Into Fall
Max left this morning on his bike, I had to laugh when he explained his reasoning, and the way the summer began he may be right. He really lost two weeks out our time together. We were together but not alone, that made a difference. We made up for lost time once we were back home. Max is hard to categorize like the air, just when you think you’ve got it, it changes directions. I’ve leaned on him a lot this summer and found him there for me, and found him steady.
It has been a time of revelation for me to understand the magic and I’m glad I now know. There is no hurry I have plenty of time, and like Jack said, one will emerge and I will let it happen, I will know. I still question Terry’s idea that it’s all an illusion but he might be right, but if it is I love it.
Tomorrow Terry will be here and it will be our fourth time together, hard to believe its only been four times; I think perhaps he never really leaves, is it crazy to feel this way, like if I turned quickly I might see him running beneath the canopy of leaves and as I sit here on the rock by the pond, I hear his footfalls as he runs they seem to be caught in an echo along the trails in this place.
He is my soul mate I know this without even knowing exactly what that means. I know when I’m with him, he’s all I need.
Into Fall
At
The House of Four Seasons
by Atonia
Part 1
He slowed to a walk, the house was just ahead through the early morning mist that always rose from the sea and would return called back by the sun. A peace entered him, flowed through him the closer he got to the door. It was warm still, summer not giving up easy; he smiled at this thought and opened the door.
Toni was awake sitting against his headboard, she’d been awake for about fifteen minutes, he was here somewhere she could feel it and so she waited for him to open the door to the bedroom. It was unusual for her to be awake this early but something had tugged her from her sleep.
He opened the door quietly but seeing her awake he left it open “I don’t think I’ve ever found you awake when I get here.”
“You haven’t, something woke me.”
“It was me,” he said sliding in beside her.
“You’re all wet it must be warm out.”
“Sweat and mist, do you mind?”
“Hell no.” she answered low.
He grinned and took her face in his hand and kissed her, a long and satisfying kiss that had her pulling his black singlet up, he released her long enough to pull it over his head and claimed her mouth again pushing her into the mound of soft down pillows. Toni’s hands at his waist and then up over his back tracing his spine with her finger tips all the way down.
She loved the feel of his body strong, hard, with nothing he did not need or could not use effectively. And he did know how to use it, taking her out of herself to some higher plane where she responded to his body without conscious thought, glorious sense melding with him until they were one, drinking from one another until they were spent and savoring the remains.
“Welcome home, Terry.” She purred against his neck.
He raised up on his arms, “I think you were glad to see me.”
“You know I am.”
“It’s hard to be around you, Toni and not be able to do what I want with you.”
“I know, it is for me too, that’s why I tried to keep away from you. You have a way of pulling me into you to a place I don’t want to leave.”
“Stay there; it’s where I want you where you need to be.”
“I love it in you,” her arms went around his neck pulling him down to her lips.
They were out on the terrace for breakfast, “Did you hear from your Auntie?”
“Yes, she called to let me know she was home and that you and John had left. She said she had the time of her life. When did you bring the keys in?”
“It was late, probably after ten, John and I stopped for dinner on the way to the airport, good thing he took me, security was pretty tight as you can imagine and me not being an American I could have had a problem. John being a lawman himself helped…he pulled out his badge.”
“Did he,” she smiled. “You should have banged around made some noise.”
“Why?”
“I could have said goodbye.”
“You were upstairs with Max.”
“Oh.”
“I liked your Auntie Sara.”
“She seemed taken with you, wants to adopt you.”
“She took it all in her stride, didn’t ask too many questions. I think she knows, maybe not everything, but she’s aware.”
“You don’t think she’s an illusion, you told me we all are.”
“That’s not exactly what I said. Are you angry with me for telling you, be honest.”
“Not angry, in fact when I had time to think about it Jack told me pretty much the same thing when he gave me his ring; I just didn’t understand. You spelled it out so I could and then Jack told me the rest of it. Why did you tell me when no one else would?”
“I thought you should know. I don’t like surprises especially not one of that magnitude. Besides, I had nothing to lose.”
