!
It was like when we were kids, not with the erotic charge that came later,
but the innocent flight through the forest on my magic dragon. Only now
he was even more magic, stronger than before, even faster, surer of foot,
the master of the forest. Hell, The God of the forest.
Suddenly we were on Old Bald Top, miles up into the Cascade foothills.
Addy stopped and squatted, and I climbed down, dizzy from the suddenness
of our arrival. I tingled all over, as if I'd been riding a bolt of
lightning. We looked out over a panorama of moonlit hilltops backed by
a range of snow-topped mountains, saying nothing.
I felt very perfect just then, complete, nothing was missing--as it had
been for so long. I didn't even have to touch Addy, we were together and
connected. We didn't need sex at all.
Finally he spoke. "Was it really so bad between you and your dad that
you had to move in with Lissandra Cunnings?"
"Oh yeah. I was so angry about what he'd done to you--and us--that I
blamed him for everything."
"Well, it wasn't his fault Peter shot me."
"Yes it was. If we'd been allowed to be the lovers we're supposed to be,
I'd never have gotten involved with Peter in the first place."
"Actually, it may be that Peter--and even his father shooting my mother--
have unwittingly each been part of some Master Plan."
"What plan?" I had to ask.
"The secret sinister plan of mystical Yeti Gurus hiding in a Lost City far
away in the Himalayan Mountains!" Addy hammed it up, like the preview for
a really stupid B-movie.
"Oh right, the Negotiator plan. But to make HUMANS do their dirty work...
wait a minute, you don't really believe that, do you?"
A shrug, "I don't know what to believe. Yet."
"Gol, Addy..." me shaking my head, “that’s too weird for me.”
"My point is that I don't think we ought to be too unforgiving with Doug.
He was just being a father, he couldn't help it."
"Forcing you to promise not to fuck me--at gunpoint--when you were 13
years old? Come on, that's child abuse!"
"I wasn't just a child, I was a horny young Bigfoot, he was probably
right. If I hadn't made that promise I certainly WOULD have made love
with you, we both know that."
"And so? I'd become a fallen woman, or what? You'd never have hurt me,
I know that too."
"No, not deliberately, but..."
"But since then you've learned just how rough squatch sex can get, is
that what you mean?"
"Well sorta. There can be some heavy-duty pounding going on..."
"Hmmm? So do they totally lose it?"
"Well...naw, not really. The Nokhontli are usually quite kind to one
another, polite. They never try to hurt their partners."
"Hey, I thought you were all rutting animals." Maybe I sounded
disappointed.
"Yeah well, kind of, but not violent rutting. But even so, I think most
fathers would have done the same thing Doug did if some pubescent boy
squatch was getting horny for their daughter."
"So do YOU forgive him?" I asked.
"Oh, I forgave Doug long ago for the part about protecting his daughter.
But I was pretty mad about the part..." Addy stopped mid-sentence, a
frustrated look on his face.
"What?"
"I can't talk about it. I promised not to."
"But we KNOW about it, it's not a secret anymore."
"Maybe so, but I'm still bound by my promises anyway, even after they're
pointless."
"Including the No Sex For Us part?"
"Yeah, that too."
"Oh, that's okay," I kidded, "You're beginning to scare me off anyway,
with all the details of the heavy-duty pounding you'd be doing to me,
and all."
"Mell, I wouldn't..."
"I know you wouldn't, Addy. I'd never imagined it that way between us.
We both knew it would have to be low-energy for you, but that would have
been nice anyway. I know that." Then I went from wistful to angry,
"and Dad should have known that too!"
"I..." Addy seemed to make an effort to speak, stuttering slightly, then
found a way around his promise and said "...the worst was that I couldn't
tell you WHY I wouldn't make love to you. Doug made me live a lie."
"That's also part of what really pissed me off--that lie HE was living
all those years, playing the part of the good understanding free-
spirited parent, when he KNEW exactly what was wrong. I'm glad to say
that he REALLY went on a guilt-trip when you disappeared."
