Sweet Dreams I’ll Never Have Them…7

Chapter 7

Alex left and that leaves me staring at that girl in the mirror. That girl from the picture he drew of me that he said was what he seen. I’m sitting there for a long time actually. I can’t get it out of my head for like hours. It just kind of sits there inside of that mess of me that’s me but, I’ve no idea exactly how I really feel.

Actually I kind of do. I know, I really have a real strong knowledge of being all fucked up.

This, feeling this blankness about this. You wanna know what I feel like? I feel like a fucking time bomb. I don’t know what’d I do if I actually had a gun.

I get out of the bed about quarter to four in the morning and pad to the bathroom and very hesitantly start to remove my make-up job. Part of me really doesn’t want to. Part of me really wants to stay?

It does come off, so easily gone it hurts me in a way I don’t get. I hear Alex out in the living room. I quietly pad out to where he’s sleeping on the couch. Well you can’t really call it sleeping. He’s tossing and turning and having a nightmare…I hear him whine, it’s the heart wrenching sound of a really scared, little kid. It tears at my heart and there’s some feeling this ache like getting hit in the gut from hearing it.

*** (Alex’s Nightmare.)

Part of me knows this isn’t real anymore.
Anymore....

But it did happen, I keep reliving it, even though people don’t think I remember…
But I do…I’ll never forget it.

I’m four years old and I’m playing in the laundry room because daddy don’t wanna see me playing anywheres I might make a mess. I’m playing with my Hot Wheels cars and I hears ‘em fighting again. Dad’s mad about stuff a lot. Like why can’t she get off her bum and keep house right. I don’t get it, I though all girls were good at playing house?

Dad’s mad an calls her a pig, and a cow and yells at her that he’s embarrassed to have her around him when he’s trying to impress his bosses and she looks like that. Like what? Mommy looks like mommy? He yells at her, telling her that she’s worthless, ugly, stooped. I get mad at him and run out of the laundry room and tell him to leave momma alone. He yells at me too for talking back to him. He yells at me for not being ready for 5th street. It’s my before pre-school thing.

Mom’s crying at the kitchen table, when we leave. I wanna hug her and make it better but he yanks me away.

It happens a lot. Dad’s angry a lot, he’s never home and mom’s lonely.
Mom’s sad.
She’s sad a lot.

Sometimes she have wine for breakfast when dad’s already gone. Sometimes she smokes these things that look like funny colored rock salt? She’s happy for awhile after that. But then later she’s sad, really sad.

Sometimes she’ll just stay in bed a lot.

Then there was the morning dad found her rocks, found her empty wine bottles and they fight. Mom really doesn’t want him to throw away her things. She yells at him, which just gets dad more mad than ever. They both scream about divorce, he yells something about a pre-up? She screams about supporting him trough college? He lefted to go to work, he was goin way on the airplane.

I remember Mom having wine and smoking a lot of her special medicine…I remember her looking at me with her great big happy smiles even though she was crying. “C’mon Alex, let’s go take you to daycare.” It’s not really daycare, daycare’s for babies it’s b’fore kiddergarder. Mom’s happy, but she’s still crying. We even sing in the SUV as we go. Then it happens. We turn off the street and down the overpass. I remember seeing the sign that said wrong way.

I remember it was weird, we was going into the part of the road where the cars was comin at us. I remember her driving then turning to me this huge smile on her face, tears running down her face and her letting go of the steering wheel to touch my face. “It’s gonna be alright now baby, it’s going to be alright, Momma promises.” Even as she said it her foot hit the gas.

I remember the first car hit the front of our truck, another hit the back as we were spinning, that sent us right into the path of the freightliner….

*** (Back to Hunter.)

He was making that sound and tossing and turning and Then he actually Spasmed like…I don’t know? Please, please don’t let this be drugs. He falls off the couch and I think I heard him cry out Mom?

I want to go to him but I’m scared. Alex is face down on the floor and his breathing is ragged. I just watch his fingers curling in clawing at the hardwood flooring. It’s heartbroken pain he’s dealing with, I know it so well I can almost smell it. “Alex…?”
I see this wave was over him, knowing he’s not alone and I see everything in him tensing up. “Alex…is everything okay?”

