My Christmas Star

At first, I felt smothered. Hot wet skin, lightly rimmed with red hair was pushed into my face in a way that allowed for little air to reach my nose, but then she lifted just a hint and I grabbed a quick breath. My tongue lashed out on its own and began to push aside the thin flaps of warm skin it found. Hunting. Seeking. Finding. The taste of this woman flooded my mouth with a wash of pure lust and musk.

Exactly how wet a woman would be down here was a surprise for me. She was sopping. A bowl of thick pudding to lash my tongue through. I followed that moisture through a valley of hot skin and into deeper places where the taste changed to a more bitter, tangy taste. Licking back up from that, I felt her grind herself on my chin. To surprise her I drove my tongue as deep into her as I could and let her ride that.

"Mmm ... just like that."

Her mumbled words barely reached me, but I followed her direction as best I could, given that I was coming to realize I had very little real control down here.

I felt her moan.

The vibrations of her pleasure rumbled through my head as she tightened her thigh on either side, warming my ears with hot skin. Victoria shifted a bit on top of me and then leaning forward. I snatched at the cool air that flooded past my face for a second, but then I was again smothered in her sex.

Her hand gripped my cock.

"You're doing so wonderfully at that I thought you might deserve a reward."

She slowly stroked my cock as I licked her harder and harder.

My hands cup her thighs and she took hold of one of them, holding my fingers tight as she rode my face and stroked my cock.

Hot. Wet. Moist.

The many words for the different tactile sensations I was discovering here between Victoria's thighs were simple, but trying to describe the joy of discovery was complex. I delighted in finding out that every part of her seemed to bring forth a different sound when licked.

When kissed.

When nibbled upon.

Her moaning was becoming continuous, and I was starting to feel incredibly proud of myself for giving her so much pleasure. That was when she suddenly froze. All motion atop me stopped so suddenly, I mimicked her and froze myself not knowing why.

"I'll be god damned."

I was suddenly blinking in the light and my face felt instantly cold as Victoria moved, swinging her leg wide and stepping off the bed.

"What? Did I do something wrong?"

"What? No, not at all." She pointed out the wide but narrow cabin window. "My daughter is here!"

Sitting up, I looked down the length of my pier and saw, to my surprise and horror, that Victoria was right. Jennifer's prissy-blue Tempo was parked next to her mother's car and the doors were both opening. Thomas exited first but my ex Jennifer was mere seconds behind her new boyfriend.

I started cussing. "Oh, well just fuck me to tears, Agnes! Fuck me to bloody tears."

Scrambling to my feet, I joined Victoria in trying to grab up clothes and put them on in the same motion. In so small a place as the ship's cabin, it was a mad ballet of too many limbs and elbows flying in every conceivable direction. Victoria, given the few second head start and fewer clothes to put on perhaps, finished first. She turned gave me a quick kiss as I was hopping on one foot trying to pull up my blue jean shorts and put a sandal on the wrong foot. Her fingers then wiped my lips.

"Wash your face. I'm all over you, lover."

She stepped outside and the sparks began to fly even before I reached the sink to follow her directions.

"MOTHER!" Jennifer's voice could have curdled fresh milk. Just hearing it made my liver spasm. "What in the hell are you doing here!"

I had no trouble envisioning Victoria's face. The raised eyebrows.

"Excuse me ... I will not be spoken to in that tone by you, little miss."

"You should not be here! With him!"

As I stepped out on deck, I ignored my ex. Which, bar none, is probably the worst thing I could possibly do to her. I placed the picnic basket on the fold out table and placed two beers beside it. Sitting down, I popped the top on one and placed a pair of semi-dark sunglasses over my eyes before taking a sip. I looked over the top of the wireframes at Victoria.

"I will be with who I want, where I want, whenever I want." Victoria's lips quirked at my antics, but she didn't look away from her daughter. "And I hate to break it to you, Jennifer, but no matter what you may think, I don't have to ask your permission."

Out the corner of my eye, I was watching Thomas. I trust him about as far as I can throw him, which -- from past confrontations -- is about eight feet.

