Page 12 of Something Has To Give

From the hall outside, she heard footsteps approaching. They paused right outside the bathroom door and, self-consciously, she put her bottom down. Quint knocked—no, not Quint. Quint was too intimate. Quint meant they were friends or at least on an approaching friendship-type basis, which they weren’t. Far from it. He was Rydecker to her. Nothing more, and they were definitely not friends.

“What?” she said bitterly, or tried to. Her voice was shaking. It came out sounding watery, as if she were on the verge of tears and she wasn’t. She felt the first disloyal tickle spill over her lashes and she viciously scrubbed it from her cheek. Tears werea measure of frailty and she wasn’t weak, couldn’t afford to be weak, would never be weak again.

“Are you okay?” Rydecker softly asked from the other side of the door.

Raising her head, Elsie stared at her reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet. All she could feel was the pulse of lust licking between her legs; and all she could see, were echoes of the same, haunting the deep brown of her eyes. She caught her breath before she started crying again. “There’s another bathroom in this house somewhere. Find it.”

She wasn’t weak.

She wasn’t depraved.

And she was not about to let him take this house from her. Not him. Not anyone.

Not ever.

* * * * *

It must have been twenty minutes before Elsie came out of the bathroom. Not that he was counting.

Quint got up from the table where he’d been telling himself for the last twenty minutes that he wasn’t upset and he wasn’t fidgeting. He went into the kitchen and hesitated over the coffee pot until he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“Do you want some coffee?” he asked as she stalked into the kitchen behind him.

“Get bent.” She fetched her milking bucket and promptly swept back out again, heading for the front porch.

He almost felt better. That was the kind of reply and kick in the butt he needed to start seeing her as neither a victim to his runaway passions or as a potential lover or even as a woman, but as the harpy invader who’d taken over his house.

He made coffee—not for two, just enough for him to have three or four bracing cups—and went to enjoy the first one at the kitchen table. He got to enjoy every one to the cacophony of aherd of goats bleating on his front porch. That was new. He also got to enjoy it to the sound of a rooster strangling out an endless chorus of crows somewhere out behind the house. That was new as well. He wasn’t particularly happy about either. Fortunately, none would be staying. Just as soon as he was done with his coffee, he was going to take a trip into town to the county courthouse where he was going to file that paperwork and start Elsie’s eviction process. He couldn’t wait.

The front door bumped shut and then she came stomping through the kitchen.

“Don’t touch my stuff,” she said testily, putting the now full milk bucket on the counter by the sink.

“I’m not. I’m touching my stuff.” Deliberately, childishly even, he poked the bucket. “Want some coffee?”

“Get bent.” She stalked back out of the kitchen again, slamming out of the back door now. Quint poured himself another cup of coffee. Peering into the bucket, he eyed the goat milk before opening the fridge door. He found the little container with remnants of more of that cream cheese she’d given him along with the jam and toast she’d slid under the bathroom door. He wasn’t sure about goat’s milk, but that cream cheese had been pretty good. Even mad as hell while he’d been eating it, it had tasted pretty good.

Opening the container, he sniffed the contents. He dipped his finger in before sampling a taste, then found some bread, made toast and enjoyed it smothered in cream cheese, and washed it all down with the last of his coffee. He was on his last few bites when Elsie returned, this time with a bucket half full of eggs.

“I’m heading into town,” he said. “Want me to pick you up anything while I get your eviction notice started?

“Go to hell.” She began washing the eggs at the sink.

Two get bents and one go to hell. What a beautiful way to start the day.

Fetching his keys and wallet, he whistled as he headed out the front door for his truck. He never made it off the porch. It was snowing again. Not just a little this time, but big, heavy flakes that were not melting when they touched the ground. Damn. It was looking like the beginnings of the winter’s first blizzard.

He wasn’t going anywhere today.

Quint stood for a long time, staring out into the swirling whiteness, trying to figure out whether he was more upset that he wouldn’t be able to get the eviction process started just yet or relieved.

* * * * *

The minute Quint left the house, Elsie stopped what she was doing. She put the clean eggs down in the bottom of the sink and bent all the way over, resting her forehead on her folded arms. How could she possibly fix any of this and still keep the house? She could leave—she might just have to—but, no! Where would she go? What would she do? Find another abandoned place and pray no one came home a year or so down the road to rip that out from under her too? She couldn’t keep doing this. She just couldn’t. And the worst part was she had no one but herself to blame for any of this. She’d known right from the start that this could end badly, but she’d let herself believe no one would ever object to her living here. That no one would ever come back. That she would be left in peace to eke out her quiet living until the day she died and there would be no consequences. She’d wanted to believe that. She had wanted that so much.

Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Maybe the way to keep the house lay in somehow sweetening Quint towards her. If she could keep him from evicting her, then maybe they could arrange some sort of rental agreement. At best, she might be able to convince him that this place was too run down for him to bother with. At worst, the house was big enough, maybe they could split it.

In the other room, Quint’s heavy footsteps re-entered the house. Lifting her head when the front door closed, she turned to listen. She hoped he wouldn’t come this way, but funny how the sound of those big feet of his brought to instant mind just how hot and big the rest of him had felt when he’d been pressed up against her that morning. That “spank me” crawling sensation travelled across her bottom and down the backs of her thighs all over again and wetness gathered between her legs. She could feel it, moving like stroking fingers down through the folds of her sex. Her nipples peaked, scraping the suddenly burlap-like roughness of her plain cotton t-shirt.

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