Toni tilted her head remembering Jack’s reason for not telling her was that he thought he might lose her. “I’m not ready.”
“No one is pushing you. You have all the time you need.” He lit a cigarette.
“I know, and Jack said one would emerge and to let it happen.”
“Good advice, I like Jack he’s a mate.”
“He didn’t seem too happy that you had told me.”
“He wasn’t but he understood what was behind it. I told John on the way to Logan, he’s glad you know; he wanted to tell you but he couldn’t. Max was the only one who didn’t want you to know.”
“Max…why?”
“Maybe he has something to lose.”
“Are you talking about…me?”
“No, not you, Fannie.”
“Fannie…that’s in his other life.”
“Not if you take him away.”
Toni got up from the table gathering their plates and turned and looked at Terry for a moment before taking them into the kitchen. Realization dawning on her what he was talking about. She put the plates in the sink and began mindlessly scraping them for the dishwasher. John was married in his other life, if she took him away he would not see his family again, he had children. Jack was married to Sophie and had children, and Max had Fannie. She banged the door to the dishwasher shut. Terry had no one, nothing to lose.
“Now you’re angry with me aren’t you?’ he came into the kitchen.
“You keep giving out bits of information like a dose of medicine; I don’t like the taste of it. It doesn’t go down well. Why not just tell me exactly what I need to know. You have nothing to lose, what about your son.”
“I’ve already lost him,” he said quietly, “we hardly know each other, we’re strangers.”
“When you leave here you go back to…?”
“Dino, not my taste.”
“I didn’t know this, I didn’t.”
“I know you didn’t, but you should know that they are all prepared to do that Toni. They would give it up for you.”
“I’m not worth it, not worth giving up children for.” She turned on the dishwasher and leaned against the sink. She felt him behind her and leaned against him.
“It’s all an illusion, Toni all of it.”
“Does that make it any easier?”
“Let’s get out of here, I didn’t mean to open this up, I don’t want this to dominate our time, not today.”
She turned in his arms, “Take me somewhere real; is there such a place for us?”
He took her to Boston and asked her to direct him to where she lived before she moved to the house. She took him down a street and they parked in front of a condominium complex.
“Come, I’ll show you.” He walked with her down the sidewalk until they came to her building, a row of townhouses, and she pointed to her house. “That’s where I lived, nothing fancy but it was something I could afford.”
She took him by the building where she’d worked, “Up there on the third floor, they publish a magazine, it comes out monthly and it’s about the local area, little stories I used to write. These are not exactly points of interest; I wonder why you want to see?”
“It’s who you were; I’m interested in everything about you.”
“There’s nothing left of who I was, all my things went to charity except for a few I took back to the house.”
“I called your Auntie before we left the house she’s expecting us for tea.”
“You called her…?”
“You wanted something real today, she is real ,Toni.”
After tea she took him up three flights of stairs to her old room, the room she lived in while she went to college. “It hasn’t changed much, probably a little cleaner.” She looked around the room, posters on the wall, a collection of small stuffed animals on a shelf, an interesting shaped rock, a few framed photos. Terry went for the photos.
“This is you and your friends.”
“Yeah, that’s me, sophomore year.” She walked over to the bed and picked up her old teddy bear, with its fur mostly gone. She sat down and looked at it straightening his little red sweater. When she looked up Terry was watching her. She gave him a crooked smile, “This is Morris.”
“He looks well loved.”
“He is…was, I got him when I was six, the year my parents were killed in an auto accident, Mamam gave him to me.”
“Why did you leave him behind?”
“I don’t know, I guess I thought I was all grown up.” She was going to cry and brought Morris to her face, he’d soaked up many a tear in his bear life.
Terry sat on the bed beside her and put his arm around her, “Maybe he misses you, Toni, maybe you need him.”
“I think I do,” she buried her head in his shoulder and he held her and Morris tightly to him.
Toni was mostly quiet on the ride back to the house. Terry had put her in touch with who she used to be before the magic took her life. She leaned her head back on the seat and closed her eyes. He was the only one who was interested in her old life, Max had helped her move but she had asked him to.
“Terry…thank you.”
“For what luv?”
“For today.”