He s shivering, shaking trying to get in control of himself. “Yeah, Hunter…It was just my Wes Crave alarm clock going off again.” He’s picking himself slowly off the floor. I get out of the chair and help him. I’m almost too scared to touch him. I’ve been lashed out at too much. He looks at me once I’ve got him sitting back on the couch. His eye’s are red from crying. My gut twists again and I bite my lip and sit on him and straddle his lap and pull up the sleeves of my PJ top showing him my scars and the few healing marks there.

“It’s okay Alex, I get having nightmares, I get being fucked up inside, Whatever’s going on in here and here I’ll get.” I touched his head then his heart. He’s staring at me and he’s still shaking, and really trying not to. He’s fighting a war inside himself, we all are but maybe that’s what being there for/with someone’s about? Armistice, We can get into the way of the shit we’re at war within ourselves. Maybe, that’s it.

I lean in on him and I hug him, I wrap myself against him and hold him putting my head on his massive shoulders and hold him. God, I’m even awkward about it. Scared, I just sit there feeling him shivering and shaking like a scared animal. It takes a few minutes before his ripped arms surround me and he’s holding me or holding onto me…it feels good, it feel better, right even as it seems to be calming him down. Helping him, through this being there like this for him like he was there defending me at the mall is such a good feeling, a clean feeling.

You ever just had such a time where every fucking thing in your life is just shit? Like just to the point of your everyday is trying to drown you slowly like an inch everyday, just wearing you down, never stopping until misery and depression is your norm? This was like that. Like living alone in this dirty old shitty wreck of a house then finding surprisingly that in one room, somebody swept and wash the windows letting the sunlight in.

It’s like that, it’s like knowing you’re not alone in the place and that there’s light out there in the world still.

I like it when he seems to got to hanging onto me to holding me. I liked the hanging onto me too. It made me feel strong? But like…fuck it, I felt like a girl, getting to really be there for her guy. To be that kind of strong for him when something happens that he can’t take. And I liked feeling like that, I liked that I…Me…that I could be that strong.

I like running my fingers soothingly through his hair, I liked rocking him from side to side humming. I like it when he lift his head off my shoulder to look at me, I lift mine off his to. There’s this moment like at the mall where there’s something in his eyes. The he kisses me. It’s soft and slow and deep? It’s not like one of those tongue kisses but it’s like there’s this intensity I can feel off him, as he’s kissing me that he’s trying to kiss as deep into who I am as he can. I’ve never really known this kind of sweet and tender. I really can’t bring up any resistance to kissing him back. That new strength and that clean feeling in me keeping my inner Nazi skinhead quiet.

I can feel Alex getting aroused his hard on thickening underneath me and the fact it’s happening is turning me on too. I can’t help that, Alex has already crossed himself over into my dreams and I’m aching in a way I’ve never known, even getting as hard as I am feels different than when I’d get turned on by girls. Yeah, I like girls. Not all of them, not anyone who reminds me of my mom.

Alex has turned the universe as I’ve ever known it on it’s head. Oh..I like it when his hands slide over my body. God I’m getting girls a bit better. The strength in him, in his hands is intoxicating. I really like those hands running down my back. I love the way he rubs my lower back. I love how he rubs up and down soothingly, I like the way that he gently kneads right on either side of my spine, I love his hand going up my top just to rub my back more.

I relax into it, I kind of grind into him.

Kind of because It started on it’s own, subconsciously, but part of me really likes the feeling that he’s turned on, that he wants me. I kind of really like the taboo of it. I lower my head to his shoulder again and adjust my arms to hold him better, even return the soothing massage he’s giving me. I kiss his shoulder, his collar bone, his neck.

I really might be gay you know, or something.

I like the taste of just his skin, nothing freaky kinky like that. I like the smell of him. There’s something soothing about inhaling his scent. It’s a guy smell, but not the ones you read about. Alex smells like skin, there’s a slight…almost meaty scent from him? It’s like actually smelling Umami, that weird Japanese 5th taste/flavor. Whatever it is it’s mixed in with the scent of his skin itself and the faintest whiff of the soap from the shower he’d taken before he went to bed. I like all of that stuff way more than I should. I like his hardness, I like the small furnace of body heat he gives off. I love the ripple of him under his skin as my hands wander. I love kissing and sucking on his neck…I can’t help but smile thinking about the reactions as I start to really suck on his neck, making a seal with my mouth, negative pressure drawing blood to the surface and grazing him over and over again with my teeth, over and over again.

