Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Rachel
When Rachel was a little girl and dreamed of the moment a man would love her so much that he’d ask her to marry him, she never imagined it would involve lemurs.
Or a town where everything was red, white, and pink.
And certainly not a portion of his nibbly bits getting caught in a zipper.
As the call from Portia rang on and on, Rachel sat frozen.
A minute ago, Kell was horny and hot, ready to have sex with her against a wall behind the town hall, and now he was screaming at her in a register she thought only pre-pubescent boys could reach, telling her not to touch him.
This was nothing like her childhood dreams.
More like a nightmare she had no idea was possible.
“We have to get you out of this.”
“Swell.”
“Yes, it’s swell to find a solution!”
“No. Swell. Swelling. It’s swelling.” Whimpers came out of her enormous bear of a fiancé, the sound so paradoxical, she couldn’t help but snort.
Again.
For a woman who never snorted, today was one for the record books.
“I can get some ice!” she chirped, eager to fix this. “I’m sure Stella has some at the flower shop, or Reef over at Love You Coffee–”
He grabbed her arm, eyes wild with pain, gray irises flashing against dilated pupils, his dark brow a rigid forcefield above his gaze. Sweat and exertion gave him a rough look, his musk filling the air, arousing her even more.
“You can’t tell anyone about this.”
“We have to, Kell. You’re in so much pain. Plus,” she said, suddenly horrified by the thought, “what if this is causing permanent damage?”
“Permanent? You don’t talk about permanent damage when you’re trying to help a man whose nuts are stuck in a tiny metal device!”
“I want children someday!”
“My vas deferens isn’t in the zipper, Rachel.”
“This whole situation is a vast difference from how I always imagined it!”
As he inhaled and exhaled slowly, clearly doing everything he could to control what must be searing, hideous pain, Rachel struggled to control her emotions, too. No, she wasn’t the one with her genitals caught in a contraption invented in the 19th century, but she was hurting in her own way, too.
And then it hit her.
No. No, she wasn’t.
What was she doing? Fear of upsetting her mother was making her less compassionate about poor Kell’s absurd situation. The fact that it was ridiculous made it no less painful, and she loved him.
How could she fix this and get him out of pain?
“We need help. How about scissors?”
Have you ever seen a man the size of a bear shudder? Rachel did.
“NO SCISSORS!”
“I meant for the costume,” she elaborated, forcing herself to calm down, struck by how dysregulated her normally calm boyfriend–now fiancé–was. Kell was steady as a rock.
This must really hurt.
Empathy flooded through her, guilt coming as a second wave.
“We need help. Who can help?”
He looked out the window, then froze. Rachel followed his gaze.
Labrecque’s. The dry cleaning and tailor shop, and one of the few places in town that didn’t start with the words Love You.
Huh?
“Anya,” he said softly. “I should have gone to Anya in the first place.”
“Anya? The old lady in the back? The one who looks like she’s cursing me nonstop when I come in to pick up my suits?”
“Yes.”
“She’s the only person in town who can help?”
Kell looked at his crotch like it was a radioactive waste dump.
“Yes. Rachel, I need your help. We have to do this now.”
“Whatever you need.”
“I need lips.”
“Huh?”
“Lips. I need something to cover me. If I walk across the street to Labrecque’s, people will see me in a lemur costume with my dick stuck in a zipper and my chest bare, and I’ll never, ever hear the end of it.”
“What do lips have to do with this?” Her eyes drifted to his pinch point. “If you think I’m going to use my mouth to cover that injury, and it’ll make you less conspicuous, you’re not rational.”
“I meant the big red lips costume. Isn’t it in the truck? I saw Mom wearing it earlier.”
Rachel looked in the back seat. A gleam of red, flat and silky, was definitely not the puffy, sequined costume he was talking about.
“Sorry. No lips.”
“I am going to be talked about forever.”
“So what?”
“What do you mean, so what?”
“So? Who cares what people think? Just get out of the car and over to Anya and get out of this painful mess.”
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“I’m Rachel, your fiancée. I care more about you than I care about appearances.”
“I know that.”
“Then why do you care if people see you?”
“Because–because…” Gesturing wildly with his hands, he waved them over his throbbing crotch. “Because this is throbbing.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Normally, when it throbs, I like it.”
“Oh, Kell.”
“Now? Absolutely not.”
Rachel lifted herself off the seat and twisted in place, her ass in his face.
He groaned. “This view is amazing, but it would be so much better if my soul weren’t caught in metal teeth.” He put his hand on her ass, the touch making her smile.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Looking for a solution. You won’t let me tug on it to try to free you, so we need help.”
