Chapter Eleven
Jason-present
Burning House-Cam
I don’t know why I dreamed about prom last night. What the fuck is this girl doing to me? Why did she have to bring up prom on Thanksgiving?
It took me way too long to get over that night. To live down being the naked kid from prom. Eventually, people forgot about me in place of the next short lived, news-worthy story.
Guess I should thank them, though, plenty of girls saw the “eel” between my legs and didn’t care if I was the mute kid anymore, not when my body was better than expected and girls started wondering what that eel could do.
Turns out, my first time would be in a bathroom after all. And just the way I’d planned to touch Mara, I fucked her friend instead.
Apparently, it was good enough that word spread and I didn’t have to work hard to get laid after that.
God, I need to get laid if I’m dreaming about Mara in the bathroom at prom. Or, more accurately, I need to jerk off.
I roll over in bed to grab a dirty t-shirt off the floor then roll onto my back, slipping my cock free of the sweatpants I slept in.
No matter how cold it gets, I never wear a shirt to bed, it makes me feel like I’m suffocating, choking, like a noose.
But it’s been fucking cold lately so I’ve been wearing thick sweatpants to bed.
I fist my hand around my dick at the base of the shaft and start stroking upward to the head.
Every so often, I swirl my thumb over the tip eliciting small shockwaves up my spine.
Normally, I think of faceless women with perfect tits and curves for days, with thighs wrapped around my waist as I fuck them senseless.
An image pops into my head, smooth skin with a layer of water coating her as I hold her tight in my lake.
A firm ass in my hands to keep her afloat and her core positioned with my cock.
I never picture a specific woman and I never kiss them in my fantasies.
She’s just a nameless, faceless warm body to achieve release.
After all, we all have urges, don’t we? And we all need to feel satisfied.
My pace quickens with each thrust when another image comes to mind, Mara backed against a bathroom wall in a stunning blue dress with come-fuck-me eyes batting long lashes in my direction. No timidness, no hesitation, just the desperate desire for me.
Fuck, no. Not what I want to think about right now. It’s just cause I had a dream about it. That’s all.
I go back to my lake and imagine what the cool water feels like in the heat of summer with the body heat of a girl in my arms. Her body is wrapped around every inch of mine while I’m buried deep in her, hearing pants and moans of pleasure the more I drive into her.
The imaginary girl likes it rough, hard, vicious.
She can take every ounce of bitterness I’m fucking out of my body.
Then she breathes my name and her voice sounds familiar. “Jason.” I know that voice. I know because I heard her say it just like that. It was about as real as this vision is.
Suddenly the woman in my arms in the lake takes a little more shape.
Her hazel eyes clarify and the pink lips she spills so much hate from takes form, smiling at me with a seductive tilt.
The rest of her is a little fuzzy, but I imagine full breasts and a narrow waist. I can practically feel her bending beneath my touch, warm amidst the cool water where our bodies join.
I keep fisting my dick through the image trying to force the memory away with my masturbation.
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Jason.”
I can’t get her face out of my mind or her voice, but I don’t soften either. However, her face is not what I want to come to. Anything but her.
Damnit, why did she have to get in my head like that? Apologizing for prom and thanking me for saving her life. Is she on some apology tour trying to find redemption in her adult life? Who says her words were genuine, anyway? For all I know that was a bunch of bullshit.
But why would she lie about it? She has no reason to.
This fucking girl. She’s getting in my head and I don’t like it. It was easier when we hated each other. It was easier just to acknowledge her when absolutely necessary and subtly piss her off the rest of the time. Being nice to her or tolerating her presence is so much more complicated.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself come so I toss the shirt in the hamper across the room and roll out of bed to get dressed.
Fuck it, I’ll try again tonight.
I can’t go one more day without an orgasm.
After I’m dressed I head downstairs, the first one up, as per usual.
The smell of the coffee awakens my soul as soon as the machine starts to brew.
I used to live on coffee alone in the morning, but since Mara has been staying here we’ve fallen into a routine.
She makes breakfast, Dylan makes lunch, and I make dinner.
