The screams in the night blistered his ears. They were his. He sat up, bathed in sweat and shivering in the fear he seemed to never be able to shake. He caught his breath after three heavy tries. Steadying himself with both hands, knotting the drenched sheet on either side of him, he forced himself to focus his eyes.
Ian swung his feet to the floor, finally taking comfort that this was real and the rest was not. He stood, alone trembling in the dark. From where he stood he could see a form on the other side of the room; afraid and staring back at him.
He took a step toward the mirror and looked at his own drenched reflection. He pointed in the dark and said out loud. “You are not allowed to cry.”
He drug himself to the bathroom, turning the taps of the vanity on and splashing himself with water. The cold only added a shiver to the trembling. He reached for the towel, wiping himself with one hand, steadying himself on the rack with the other.
“You can do this, man.” He said to himself out loud. “You can do this.”
Finding himself back in the bedroom, he pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. It trailed behind him as he walked down the spiral staircase.
The house was in so many ways still a strange place. Maybe things will be better once all the paperwork is signed and the place was legally his. Ian couldn’t help it. He always expected to be shoved back in the hole once he’d dug himself out.
He poured some bottled water in a mug and banged things around in the dark until he found a tea bag. Leaning against the cabinet top, he waited silently, mind blank as possible until the microwave bell went off. Pulling out the steaming mug, he squeezed the bag with his fingers, and added sugar, lots of sugar.
Sipping and strolling through the first floor, he looked at his home like a burglar casing the place, every tiny sound or shift in light causing him to freeze and prepare to bolt. He was a stranger here, no matter how hard to tried to convince himself.
He stopped in front of that painting on the landing. He touched it, rubbing the roughness of the dried color with the back of his hand. He loved that painting. He kept getting lost in it. It drew him in and he found strange comfort in the wild swirls and the bold primaries that somehow all came together.
Ian was no longer trembling. He took the rest of the stairs to his bedroom. Still in the dark, still swathed in bed linen, he searched for the remote and opened the glass wall. Swiping a cig and lighter as he strolled out, he lit and smoked by the railing, staring out into the night, as he did into the painting just moments ago.
Movement caught his eye. He whipped his head toward the hedges. Whatever it was darted away. His eyes scanned the backyard. Ian crushed his cigarette out in the always clean ashtray on the table. He hoisted the blanket a little closer around him. He took a deep breath and headed back for his bed.
There it was again; movement in the hedges. He tried to tell himself he was just hearing things, remembering the dream he was trying hard to forget.
The rustling got stronger and he stepped to the safety of his bedroom, but leaned out when he heard giggling. Someone was definitely in his back yard, and whoever it was had company, female company, as the giggles were definitely girlish, but he still saw nothing in the shadows.
“Are you sure this is okay?” Followed by muffled giggles.
“Oh, yeah, we do it all the time. The Mormon Tabernacle choir could have an orgy here and they wouldn’t hear. Besides, I think Miss Elizabeth is away somewhere”, a boy/man’s voice said.
Finally two figures emerged from the hedges, appearing just at the edge of the pool. It was a young man and a young girl, holding hands oblivious to the night and Ian peering at them from his bedroom.
The girl was young and pretty. The boy a little older, and without a doubt one of Colton Shore’s sons, Ian’s guess was the youngest. The moon wasn’t very bright that night and it was hard to tell for sure, but Ian was able to see the boy-man wrap himself around the girl and begin to kiss her.
The girl giggled and pushed him away. “I thought you wanted to go swimming.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do, but I thought you might give me a little kiss first”, he said.
She put her hands on her jeaned hips, “You thought I’d give you a little something else first, Jesse Shores.”
Jesse guiltily shuffled his feet and pointed his head to the ground. “Besides,” the girl said, “It’s so dark out tonight I couldn’t see even if we did.”
“Well, I can fix that”, he said and disappeared from view. Within seconds the patio flooded with light. Ian made a mental note to ask the guy where that button was when he wasn’t hiding in his bedroom spying on him.
“That better?” Jesse asked hopefully.
The girl looked around. “It’s not very romantic”, she flipped her over-blond locks off her shoulder.
“Not a problem,” he heard Jesse say with an almost dirty tone. Ian heard a switch flip and then the pool itself was illuminated from the bottom. Another quiet punch came and the patio lights went back out.
Both Ian and the girl were impressed. The girl gleefully clapped her hands.
Jesse stepped back into view and said, “Well?”
The girl coyly twirled a lock of hair and said, “Well...I’m hot.” And with that she pulled her top over her head. She unzipped her too tight jeans and looked at Jesse, “Turn around you perv!”
“Aw man!”
The girl rossed her arms and cupped her breasts in her hands, “I said turn around Jesse Shores.” He reluctantly did, and the girl stripped off her pants revealing no underwear before disappearing from view with a splash.
Jesse grinned and without hesitation stripped off himself and jumped in after her. They disappeared from sight for a moment, but Ian could soon see the two in the pool, playfully tagging each other like children unaware their bodies had fully developed and were blissfully naked.
From his growing all too familiar hiding spot, Ian could now see that Jesse had successfully maneuvered the girl to the edge, kissing her neck as keenly as the barely disturbed water lapped at the concrete of the pool. Her head was thrown back so her blond hair spread out and floated across the surface. She started moaning and the sneaky boy slid them closer and closer to the edge.
“Okay.” Ian said to himself, not really wanting to disturb the couple. “I’m not doing this again. He turned his back on the young lovers, heating up the night with their lack of control. He hit the button that closed the curtains, noisy or not and went back to bed.
Just before Ian drifted off to sleep he thought to himself, “Everybody’s getting laid in this town, but me.”
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