“Please don’t say the word tug,” he said tightly.
“Aha!” The red sequined robe was going to be a hard sell, but Kell didn’t exactly have a lot of choices.
Or, well… any choices.
She thrust it at him, shifting at the last minute to avoid his crotch.
“What’s this?”
“A robe to wear. You said you can’t walk around town half naked with your manliness caught in a zipper. Wear the robe.”
“Manliness?”
“Whatever. It’s a solution. And if it’s swelling…”
Kell wasn’t listening to her. All his attention was suddenly focused in the distance, his frown distinct.
“What are you looking at?” Following his gaze, she saw that he was staring, hard, at Labrecque’s again.
“Anya,” he said slowly.
Before she could ask why he brought up Anya again, her phone buzzed. The text was from her mother.
Rachel! Where are you? I need a rescue. Everyone is talking about trees and invasive beetle species. If I wanted to study for a disaster movie or a nature documentary, I certainly wouldn’t do it during my one and only daughter’s engagement party!
Sorry, Mom, Rachel texted back. We’re a little delayed.
Portia’s reply was instantaneous.
Have sex another time. You only get Chloe Juusti once. She’s taken as many photos as possible without the engaged couple, and she got glitter all over one of her camera bags! She is so annoyed!
Kylie was famous for her love of glitter, including the edible kind. Her mom’s horror made Rachel smile.
“Oh, come on!” Kell bellowed as he unfolded the robe and held it up.
LOVE YOU HARDER it said, with the outline of a naked woman nuzzling up against a pole.
“It’s–it’s a promotional item from the adult bookstore on the edge of town,” she explained in the most soothing tone she could conjure. “They sent me a sample.”
“I’ll look like Hugh Hefner got into a fight with a vat of red lipstick and Randy the moose.”
“More like Leo the Lemur.”
“That’s not funny.”
There came that strange snort Rachel couldn’t seem to control.
He glared at her. “Are you going to help, or laugh?”
“Apparently, both.”
He made a growling sound. “Unlike SOME people, I think I know who can help me.”
“Who?”
“Anya.”
“You keep bringing her up. Why?”
“Yep. I just need to get from here to there.”
There was across the street, about three hundred feet away.
“Can you walk?”
“Let’s find out.”
One of Kell’s more admirable qualities was his “get ‘er done” attitude. Clearly in an enormous amount of pain, once he decided he needed to act, he just… did.
As he opened the car door and pivoted first one, then the other, foot out onto the asphalt, she heard something that sounded like a prayer under his breath. With a heave-ho, he lifted up and stood.
Then folded in half.
A little-kid squeal came out of him in an octave he probably hadn’t heard since he was twelve.
“That bad?”
“Someday, Rachel,” he said as he panted, “you’re going to be having my baby. And I will remember this moment.”
“You’re comparing the pain to childbirth? That is bad.”
“Just… just get me to Labreque’s without making a scene.”
Looking him over, she ran through all the reasons why not making a scene was impossible.
First, he’d just proposed in a very splashy way, so everyone wanted to congratulate them.
Second, he was a bear of a man wearing a lemur costume on his bottom half and a red sequined robe with a naked woman design on his top half.
Third, he was walking like a penguin. Or a bear doing a terrible imitation of a penguin with its penis caught in a zipper.
“You don’t exactly blend into the woodwork, Kell.”
The little waddling motion he made forced a string of giggles out of her.
“Glad my pain amuses you.”
“It doesn’t. I swear. I’m so sorry it hurts. When the swelling calms down, I’ll make it feel better.” She cupped his ass.
He froze.
“Please no,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I was being affectionate.”
“And normally, I’d love that. But you’re making me hard, and–”
“Oh, no!” she squeaked, imagining the physics of blood flow.
He sighed. “Right. Just… get me to Anya.” He shuddered before taking a tiny step, then another, waddling toward the crosswalk, clutching the front of the lurid bathrobe. “Let’s get this over with.”
In the distance, the latest version of “I Will Always Love You” ended, a boy-band ditty that wound down to applause, then a startling announcement:
“FREE ICE CREAM! Come get free ice cream, courtesy of Galen’s Dairy, sponsors of the…”
As Kell began crossing the road, every person on the common suddenly turned in the opposite direction and headed for an ice cream truck that looked like a giant four-wheeled chunk of pink cotton candy. The timing was nothing short of miraculous.
WLUV played love songs, as always, a new one starting up:
“Rude Boy” by Rihanna.
The opening lyrics made Rachel snort again.
Kell glared hard at the speaker.
By the time they stood at the entrance of Labrecque’s, he was dripping with sweat and panting hard.