"Mother he is not even half your age! And how can you let yourself be associated with ... with ... with HIM? He's a damn arsonist. He burned down the hotel, for god's sake."

My lover was shaking her head.

"Ah, no he did not. I was with him when that fire started." Victoria pointed at the deck boards under her feet. "We were right here, on this boat, in this marina."

"Doing what?" Jennifer demanded.

Her mother smiled. "The Sheriff asked the same thing. It wasn't his business, and it sure as hell isn't yours either, but we were sleeping when the fire started."

"Together?"

"Chicken, Vicky?"

She looked over at me. I had the KFC bucket open and was holding it out to her. Her lips quivered and she shook her head.

"You shut the fuck up, you fucking pervert!" Jennifer all but spit at me. "You're sleeping with a woman older than your mother, for God's sake!"

"Jennifer!"

Pulling my glasses down with my middle finger, I winked at my ex-girlfriend and then slid them back up in my best Horatio Caine style. Sitting back, I lifted my beer in a "Hi, go fuck yourself" kind of way to Thomas and went back to watching the drama playing out in front of me. After flipping me off, Jennifer went back to screaming at her mother.

"What were you thinking, Mom? Huh? What were you thinking?" Jennifer pointed at me. "Him?"

"Unlike you, my dear, I never saw anything wrong with Randal. He's a wonderful person." She gave me a look, smiling. "A bit immature, but he will grow out of that."

"MOTHER!"

Victoria looked over at me, and I glanced down at the seat across from me, the beer waiting for her. With a tilt of my head and a hidden gesture at my chest, I indicated I would handle it if she liked. Her lip quirked and she gave me a half nod. Sighing, I placed my paper towel napkin down and stood up. Stepped in between her and her daughter, dramatically taking off my sunglasses I stared down my ex-girlfriend. Thomas moved to stand behind her, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

"This is a private pier. Only guests of the people that rent these slips are welcome and you are not on that list. I'll ask you to please leave. My ... date and I are trying to enjoy dinner."

"Randal ... you're scum. You know that? SCUM!"

I looked past her head to Thomas, hoping against all hope he would be an adult for once, I gestured toward their car with my eyes, but he looked away. Putz. Sighing, I looked back down at my ex.

"It's better to be scum on top than the muck rotting at the bottom." I pointed back up the way they had come. "There are leash laws here. Take your dog somewhere else for a walk."

Turning back to my dinner, I left it up to them to determine who I was calling a dog. But then, given how often I've called Jennifer a bitch lately, I was hoping she would figure it out.

"YOU BASTARD!"

She did.

Sitting down, tossing my glasses to the side, I picked back up the chicken leg I had been munching on a few moments before and moved the bucket closer to Victoria who still wasn't eating. I ducked my head enough to catch her eyes.

"Ignore her," I whispered.

Nostrils flaring, Victoria nodded and eased down into the seat across from me. She resolutely turned her back to her daughter. She let out a slow sigh, and I saw a single tear run its way down Victoria's cheek. Over her head I watched my ex and her current slab of meat stand there looking at us for a moment, then realize the was nothing they could really do.

"You're both sick!"

Except that.

Jennifer stormed off up the pier, slammed her car door, and drove like the crazy bitch she was out the parking lot.

"And that would be why I stopped dating her," I said after a moment when the silence got heavy. "The drama."

Victoria wiped a tear away. "She comes by it honestly. I was the same at her age."

"I find that hard to believe."

"No, really. I was just as bitchy, just as drama possessed. Jennifer's father was even worse." Taking a paper plate out the basket she lifted out the bowl with her potato salad. Spooning out some for her and then for me when she offered, she gave me a begrudging shrug. "That he and I stayed together as long as we did was purely because I got pregnant, and it was easier to just be together than deal with a divorce and all the family drama, from both sides, that would follow. And did. Remember, both my parent and his thought we were the perfect couple." She looked up and then her expression changed. "I'm sorry. I'm being Debby Downer and bringing up my ex and all the messy times that I've lived through." She grimaced. "Hate to be such a mood killer."

"I think that happened when Jennifer showed up." I gave her a grin. "I know I was enjoying what I was eating a lot more than this meal."

