The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Need

Continued

Past midnight, Joyce McNamara found herself making out with Peter Keller.

“Do you mind?” Peter stopped for a moment.

“No.” And then Joyce said, “Mind what?”

Peter reached passed her, He’d forgotten he had unbuttoned his shirt, and his tie was on the floor. He took the giraffe and gently put it down there too, turning it around.

When Joyce looked at him. He went red.

“I felt like he was looking at me.”

“Yeah,” Joyce laughed. “I got that. And who wants to be judged by a giraffe?”

“It’s not even that,” Peter said, and then he said, “You’re going to think I’m such a nerd.”

“Peter, I already think you’re a nerd”

“I just feel like Mr. Yips shouldn’t see us making out.”

“He has a name. Well, I mean that does make sense.”

“Has a name, makes a noise. Yip yip yip. Madder made it up. And Mr. Yips is a very innocent three foot giraffe.”

“That is cute as fuck,” Joyce said.,

Peter frowned. “You don’t think it’s sad that a forty year old man believes he has to turn a stuffed animal’s head around when he’s making out for the first time in… a very long time?”

“No, I think it’s actually the least sad thing that’s happened this night.”

“Amen,” Peter said. “Well,” he sat back on the couch, hair disheveled, shirt undone, “I have probably killed the mood we were—”

Joyce kissed him quickly.

“What was that for?”

“Because,” Joyce said, “I’m not a slut, but I feel like you’re one of those guys who isn’t aggressive, doesn’t press his advantage, and might not know if a girl is interested.”

When Peter turned to her with a half smile, she was surprised by how handsome he looked with part of his dark hair hanging in his face, and his blue eyes a little fiercer than they had been.

“I’m interested,” she said, simply.

“I’m out of practice,” he placed his hand over hers. “I don’t want to get you into something you’ll regret.”

“Or you’ll regret?”

“Joyce MacNamara, I would not regret you. Just tell me when you want me to stop, how far you wanna go.”

Joyce felt flushed and foolish. She said, “I guess I’m the New Woman and you’re the New Man and you’re waiting for my affirmation.”

“I could carry you up the stairs like Rhett Butler and you could slap me. That used to be hot.”

“My ass is too fat to carry, but the idea of going upstairs with you feels like something I want to happen.”

Peter turned away from her, his face red.

“Me too,” he said. He turned back to look at Joyce.

“I’m not… I’m not that guy that’s good with stuff like this.”

“Sex.”

“No, I’m great at sex. No!” he smacked himself in the head.

“I mean, yes, I guess. It’s my words. And my feelings, My affections. I… I’d like to go upstairs too. If you’d like to.”

The more unsure and gentle he was, the more she wanted him, and part of her wondered if it was some game he played to lure women, but Joyce knew as soon as she’d thought this that it couldn’t be true. She said, “Yes, Pete.”

“Did you just call me Pete?”

“I was trying something. Didn’t feel right did it? You’re definitely a Peter.”

“I kind of am, and I’ve tried to be a Peter, but—”

“Peter.”

“Yes, Joy?”

“Take me upstairs.”

Marabeth lay spread out on her stomach, the book open before her and her door open. She was a little surprised when her mother entered.

“Are you alright.” she asked Rebecca.

“I’m supposed to be asking you that.”

“Well, I can still ask you.”

“What about you?” Rebecca said.

“I think I feel like Grandma. I think I always knew he was gone, but really knowing it makes me feel better. I just want us to have… what’s left. So we can do right by him. Have a real funeral. It’s Kris you should check on, but he’s out.”

“You think he went out with Jim?”

“Oh, I doubt that very much. Jim’s out?”

“Yeah. He said he was going home, which surprised me. I thought he’d stay in his old room. Not that there’s any reason he should, I mean, he has a beautiful apartment. So do you. But—”

“Mother,” Marabeth said, “you’re starting to ramble. Just a bit.”

“Well, yes,” Rebecca admitted. “It’s what I do when... when I’m exhausted and sad and concerned for my family.”

“I’ll keep my door open,” Marabeth offered.

Rebecca nodded and said, “I was just going to say you have a lovely apartment, but I’m so glad you’re here tonight.”

“I’m glad I’m here too, Mom.”

Rebecca kissed her then moved to the door.

Before leaving she said, “Mara, your father was troubled by many things, and I imagine you will begin to understand them if you read what your aunt wrote. Try not to stay up too much longer, and don’t let Pamela’s mind fill yours. I remember her. I remember what that was like.”

In the grey light of morning, he woke up sprawled naked across her bed, exhausted from passion that had burned all pain away. His usual messy hair was more of a bird’s nest than ever, and the girl, half asleep, looked over his long body covered in brown hair, then looked on his blinking pale blue eyes and thought of a wolf.

“Was it good for you?” she asked him.

“That’s what I should be asking you,” Kris Strauss said, yawning.

“I hurt,” she stated. “I’ll probably hurt for the next day.”

Kris blinked suddenly and turned over, looking concerned, but she laughed and said, “You don’t understand, sometimes a bitch needs it like that.”

