“My room,” he said, remembering another room, in another time and place. The look on her face told him that she was fighting it and him, trying to pull her eyes away from his but unable to do it. She was remembering too.
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The curtains were pulled closed, the lights were off, and the bed was squeaking. It wasn't the rhythmic sound sometimes heard coming from grown folks' rooms after dark, so you knew they were inside doing something that they knew how to do, but rather the frantic dip and sway of bedsprings unused to the vigorous activity being forced upon them.
Pam was pressed to the mattress beneath Chad's clumsy weight. He was trying to hold his weight off of her and coax her panties down at the same time, and she was trying to see what he was doing in the darkness. Their foreheads collided and they both gasped, then giggled.
“Leave my panties alone. Just 'cause you always want your
thing
hanging out don't mean mine has to be,” she whispered.
Months ago they had progressed past the heavy petting stage to a point where Chad now pulled out his
thing
for her to touch as they kissed. A few times she had let him touch her inside her panties, but she'd never taken them all the way off. That was going too far.
“What do you have against my
thing
?” He shifted his weight to one side and propped his head on his hand, staring down into her face. “I thought you said you liked it?” He took her hand and brought it down to where his
thing
lived, thick and hard, a bead of moisture sitting on the tip.
“I do like it. I just don't want it anywhere near
my thing
. That's how trouble starts. You heard about Iris Taylor, didn't you?”
Iris was a freshman, just like Pam was, and pregnant, like Pam didn't want to be. Letting Chad put his mouth on her breasts wouldn't make her pregnant. Letting him touch her
down there
and touching him the same way wouldn't make her pregnant. But if his
thing
got near her
thing
, there was no telling what might happen.
“Come on, Pam,” he pleaded, easing his tongue in her mouth as his hand slipped inside her panties. She gasped as his fingers raked through the mound of coarse hair there, then moved lower, where she was wet. A while back he had discovered the wonders of her clitoris and now he knew what to do to make her forget to think. “Ain't nobody gonna know. I won't even put it in. You tell Nate or Paris you was coming here?”
“No, did you?”
His finger slid inside her and her thighs parted all by themselves. Her hips rocked against the palm of his hand, searching for something she couldn't name. He'd made her come like that before, and she wanted to experience the feeling again.
“No, so you know I ain't gone tell nobody nothing else. You can't get pregnant if I don't put it in.”
“I might,” she said, still not entirely convinced of the gospel as he told it. What did boys know?
“You won't. Trust me.”
She lifted her butt and let him slide her panties down and off. Then he climbed off the bed long enough to quickly step out of his pants and his Fruit of the Looms. He settled himself on top of her in the middle of the bed and braced himself on his hands. She was warm and wet and Chad sighed as he coaxed her
thing
into allowing his
thing
to lay within its soft folds. He rocked against her and watched her face, transfixed by what he saw there.
Pam rocked with him and came minutes later. It was like having his fingers touch her down there, only better. She didn't know what she was feeling was called an orgasm, she just knew that whatever it was, was indescribable. Her legs shook, her mouth fell open, and her fingers tightened around Chad's waist. During all the friction, Chad entered her and once there, he stayed. It was an accident, and he knew he should've immediately fixed the mistake, but he couldn't believe how good it felt to be inside Pam.
Pam's eyes flew open. “Get out,” she hissed urgently, pushing at his chest. “You have to get out.”
“It feels good, Pam.” Never in his wildest dreams had he thought it would feel this good. His hips rotated automatically, pushing forward though his mind screamed for him to stop. “
Shit
, it feels
good
. You're squeezing me.”
All Pam felt was pain. Every time his hips pushed forward a sound of distress filled the room. He wasn't stopping and she scared herself by not really wanting him to. He came fully into her and sank down to rest his damp forehead against hers.
“You okay? Does it hurt real bad?”
“At first it was bad, but it's not too bad now. We have to stop though, Chad. What if you get me pregnant?”
“I won't, Pam. I promise I won't.
Shit
. . . you feel that?” The expression on her face said she didn't, so he put his lips on hers and began kissing her deeply as he rocked against her, hoping to give her some of the pleasure he felt.
One kiss melted into another, until they were kissing with an intensity and depth new to both of them. Now that he had discovered the feel of her, he had no intention of rushing through what they were doing. He rose and pulled his T-shirt over his head, then helped Pam shrug out of her top. When they were both completely naked, he went back up on his hands and made love to her for the first time.
The memory still had Pam in its grip days after Chad subtly reminded her of its existence. She carried it around with her everywhere she went and it tipped up on her at the oddest moments, stealing her breath and snatching her train of thought from the present to the past. She was having lunch with Nikki when it crept into her consciousness yet again, possibly for the thousandth time. Nikki couldn't help but notice the change almost as soon as it happened.
“Aunt Pam?”
Nikki stared across the table curiously, wondering at the faraway look in her aunt's eyes. A few minutes ago, she'd frozen right in the middle of spooning up shrimp bisque and now she sat there with one hand wrapped around the stem of her spoon and the other pressed to her chest, as if she had been caught off guard by something only she could see. She wondered if her aunt was having some sort of allergic reaction that she didn't know enough to recognize.
“Aunt Pam,” she repeated with more force. Pam still didn't respond and she reached over and squeezed her shoulder gently.
Please don't let her start choking,
Nikki prayed. She threw an appraising look around the dining room of the B&B, hoping to catch someone's eye, but the other diners were caught up in their own meals and for once, not staring at Pam.
