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He eyed the poker again. Maybe just a whack in the head for a peaceful hour of unconsciousness? At least then he could sleep, uninterrupted by the prancing snuffle of his mother’s perpetually horny bulldog, Leonardo, who seemed to have mistaken Jack’s pant leg for the hind end of a shapely retriever.
“Sophie,” he heard from the hall, “be sure Mr. Winfield’s drink is freshened before you start clearing away the dishes.”
“Sophie, be sure to drop a tranquilizer in his glass, too, so Mr. Winfield can get through another day in this bloody mausoleum,” he muttered.
He rubbed a weary hand over his brow and sank deeper into the uncomfortable sofa. The plastic crinkled beneath his ass. Sick of it, he finally slid off to sit on the plushly carpeted floor. Grabbing a pillow, he put it behind his head and leaned back, wondering how long it had been since he’d relaxed.
“Three days. Five hours. Twenty-seven minutes.” Not since he’d returned home to Pleasantville for this long weekend.
Jack didn’t like feeling so caged-in. He needed to be home, in his own Chicago apartment, away from grief and the smell of old dead roses and talcum powder. Away from his mother’s tears and his sister’s complaints.
Actually, when he thought about it, what he really needed to bring about sleep and a good mood was a seriously intense blow job. Followed by some equally intense reciprocal oral sex. And finally good old, blissful, hot, headboard-slamming copulation.
He hadn’t been laid in four months and was feeling the stress. It almost seemed worth it to call his ex and ask her to meet him at his place the next day for some we’re-not-getting-back-together-but-we-sure-had-fun-in-the-sack sex.
Home. Chicago. Late tonight. And not a moment too soon.
Jack supposed there were worse places to visit than his old hometown of Pleasantville, Ohio. Siberia came to mind. Or Afghanistan. The fiery pits of hell. Then again…
“You’re sure you have to leave tonight?” his mother asked as she entered the room. “I thought you were going to stay longer than three days. There’s so much to do.”
“I’m sorry, Mother, you know I can’t.”
Tears came to her eyes. If he hadn’t seen them every hour or so since his birth, they might have actually done what she wanted them to do—make him change his mind.
Sadly enough, his mother simply knew no other way to communicate. Honest conversation hadn’t worked with Jack’s father, so she’d relied on tears and emotional blackmail for as long as Jack could remember. His father had responded with prolonged absences from the house.
Dysfunctional did not begin to describe his parents’ relationship. It—and his sister’s three miserably failed walks down the aisle—had certainly been enough to sour Jack on the entire institution of marriage.
Relationships? Sure. He was all for romance. Dating. Companionship. From shared beer at a ball game, to candlelight dinners or walks along the shores of Lake Michigan on a windy afternoon, he thoroughly enjoyed spending time with women.
Not to mention good, frantic sex with someone who blew his mind but didn’t expect to pick out curtains together the next morning. Someone like his ex, or any number of other females he knew who would happily satisfy any of those requirements with a single phone call. Not calling any of them lately had nothing to do with his certainty that he wasn’t cut out for commitment or happily-ever-after. It had everything to do with his father’s death. Work and his obligation to his family had been all he’d thought about for several months.
“Why can’t you?” his mother prodded.
“I’ve got to wrap up the mall project I’m working on. You know I’ve planned some extended vacation time in July. I’ll come back and help you get things settled then.” Unless I get hit by a train or kidnapped by aliens…one can hope, after all.
Nah. Trains were messy. And after watching the “X-Files” for years, the alien thing didn’t sound so great, either. He really couldn’t get into the whole probing of body orifices gig.
So, a summer in Pleasantville it would be.
Thinking of how he’d originally intended to spend his long summer vacation—on a photographic big-game safari in Kenya—could almost make a grown man cry. Pampered poodles instead of elephants. Square dances instead of native tribal rituals. The chatter of blue-haired ladies sitting under hair-drying hoods instead of the roar of lions and the crackle of a raging bonfire. Small town, pouting blond princesses with teased up hair instead of worldly beauties with dark, mysterious eyes.