"So is he still wearing sackcloth and ashes these days?"
"Don't know," I admitted, "haven't spoken to him since I moved out."
"Wow, you've become hard," sounded like Addy was kidding...or maybe not,
"hard enough to move in with Lissandra Cunnings!"
I shrugged. "Hey, it was the right move at the right time. She had a
spare room when I moved out of Dad's house, things just sort of fell into
place. We get along, split the rent. "
"I never understood how you two could be friends."
"Liss is okay. A little wilder than me, but I don't mind, loosens me up
a little. Actually, we have fun together."
"You haven't told her that I'm back?"
"No, but she's not stupid. She knows I've been waiting for you, and if I
don't come home tonight, well... But she won't tell anyone until it's
official, we've arranged that long ago. She's cool, you can trust her."
"I dunno. She was never friends with me."
"Lissandra was never your enemy. She actually likes you."
"THE Lissandra Cunnings? Not hardly..."
"I know, she teased you a lot..."
"She didn't TEASE me; she was as NASTY as she could be."
"Well, now she's glad that you're alive."
"Yeah, well, I'm even glad PETER's alive, and he IS my enemy."
It was time to set Addy straight. "Listen, Lissandra testified against
Peter at the trial--in fact, she'd tried to warn me about him even
before he shot you, but I didn't believe her."
We were quiet for a while, listening to the summer night sounds, just
snuggling together. It was a little moment of eternity, him and me:
we were kids again, we were young adults, and we would be old someday,
and it was always going to be like this moment. It was love, but not
just love, it was cosmic friendship and togetherness, Earth and Moon.
Ah, I'm getting all romantic again. Gotta watch that.
"We have to start a band," he suddenly said out of the blue.
My forest God was suddenly talking like a stupid teen-ager. I couldn't
help calling him on that. "A band? Huh? Come on, grow up."
"I HAVE grown up and I'm a man with a mission. Okay, I don't know
exactly what the mission is yet, but I do know what's next: you and I
form a band.
"Is this part of your Vision or are you not at liberty to say?"
"I may say Yes. I can also say that we will be four musicians. You,
me, Pokey and...someone else, I don't know who yet. "
"Don't make serious plans involving Pokey. He's become the drunk Indian
he always promised he was going to be." (Pokey's famous quotation:
"I'm going to be a drunken Indian when I grow up!")
"Yeah, that's what Art said. Have you been in touch with him?" Adam
looked concerned.
"Not so much. He's kind of losing all his friends."
"Jeez, that's a shame. I'll have to contact him. Tomorrow."
"Yeah, better do that. He took your, uh, death pretty hard. That's
when he really started hitting the bottle."
"Maybe he can pull out again now that I'm back."
"Maybe."
"You sound doubtful."
"Pokey is a screw-up, you know that. The only thing he believes in is
the curse of the red man. Besides, Addy, you're too good a musician
to make a band with him, or me for that matter. Why not team up with
some professional musicians instead of amateurs?"
"Because I have worked with professional musicians, like Smokey
Chesterton and his boys. They always have egos and agendas of their
own. I want to do music with my friends."
"Yeah well, don't look now, but friends have egos and agendas too, you
know. At least professionals play instruments better."
"Better is a relative concept. I've played with both of you, and there
was a connection I liked better than playing with Smokey Chesterton's
band. The music felt better."
"Great, shame it didn't sound better too."
"Oh, it shall. Listen, Mell, I've been learning about magic, and music
is my way to power."
"I thought you were supposed to become The Great Negotiator."
"Same thing: singing is melodic Orating and it influences attitudes. The
best way to expand your Oratorical reach is by appealing to a larger
audience. The best Negotiator would be someone you CHOOSE to listen to.
It all hangs together."
"In your Vision?" I was about to tease Addy about how crazy he was
sounding, but looked and saw him for what he actually is: a young super-
human just returned from studying shamanism among sasquatches. So I just
shut up and nodded. Guy's had a vision, okay, why not?
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