She blushed. Oh, my god, Victoria blushed!

Her next words were given with such delightful hesitation. "I ... I was enjoying it too."

"I could tell. You were getting close. Yes?"

She gave me a small chuckle for an answer. Her eyes were a teasing pair of dark pools when she looked back up at me. She placed her fork back on her plate. Reaching over the table, she took my fingers and pulled me across to her. Our lips touched and in that gentle touch, she admitted to me something she had jokingly chastised me about.

Love?

Well, perhaps something so similar to that forbidden-to-be-feeling emotion as to be all but indistinguishable. What exactly that kiss of admission was going to mean I wasn't sure but well, for tonight at least, it meant our food got cold...

...and I went back to eating something far better than fast food chicken.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

December 7th, a date that shall live in infamy. Yeah, well around here it was December 3rd, 2017 that was the most infamous date that would ever be remembered. That was the day that a whole dump truck load of shit hit the fan blades.

And just about everyone in town got splattered.

Oh, let's see where to begin? The construction workers.

Since the morning that the fire that burned down my families home there had been a continually growing number of out of town -- or more important out of state -- construction workers flooding into our little town. The had occupied the towns small motor lodge out by the highway to the point they had simply rented the whole place by the week. The same could be said for a small low-price apartment block over by the Walmart. As the normal six-month leases ran out the owner simply rented his apartments to the construction company.

On a month-to-month tenancy agreement.

These workers were seen by the town -- after being touted as such by the Mayor and City Council -- as the first waves of new people that the mega hotel would bring to our small town.

Dad hadn't been alive at the time, but he had told me what to watch for. And watch I had.

So on that early Sunday morning when that huge convoy of heavily loaded pickup trucks pulled out, I wasn't in the least bit surprised. The same cannot be said for the rest of the town.

To put it simply, they lost their shit.

Up until that point, the talk had been that at any moment the hotel company was going to simply add some new funds to the building's construction budget to cover those minor damages that were caused by the fire. That's the one that I got arrested for, by the way. The town even offered to help with a large no-interest loan till the hotel company received their insurance money. They were financially committed to finishing their mega hotel, right?.

They just needed the town to show them we were equally committed. So after they had just raised local property taxes, the Town Council put out a call for everyone to help them get the cash together for that loan.

Yep, they asked for donations. Right before Christmas.

Money that had been carefully hoarded by the hopeful, but still poor, people in this town to put towards their Christmas presents and those pesky bills was asked to be donated.

Give till it hurts? Oh, hell no. It was a give till your ass bleeds type request.

And, I swear to you on the main mast of the Star, those dumb bastards did it. The people rallied together and slit their figurative wrists over a collections bowl. I watched in befuddled assessment, knowing what was coming, but unable to make people believe.

Not a one.

When the news that the children of town had asked the mall Santa for money for the new hotel, instead of their presents, I wanted to weep. My twin sisters were even involved. They went so far as to go door to door and help the church collected pennies. They basically begged several thousand dollars in pennies and then selflessly gave it all to the Mayor.

I was so proud of them I made myself keep my teeth together.

That Sunday morning -- two days after the loan and the donations had been delivered to the Hotel representative by the Mayor, with much fanfare, promises, and hardy handshakes -- I got a call from my grandmother, which woke me and Victoria up, telling me about the construction workers leaving.

I kept from laughing till after Nana hung up.

So ... well, maybe those workers were needed on another project till things could get going here again. They had sat around for a week plus doing nothing, right?

Yeah, that's got to be it. Snort.

Then someone went out to the burned mega hotel -- specifically to its lay down yard at the high school -- and opened up all the many shipping containers. Sitting side by side in the big empty football field all those metal boxes ... were unlocked and emptied. Tons of construction supplies, copper wire, copper piping, pallets of loaded with 5-gallon buckets of expensive paint, and all that beautiful Mahogany trim work that had been such a selling point.

Gone.

All gone, bye bye. And not a trace of where it went.

Then it began to come out that some of the neighbors by the school had seen large trucks arriving in the late afternoon and leaving in the wee hours of the next morning ... for the entire week before the hotel fire. But, but tractor trailer trucks coming and going were a common sight. They had to be delivering things.