Pam felt the contact on her shoulder and shook herself out of the past with a low moan. She looked at Nikki and let a smile curve her lips, though it was the last thing she felt like doing. The concerned expression on Nikki's face turned the phony smile into a genuine one in seconds.
“Stop looking like that. I'm fine, I promise.” She spooned up more bisque to prove her point.
“Where did you go?”
Pam was seriously considering the best way to answer the question and still be as truthful as possible. But, she still noticed Nikki's hand inching across the tablecloth toward the glass of chardonnay she'd ordered for herself. She'd made the mistake of letting her have a small sip earlier, and now Nikki seemed to be taken with the light, crisp wine. She angled a look toward the offending hand. “Don't even think about it. I'm sending you home with alcohol on your breath as it is. Any more and Chad will have me arrested. Plus, you're underage.” On her way to moving the glass out of Nikki's reach, she paused to take a sip. “I was just thinking about when your mom and I were kids. Not too much younger than you. We had some good times.”
“You miss Mom a lot, don't you?” Pam held out her hands and Nikki immediately placed hers inside them. She gave her aunt's hands a squeeze and sighed as she felt a squeeze in return.
“I miss her like I would miss an arm or a leg and I know you do, too. She'll always be with us though.”
“How? Everything she left behind is gone. It's like her presence is being erased or something.”
“You weren't ready for her things to be put away?”
“I mean, I know it had to be done, but I would've been happy to leave her room like it was for the next twenty years. It's sick to want to do that, isn't it?” She searched Pam's face intently.
“It's not sick to feel that way.” A sneaky smile crept across Pam's face. “But if you had actually done that, I would've had to put a sign up in the yard, advertising a vacancy at the Bates Motel and then start calling you Norman.”
“Aunt Pam!” Nikki gasped, and then burst out laughing. She took her hands away from Pam's to cover her mouth.
They laughed together for a moment and then Pam was serious again. “She's still with us, Nikki, just not physically. I don't know about you, but I'll never forget the way she sounded when she laughed or how she looked when she was happy about something.”
“She was beautiful,” Nikki said softly.
“I guess I can take that as a compliment, huh?” Pam desperately wanted to lighten the mood. If they kept going like this she'd be crying in her food in no time.
“You can if you want to, but you and Mom kind of looked different to me.”
“Excuse me?”
Nikki noticed the look on Pam's face and had laughed again. “I didn't mean it like that, Aunt Pam. You're beautiful, too. I just meant that if you looked really closely, you could see different things about you and Mom.”
“We were alike in a lot of ways, too. After you came along it was like we suddenly had a third twin, if that makes any sense. You got a lot of our mannerisms and personality traits. It was a little scary.”
“Really?” She was pleased by the thought of having noticeable similarities to her mom and her glamorous aunt.
“Really. Is that your mother's charm bracelet I see on your wrist?” Pam reached across the table and fingered the delicate silver bracelet.
“Yeah, I got it out of her jewelry box. She never let me wear it when I was little because she always thought I'd break it or lose it. I won't lose it now, though.”
“She'd want you to have it.”
“You still wear yours?”
“Since I was sixteen.” Pam pulled up her sleeve and held out her arm to show that she was wearing an identical bracelet.
Nikki noticed something different about Pam's bracelet right away. “Where's the charm I like, the one with the little hearts next to each other and the diamond in between?” It was her favorite.
Pam chose her words carefully, spoke slowly. “When your mom died, she took part of my heart with her, so I buried the charm with her.”
“Oh . . . Aunt Pam. You want me to cry, don't you? Why only part of your heart?”
“Because you have the other part,” Pam said simply.
Tears filled Nikki's eyes and she rushed to wipe them away. “I love you, but please don't say things like that. You'll make my mascara start running.”
“You're wearing mascara now? When did this happen?”
“I'm seventeen now,” Nikki said as if it should be obvious that she was now a woman. She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, thinking that a lecture was coming.
Pam caught her breath. “I know exactly how old you are, Nikki. Right down to the minute. Oh, before I forget, I have something for you.” She reached under the table and pulled her Gucci tote in her lap. “And no, it's not the bag,” she said with a smile. She lifted Paris's diary out and handed it across the table.
“What is it?” Nikki stared at the floral-print cover curiously.
“Your mom's diary. I know she'd want you to have it, and I'm hoping it'll help you feel close to her when you need to.”
Several minutes passed before Nikki spoke again. She spent the time staring at the book, stroking the cloth cover and fighting back tears. She swallowed and looked at Pam. “You should have this, Aunt Pam. I know how close you and Mom were. You'll need something to help you feel close to her, too.”
“I have other things to help me do that. Plus, I have thirty-five years of the best memories saved up. You didn't get to have that, so you should have this. Keep it safe for me, okay?”
“I will. I promise I will.”
“Here.” Pam held the wineglass out to Nikki. “One more sip. You look like you need it more than I do.”
Chad chose that moment to walk into the dining room. He hung back long enough to see his daughter take one, then two sips of wine, then he approached the table like he was outraged.
“First, staying out all times of the night and now drinking? Nikki, I can't believe this. I thought I taught you better?”
Nikki's head shot up in alarm. She was poised to offer every flimsy excuse she could think of. Then she saw the playful gleam in her dad's eyes. She knew when to take him seriously and when he was teasing her. “It was only one sip, dad, and Aunt Pam let me have it.”