Maybe Jennifer seeing all the hickie I’ve just gave him will make her head pop like an aneurism. The thought oddly makes me smile. I feel Alex returning the favor…I feel his hands slide from under the back of my top to under the front of it. His hands go up my sides and to my chest. It feels good. Not in the fact I’ve got breasts or anything weird like that, but in that way that someone else touching you feels compared to just touching yourself. He does knead the flesh there ever though there’s really nothing there, that really feels good, really good…Then he touches my nipples, first with just sliding fingers then playing with them. I think my reaction to that was a inhalation gasp/whisper of “Ohfuck.”

I was so close to boiling over or something when his cell phone starts blazing out a tune. I don’t really know it but there’s this old rock sound to it…there’s a really good bit or whatever guitar they call the opening bit. Then this kinda high pitched kinda scratchy sounding guy starts belting out.

“Woke up this morning.”
“My dog was dead.”
“Someone disliked him.”
“And shot him through the head.”

There’s more of it but I can’t help but think with his life, my life it’s a really perfect something to wake up to. I can’t help the smile that comes across my face, it’s not what I’d guess that he’d listen too. He rests his head on mine. “I gotta get up. There’s a bunch of stuff I gotta do.” I look at the clock, it’s five AM in the morning. “This early?”
“I’m in training.” He slips out from underneath me.
“For what the army?”
“Football but I’ve though about going military to get out of here.”
“Okay…” I don’t even like the thought of that, I’m not a hater of the stuff going on but I just had a vision of Alex getting killed or coming back all fucked up with missing pieces. Okay yeah I have a beef with the US military but more the government.

There are too many of those guys that came back, fucked up. In the head and missing pieces and stuff left to fend in the shitty neighborhoods I came from. I guess we all get to see the official policy on loyalty.

Alex’s pulled on his sweats and he’s drinking a shake from a can and snags a bottle of water. “I’m going for my run, you wanna come?”
“How far?”
“Ten miles, five out, five back.”
“At five in the morning, NFW, what do you eat for breakfast?”
“NFW?”
“No Fucking Way.”
“Oh, Uhm cereal, a smoothie, scrambled eggs, stuff like that, it’s my really big meal plus I pack a lunch.”
“Whaddaya take, I usually take the rest of my smoothie, a salad, a couple of power bars.”
“Okay, you go and I’ll handle that stuff.”
“Really?” He smiled a bit surprised.
“Yes, really.” I smile back, I give him a kiss from my tip toes, he kisses me back.
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Mmmn, Yeah…” I push him away out the door. “Go.”
He leaves and I watch him leave and run down the street, He’s fast.

I turn on his stereo and go into the kitchen and pour him some granola in a bowl, some for myself too. I make some toast, dig out the jam and his (Blech) cottage cheese. I make up the scrambled eggs in a bowl for both of us and put some bacon in the frying pan and cut up a small onion and two potatoes into slices. I turn the pan on it’s lowest setting and go take a shower.

My shower is my first one here and it’s really nice, hot, lots of water pressure. I use some of the body wash that I/we/he bought yesterday and I lather up and borrow his razor and do my legs and my pits. I don’t really have hair anywhere else. I don’t know when it started, me shaving. I suppose when I started wearing tights and hose. My underarms just followed. I shampoo and condition and lotion my body up without drying off. I just use a cucumber/aloe stuff with green tea I like. I love feeling silky smooth. I feel icky if I don’t get to do it every few days. God it’s so nice to be clean and warm and to have fresh towels and a hair dryer.

I go and check on the bacon, give it a flip and head in the bedroom and get dressed. My new panties and a camisole top both in red. A pair of my new skinny jeans out of the dryer and slide into them and tuck myself away for comfort before zipping up and I look through his dressers and his closet before fining one of those meshed football jersey’s on over top of it. I brush my hair out straight so it just hangs shining and I Curl the ends so they flare out.

Back out to the kitchen, take off the bacon and put it on some paper towel and fry the potatoes in the bacon fat. I put on a little salt and pepper and then a pot of coffee. He’s just coming in as I turn the machine on.