Right?

Around about lunchtime, I first heard word of too many phone calls going unanswered. The rumor was that the members of the Town Council could not get a single person, who had been so readily available just days before, on the phone.

Construction company?

Nope, all their numbers had been disconnected.

The Hotel's representative on site?

He was gone. His phone was left behind in his rented home. Broken with a hammer from the look of it, but it was also left next to a plugged-in magnetic drill. A drill that was broken ... except for the magnet part. That very magnetic part.

Well, damn it, call the Hotel's main office! They're a mega, multinational, hotel corporation for God's sake. Just find their number and get someone on the phone.

So someone called them.

Can you guess that by this point, I was laughing my ass off at these people?

The hotel company? Well, they had never even heard of our little town.

I about fell off my fucking boat.

By the time the FBI and the State Prosecutor's office were involved the Mayor had vanished in the middle of the night. His personal bank account was cleaned out and a private safe was discovered in his office and it was equally emptied. Then we heard that particular safe was reported, by his secretary, to have contained a quarter of a million dollars of the town's money. Money that was due January 1st to pay on the interest on dozens of long-term municipal bonds.

Those town funds the Council had apparently signed for and then turned over to the Mayor's control as the bondholder.

And then he took the money with him.

The arrests of the Town Council members began not long after that.

Over our poor town there now hung a palpable miasma of despair thick enough to cut. To everyone in town it was not just that their promised future, filled with its tourist-trap filled glory, had been lost but, now equally, they had to deal with the knowledge that all the people they had trusted had betrayed their trust.

It gutted them like fish.

I went and bought LED Christmas lights to decorate my sailboat. And I hummed happy Christmas carols the whole time.

Honestly, I wasn't trying to be an asshole, but I also couldn't help myself. It was all too much like seeing everyone getting ... petarded. Such a jolly good hoisting! I was beside myself with glee watching it all fall apart.

Of course, I didn't get to stay in such a great mood.

For all that is holy, these fucking sheep somehow worked it around to my not only my knowing about the whole restate scheme from day one, but my dad being a major part of it.

That was it, I started packing up to leave.

And then got told by Victoria that I couldn't.

When we met for coffee at my grandmother's Vicky told me that if I was to suddenly vanish, I would be seen in the same light as the Mayor and all the rest. Proving, unequivocally, that they were right about me. And, given that I had family still living here, I couldn't let that happen. The town would take it out on my loved ones after I was gone. No doubt in the world.

So.

I had to stay.

Fuck me till I weep.

Also, Jennifer wasn't talking to her mother. At all.

Now for me that particular young lady ... not speaking ... would be a wonderful thing. But, well Victoria took it a bit badly that her daughter that she loved -- due to that whole maternal contract thing she signed -- not talking to her. So, I found myself being the shoulder to cry on. Not that I minded that terribly. Seemed to me the more emotions Victoria let out in my presence the more she might come to openly admit to the ones I wanted to hear my lover admit too.

Exactly when I went from wanting to get into Vicky's pants to wanting to get into her heart, I'm not sure, but I think it happened around the time I kidnapped her.

Goddammit!

Now she's got me calling it a kidnapping.

** ** ** ** ** ** **

Trips through town should have been better, but weren't.

Basic needs I still had to take care of by driving down the highway about an hour. I did still had to run in-town errands for my grandmother though. And, after the City Council members were all behind bars, it was deemed a good idea for me to take the time to be seen in town, doing ... something, well normal.

Pretty much anything, so long as it was something normal. I needed to be visible. Invisible people around here are, after all, part of massive money scamming schemes.

So .... I went and had lunch at the local fast food places. Most of those were staffed by guys I went to school with. Some of them still saw me as the reason that were frying chicken and not working in some posh mega hotel toting bags for rich tourist women. Rich tourist women who would instantly fall for the pimple-faced, local boy, bag-carrying bellhop. Women that would fuck them silly, and impulse buy them a matching pair of Lamborghini before these beautifully endowed women would jet back to home to their rich-as-sin old husbands. Wait at his hospital bedside to die, and then summon their young Floridian lover to come take care of their millions.