She sighed, lying down in the damp sheets. “I needed it like that. How did you know?”

Kris always knew. Last night he'd left the house and thought about heading to a club before he realized on Christmas every club and bar would be closed. But his sister was right. I-Hop never closed. He sat in the restaurant drinking cup after cup of coffee, chatting down the waitress. And it wasn’t that he had an undeniable magnetism, though intellectual, a little unshaven and shaggy, tall and with a look of playfulness in his eyes, he did. He knew that what spoke to hunger was other hunger, and he knew in a way he could not explain, that she was hungry. He didn’t eat anything, he had eaten enough, and he wasn’t really here for food. When she said she was getting off, he asked what she was doing later on.

“It’s one in the morning. I should be going to sleep.”

“Yes,” Kris said, “you probably should.”

“But I want something to do. You know?”

“Oh, I know.”

She laughed a little, but it wasn’t a real laugh, and she asked, “Do you think you’d want to follow me home?”

“I’m not opposed to it.”

“Oh, I should get to bed.”

“I’ll definitely make sure you get there.”

Now she did laugh, and she said, “Bad things happen when I start talking like this.”

Kris placed his hand over hers. It was a long, strong hand with traces of hair on the back, and his eyes were merry and pale blue and a little bit wicked.

“I…” he began, “shouldn’t take you home.”

“Don’t take me home, then.”

In the parking lot of the I-Hop, the windows of the waitress’s car were steamed over as it rocked from side to side and Kris fucked her in the backseat.

“Oh, God!” she cried, loud, her fingernails raking his ass and then coming up under his shirt, under his jacket while he fucked her on hands and knees, pressing her up against a window.

“You like it?” he growled. “You like it? You like my big,” he fucked her, “fucking,” he thrust into her, “cock, in you?”

“Give it to me. Shove it in my pussy.”

He loved sex like this, and she moaned, her fingers curling in the little hairs at the back of his neck, “come inside of me, okay. Make a mess in me.”

He repositioned her and with each syllable he pushed into her, “I’m going to come inside of your tight, tight, tight pussyyy—oooooooh, G—”

He lost himself in orgasm, his mouth open, the veins of his neck standing out, his head tilted up, eyes almost blind as the sweat ran down his temples.

Many men hated the feeling of defeat that came after sex, the feeling of being rung out, emptied, deflated. Wishing to crush they themselves were crushed, but Kris loved it, this being taken out of himself, this weakness after the strength, his shirt damp under his blazer, his pants down around his knees, heaving, unable to speak, his penis becoming moist and soft after he pulled it from this woman, still dripping come.

“Do you still want to follow me home,” the waitress asked, “or has the feeling passed now that you got what you needed?”

Kris didn’t talk right away, his rough cheek lay against hers, unconsciously, his bare ass was still raised to the air.

“The thing is,” he began to explain, “I never really get everything I need.”

He was not needy, but he was in need. Kris Strauss hated needy people. They would find anyone and tell them everything. It was one of the reasons he had so few friends. He didn’t need to tell this girl everything, but he needed more than a quick fuck in the back of a car ,and yes, he had needed that fuck. People were so twisted up because they didn’t want to admit what they needed. They thought they were so much more and so much stronger than they were. Kris knew he needed to abase himself, to hard fuck someone, but he needed to follow this girl home, believe in that strange predatory magic. The Native Americans said that the buffalo gave themselves up to be slaughtered and Kris thought, driving home with an erection rising between his legs, pointing straight at the car whose red taillights blinked up Dorr Road and then out into the suburbs, that people who wanted to fuck were like that too.. Back In her apartment they drank a little and talked, and Kris needed that. He needed to hear this girl talk about work. He needed to rub her feet after offering. He didn’t need to simply be consumed or comforted. He needed to offer comfort. He needed to forget his own sorrow in the sorrows of the world, to make that magical connection to a stranger he would never see again. The two of them in the shower, him washing her back, washing her hair, washing her skin so tenderly, getting on his knees to adore her, to bow before her, to bury his face in her pussy only to lay against the tiles groaning while she sucked his cock until her mouth ballooned and she gagged while he twisted and shuddered as his semen spilled out of her mouth and down her throat. He needed them sleeping exhausted in that bed, and then he needed the deep dark middle of the middle of the night sex.

Driving back in an early morning so devoid of dawn it was more night than day, and everyone still used their headlights, Kris thought how there was a time when he would have saved the number of every girl he’d had a one night stand with. But that was to prolong the magic, to be greedy almost. The good sex of one night didn’t make a relationship. He knew this now. He drove over the pebbles and snow of the alley behind Dimler Street, and getting out of his car, unlocked and hefted up the heavy door of the old garage behind the house. Having parked, he came through the little door leading into the backyard and the carriage house, covered in dried vines and snow, the paint falling off of wet wood where Pamela had lived her last days. No one lived here now. He passed the yard and went up the steps of the back porch, and into the kitchen, thankful that his grandmother or mother were not in it yet. Taking off his shoes, he trekked silently up the three flights to his room on his floor, and exhausted, body humming from lovemaking, Kris Strauss went to bed.