I get this weird little rush as he smiles and inhales, he gives me this look, it one of those good looks. “That smells amazing Hunter.” He takes off his running shoes and he pulls out a work out machine thing called a bow flex from under the couch and moves the coffee table out of the way. He’s fast in setting it up and soon he’s working out doing all sorts of things. I buzz up soymilk, with some almond milk and some yogurt and a banana, and two oranges. I try it. I’ve had worse and it’s bound to be good for me. I pour him some and take it over to him. He stops and smiles. “Thanks Hunter, this is really good. You look good.” I blush a little. He fingers the jersey and looks at me.
“Hey I’m your “girl” remember, besides I thought I’d meet you for lunch at your school.”
“Why not just come?’
“I’ve gotta get my ID’s and stuff situated around and stuff. I’m gonna need a drive downtown if it’s not too much trouble.’
“No, not a problem.”
“Thanks Alex.”
“Hey, what are boyfriends for?”
I blush again.

I slip back into the kitchen, munch on some toast as I flip the potatoes and then dice the onion up and dump it in over the hash browns.

Back to the bedroom, blue the curled tips of my hair at least the last four inches and put on some of my makeup. Just the stuff around my eyes, a touch of liquid powder. I’ll save the lipstick for later.

Back out to the kitchen, Take the potato-hash off, and in the oven. I dump the scrambled egg mix into the still hot pan and start doing the dishes really quickly so there’s none hanging around. It’s really, nice just being able to do that and keep it clean. Neat freak yeah kinda, I know what it’s like to have bed bugs, and what it feels like to have cockroaches crawling over you or to have rats try and take a nibble out of you. I’m not going back to that. I’ll die first…I mean it. Yeah there’s the hint of the headache coming back, the wanting to cry. I don’t, I can’t, crying…I can feel this memory of my numerous cigarette burn scars hurting in the hot water. I get myself a hot coffee, I use it’s taste and the heat to break up the funk of bad memories.

I watch Alex work out as I sip my coffee. He’s in a better mood, it’s probably the endorphins from the run and stuff. He’s got his shirt off now and he’s getting this sweaty sheen over himself as he goes through all these different exercises. You ever see the commercial for these things. He does all of the different things, he’s fast and pushes himself really hard. I could watch this for a long time, I really don’t want to do it but. I’m really attracted to Alex. Yeah I can admit it. Fuck, I love the way his muscles are standing out right now. I’m straining against my confinement but there’s also this kind of faint achy, hollow feeling in me. It’s scary as hell and alluring to me all at the same time. I think I want him inside of me…I’m not going to act on it. But there’s a big stunned “oh” in my brain right now that if Alex wanted me, I’d go for it. I think.

He took twenty five minutes to run, worked out for another thirty minutes really hard, if he does this everyday I can see why he’s put together the way that he is. He smiles at me and heads off to shower.

I gather his stuff and mine and even slip into the bathroom. “Hey I’m gonna start the laundry so just take your towels to the piles I’ve set out.”
“Okay, thanks Hunter.”
I don’t have different baskets for stuff yet so Yeah it’s piles.

I slip into the kitchen and dig through his fridge and sacrifice a slice of bacon and toast for his salad, cube a bit of cheese and chop up some cucumber, celery and tomato with his lettuce. I bag it all in sandwich bags separately so it doesn’t get slimy and put it all into a zip lock baggy and I find one of those thermoses and I toss in a splash of OJ and ice into it before putting in the rest of his smoothie. There’s nylon lunch bag on the counter so I put it all in there with three energy bars and three bottles of water.

Wow, holy male model body builder he looks so hot when he comes out drying his hair and just with a towel around his waist. He moves so, looks so. Even with the scars, he’s beautiful.

He comes out dressed and ready for his day. Nice tee-shirt, zip front hoody, jeans, high end sneakers. Everything’s ready, and we sit down to eat. I’m rather pleased ay how it turned out. I eat my granola still getting used to even eating it. I think I like it, not really sweet, but tastes good and crunchy. I like crunchy stuff sometimes. I have some of the scrambled eggs and bacon and three good sized bit of potato hash. I ate maybe a quarter of what I made and Alex completely ate the rest. I loved watching him eat and make these faces, like he really liked it faces. There’s this part of me really happy that he likes it. We clean off the breakfast dishes and he puts the clothes in bags. “We’ll do those tonight, after we’ve got the day’s stuff to do.”
“Sounds good to me.”

