The Wicked: A Love Story

“Are you coming home?” Marabeth asked when Kris dropped her off.

“Not just yet,” Kris said. “I’ve got to do something before we leave.”

Marabeth nodded, leaned into the car to kiss her brother, and then watched him drive off. She turned to walk up the steps to the great old door. Marabeth Strauss hadn’t returned to her apartment, because she had to speak to her mother, and because the house on Dimler Street was closer. In the past, when she had needed to speak to Rebecca, needed the woman to read her mind, drop the business of her husband and the business of Kris or Jimand come over and ask what was the matter, she had not. When Marabeth had stood awkward before her, begging inside, “Mother, untie my tongue. Help me say what I’m trying to say,” the help had not been forthcoming. It had taken almost until Marabeth was thirty-five to learn the mantra “mothers are not magic”. But it was even now, when she was finally believing it, that Rebecca was waiting for her in the living room.

“I put tea on,” Rebecca said. And then she said, “And I never drink tea.”

“It all sounds so civilized,” Marabeth jested, and Rebecca smiled and said, “Come with me and let’s get cups.”

They did, and while her mother was pouring, Marabeth said, “Pamela wrote about a man named Augustus in her journals. He’s the one that gave her the formula that became the pills. Her friend.”

“I can’t imagine Pamela Strauss having friends.”

“And he is Lewis’s uncle.”

“Lewis Lewis? Dunharrow? Who’s in town? Who you all were with?”

“Yes. They think,” Marabeth said as she took the tea from her mother, “that he could know a lot, and we’re going down to see him.”

“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said, sitting down in the kitchen. “How is that possible? I mean, if he knew Pamela… She’s been dead thirty years. He must be so old. And when did he know her?”

“He knew her in the 1930’s.”

“What?”

“Or the 40’s. Right before World War II.”

“But…”

“It seems that he is…. Very well preserved.”

“Well,” was all Rebecca said with a deep sigh.

“Yeah,” Marabeth said.

Then Marabeth said, “He was one of the last people who saw Dad.”

“What?” Rebecca shook her head. “I need to stop saying that.”

“Dad must have read Pamela’s journal. He was looking for answers. He was going to Augustus. He must have died somewhere near him. It was Augustus who sent me these books, Augustus, I believe, who sent the police to look for Dad so that his remains were finally found.”

“Do you think he killed him?”

“No!”

“Well, he was friends with Pamela.”

“Pamela wasn’t evil,” Marabeth said. “At least not that way. And if Augustus is evil, it seems like he is evil regarding his own concerns.”

“Then this Augustus is…. Magical.”

“He is a witch.”

“I am afraid for you. For you all. Are you taking Kris?”

“Yes.”

Rebecca nodded.

“I’m almost of a mind to go too. To see the man who saw Nathan last.”

Neither of them spoke for a while, but when there was speech, it was from Rebecca.

“When your father disappeared I told myself he’d be back in a few hours, then a few days. And I’m not sure if I ever believed he was gone. And then when Detective McCord told us….

“And do you know, I had to see him. I can’t blame your grandmother. I had to see him too. And the thing is, no matter what I saw, there is a part of me so lonely for him, so in need of him, I would crawl into the grave and cling to him if I could. I really would. I don’t know another way to describe it.”

“Mom,” Marabeth touched her mother’s hand, “I can wait. We can go later.”

“Oh, baby,” her mother touched her hand. “Your staying can’t stop me from feeling this way. You’d better go. I want to know, too. It won’t make me feel happy, but it will make me feel better.”

“Ohhh, God!” she groaned. “Ohh, God! Fuck me. Fuck meeee! Stay in me. Stay!”

Her voice rose.

“Fuck me! Fuck me!” she insisrted.

On the living room floor of her apartment, under the long windows that looked up at the burning moonlight, head buried in her shoulder, hairy ass arched in the air as he buried himself in her, Kris Strauss fucked Jenean Morrison.

“Stay in me, stay in me, stay in me,” she prayed, her voice shallow, as she turned around and wrapped her thighs around him. Her hands landed on his back, caressed his sides, the sides of his thighs, went back to his hard ass.

“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna fucking come—” he moaned.

“Come in me,” she whispered. “Come inside of me.”

She placed her hands on either side of his face and she said, “I love it when you come, I love the way you look when you come.”

She tightened her thighs around him and received his thrust, and the sofa behind them scratched the floor, then his body froze, His eyes were wide, his mouth open like someone being hit. He stared into her, vulnerable, He was perfectly still as. buried inside of her, his lips parted, his eyes almost far away, almost frightened, he spurted. He closed his mouth, gritting his teeth, his body twisting for the last of it. When it had passed over him, as it had passed over her, Kris lay across her and in her, wrung out. She stroked his damp hair while his cheek rested on her shoulder.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said.,

“I don’t want to leave.”

“When will you come home?” Jenean asked.

And then she said, “And I don’t mean that this is your home. I’m not trying to be possessive, I just…”

Kris smiled at her and ran his finger along her cheek. She turned to look at him. His cock was still hard, arched in the air, damp with her pussy juice.

“You don’t have to explain anything he told her. “And besides, what if I wanted to make a home out of this. Of us? What would you say?”

But as satisfied as she was, she was not through with him, and he was still hard for her, and so she mounted him and rode him, taking him in deeper and deeper, pressing his shoulders while his eyes sparkled and his mouth parted, until he began to thrust back and they thrust together, fucking, staring into each other’s eyes, until, at last, with a growl, he picked her up and took her from behind, fucking her like a jackhammer until they both came, shouting and sweating, him collapsing across her, and neither one of them saying a word until, half exhausted, Kris began to chuckle, and then so did she, and stroking each other they laughed, then stopped, then laughed again.