It’s a good system. And it hasn’t escaped my notice that Mara does most of the dishes and the laundry in the house, either.
She’s gotten good at finding things to help with instead of waiting for us to assign tasks.
She’ll work inside on things that need to get done or go out and shovel snow, feed the animals, anything she can find to keep herself busy.
She’s even taken to organizing the shop for us.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she likes this life, an honest living with simple needs and routine.
Mara always seemed like she longed for the excitement of city life.
She certainly didn’t waste time getting out of town after graduation. Hell, she left the entire state.
My heart does a weird little flip when I think about how vulnerable she got with me on the horse ride to her car. I don’t know if she actually wanted to tell me all of that or if she just needed to get it off her chest and I was there. I suppose she knows her secrets are safe with me.
“Morning,” her voice greets me from behind. “Is the coffee ready?” She reaches around me for a mug in the cupboard, taking the pot and pouring her half a cup before adding milk and swishing them together. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think her actions were a little more choppy than usual.
Then she gathers ingredients for breakfast, based on what she grabs, I assume she’s making pancakes. She’s getting better with her cooking and baking. Even her bread making skills have vastly improved.
She throws the fridge open and stares inside for a minute before closing the door and stuffing her feet into her boots by the door and throwing on a sweatshirt.
“No eggs,” Mara says dryly. She opens the door then shuts it with a little extra force and heads to the barn.
She shoveled a path to the barn yesterday but it already has six inches of snow again.
I watch her walk into the barn with heavy footsteps like she’s purposely trying to smush the snow beneath her boots.
What crawled up her ass?
Dylan saunters down the stairs next still wearing his pajama pants but he threw on a thermal shirt first. Shortly after, Mara stomps back inside, kicking the snow off her boots on the door frame.
She extracts five eggs from the front pocket of the sweatshirt and sets to work making breakfast. It’s then I notice the baseball hat she’s wearing is mine.
It’s an olive green Orvis fly fishing hat, and it looks like she even adjusted the strap at the back to fit her head.
Where did I leave that hat?
Oh well, not a battle I want to fight. I’ve got plenty of other hats. And if I’m honest, it looks better on her. Come to think of it, the sweatshirt she threw on is also mine. I don’t know why but I get a sick sense of pride seeing her in my clothes.
No, no you don’t. It’s annoying as fuck and she doesn’t look good in them.
My thoughts from this morning pop back into my head. That’s the last thing I need right now.
After a very quiet breakfast I head to the barn to kill one of the chickens.
We have some eggs incubating for chicks to replace the ones we eat this winter.
Dylan hates this part of farm life so I do it without asking.
Shooting a deer forty yards away is fine by him, but butchering the animals we raise makes him squeamish.
It’s not like it’s a fun task, but it has to be done.
I think Dylan named all the chickens at one point, but I can’t keep track of them. All I know is the ones with yellow ribbons around their feet are the oldest which means they are the first to go.
I pick one up and take her over to the stump we use for splitting wood and grab the hatchet beside it. Holding the chicken against the flat surface of the stump, I position the blade of the hatchet above her neck to take aim.
Just as I raise the hatchet, I hear a voice over my shoulder. “Hey Jason, Dylan wants to know where—.”
Whack.
I bring the hatchet down smack dab in the middle of the chicken’s neck, severing its head from its body in the middle of her sentence. The body still fights me for a moment even after the head has fallen to the ground.
“Oh my god,” she cries behind me. When the chicken’s body goes limp I finally turn around to face her horrified expression. She looks from the dead chicken to me and back again. “That’s barbaric.”
It’s survival. But I don’t have the desire to persuade someone who will always be set in their ways.
“You couldn’t have waited until I was done asking you a question? God, what a shitty way to go.”
It’s quick and painless. What’s so shitty about that? Besides, it’s just a fucking chicken.
Maybe it’s the sad way she’s looking at the chicken carcass, but I take pity on her and lead her to the incubator in the chicken pen. We keep the barn pretty warm for the animals so the hens continue to lay eggs in the winter. I point to the incubator and dots start to connect in her clever mind.