Alex tosses on his varsity jacket and my black knit cap again, I put on my fingerless gloves and my leather jacket. I might be wearing his jersey and stuff but I’m still me, I put on my favorite new thing, these calf high black leather boots with that whole haute culture boot if it got mugged by a set of biker and army boots. Lots of buckles and laces and they really gang my look up. I finally put on my lipstick a dark blue color. Yeah I feel great. I grab my old beat up backpack with the stuff in it I’m going to need. Alex is looking at me and smiling. I look good; but I look like me. I’ve no bra, no chest but the way I’m dressed, the way I look. The lack of really girly curve but my long legs. You really can’t fucking tell what I am. That throws people, I love that.

There’s another car, in the garage beside his when we come downstairs. There’s a man dressed in one of those really understated really dark $3000.00 suits sipping a coffee. He’s built, tall, lean. Clean shaven with dark hair with no grays in it.

“So this is the new girlfriend Alex?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, but I just thought Jennifer was…More your speed.”
“Jennifer’s just out for Jennifer.”
“They all are Alex, they all are…with Jennifer you knew where you stood.”
“You like her so much you can have her.”
He just stared at Alex coldly and sipped his coffee. It leads to a moment of awkward silence. I take Alex’s arm. “Hey C’mon, I’ve got things to do to day.”
“Yeah…”
His father turns to walk in the house. “Have a good day, Alex…Hunter.” he closes the door behind him. He knows my name. Alex never introduced us. Oh I’m thinking already this isn’t good.

Alex drives me downtown, I’m a little freaked out and paranoid after this morning. I’m just tripping or think I am when there’s a very undercover cop looking car three cars behind us. I get him to drop me off at the Ren-Cen. He gets out and gives me a funny look. “What do you need here?”
“I think your dad hired someone, we’ve been tailed all the way since we left your street."
“We have?” he was going to look around until I pull him into a kiss. I whisper into his ear. “Don’t look just go. I can handle this.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it’s not like the can arrest me, and I’m used to dodging cops from back home, I’ve been doing it all my life.”
“You have?”
“Yeah, talk later.”
He kisses me again and breaks it. “You need some cash?” he asks openly.
“Yes please.”
He takes all but two twenties from his wallet and passes it to me. There’s this sparkle in his eyes. He knows this will bait them to me. I smile and kiss him again. “I’ll see you later at lunch.”
He gets in the car and pulls off and I count the cash once he’s gone then put it away and head to Starbucks. Yeah their in the reflection there. They look like ex-cops. I get one of those fancy coffees and lots of whipped cream on it. Sprinkles and all the other stuff. I pay a girl $30 bucks to borrow her cell phone and get two normal coffees on a tray.
I walk outside again and right over to the car their in an older grey Pontiac sunfire and stand in front of the passenger side window. These guys by instinct don’t like to have their covers blown even if they’re just tailing someone. Me getting right up to them gets them freaked. They’ve been made and they know it. There’s a look of resignation on the guys face as he powers down the window. I pass them the tray with the two coffees on it. They take them.
Flash…flash…I take their pictures. Then look at them in my best pissed bitch voice. “Tell him never to ever fucking try this shit again, never again.” They might have started to say something but I step back and biff the preppy creamy coffee all over their windshield. I step back more.
Flash…flash …license plates. They get out of the car looking pissed, like they might do something…“Uh…uh…uh…fellas…Unless you’re gonna shoot me this’ll be loaded to You tube before you can do anything.”

Yeah these guys know shit about the internet and stuff ant the thought’s scaring the piss out of them and they look scared. Getting public’s not good for business for these guys.
I smile like a real bitch, as I walk backwards into Starbucks. They’re not long in taking off. I download the pics and the video to my e-mail account and pass the girl back her phone.

What A lovely way to start the day.

You’d think I’d be scared, But I’m not. Cliff’s terrorized me to where it just doesn’t faze me. With the life I’ve lived…He might escalate things or not. All I know is I don’t like him. I’m not leaving Alex there. He won’t stop, trying to get to Alex, trying to break him.
He’s one of those guys who needs it like breathing.

Alex needs my protection.