Dream On (Stories of Serendipity #2) (3 page)

Back at home with the kids for the night, she lay down on her bed and thought about sex.
 It had been on her mind a lot lately, with the dreams she’d been having.  And then that party tonight had opened her eyes a little more.  Was everybody sex obsessed?  Including her?  Up until a few days ago, she didn’t even know sex like that existed, much less own a handbook to it.  Yes, she realized, she now owned a handbook to fabulous sex, thanks to her bag of goodies from her well-intentioned friends.  She shoved the entire bag into the drawer of her bedside table and threw herself back onto the bed.

She felt an ache deep inside herself.
 She found herself running her hands along her body.  She even tried putting one inside herself, but then she remembered Steven’s face and withdrew them.  She didn’t like the dirty mood that overtook her when she touched herself like that.  There was no way she could ever enjoy doing that to herself.  She remembered her dream man stroking himself in the shower.  Alyssa imagined it was different for men, somehow.  Oh, she hoped she didn’t ever have to have that conversation with Cayden.  She really hoped he would be comfortable enough to go to his father with questions about that kind of thing.

Chapter 3

Dalton sat in his car outside The Church wondering if he really wanted to go inside or not.
 He couldn’t wrap his head around these dreams he’d been having.  This woman his subconscious had decided to create to torment him with was unreal.  Nobody lived like that, did they?  She couldn’t even pleasure herself for Christ’s sake.  And the innocence at the sex toy party was laughable.  Was there a woman alive who didn’t own a vibrator?  Really?  To listen to his women friends talk, a vibrator was better than a man any day and every woman’s best friend.  

The difference in their lifestyles was remarkable.
 He was the cliché of a man whore, clinging to the edge of the dark side of life.  She was Little Miss Sunshine, with a career, kids, chastity.  

His subconscious really must be telling him something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.
 

His dream wom
an was living in his hometown.  He was pretty sure.  He recognized the school she worked in, although it was a little different.  The school office was the same, just slightly different, in the way dreams seem to always be.  The room itself was the same, windows in the same place, the desk in the same place, the same school secretary.  But the carpeting and the chairs were different.  Maybe it was because he hadn’t actually been there in so long.  He didn’t remember exactly what the chairs looked like, so his subconscious made them more familiar.  

Well, then why did his subconscious suddenly make him start teaching grammar in his dreams?
 He had never understood exactly what a preposition was until last night.  Maybe it was because he had taught it six times in a row to different classes full of blasé teenagers in his dream.  Why all of a sudden, had he become an expert on the parts of speech?  It made no sense.  
And why was he dreaming of a woman in his hometown?  Sure, he missed home.  He missed his parents and his sister and her daughter.  He had thought about moving back home, since that had been the plan all along.  He was just waiting to get tired of his life here in Dallas.  He had thought he might meet a woman from the city who would want to move to Palestine.  Maybe there was already one there, waiting for him.

“Sh
e’s not real.”  He told himself and started to get out of the car.

His cell phone ringing interrupted him.  He looked at the caller ID, and groaned when he saw his sister’s name pop up on the screen.  He answered warily as he re-settled himself back in the car seat.

“Hey, Renae.”  He tried to make his voice sound even.  He hoped this was a social call and not a lecture.  By the lack of social niceties in her opening words, it was definitely the latter.

“Dalton, Dad needs you to come home this weekend.”

“Okay, why?”

“He needs help working the herd.  He’s been a little under the weather and doesn’t realize he needs more than Buddy to help him.  I don’t think he should be doing this all alone anymore.”

“Does he want me to help?”  Dalton didn’t mind helping his dad, if it was just helping.  Usually however, the helping turned into following orders barked at him as if he were still a child.  His dad never had really respected his education or his opinions about the herd.

“Of course not, but he needs your help.  Dalton, Dad is almost seventy.  He isn’t a spring chicken anymore.  Those feed bags are heavy for him, but he won’t admit it.  And the hours involved in working the herd are more than he can handle.  It would have to be a t
wo or three day project for him without more help.  Buddy’s no spring chicken either.  Those two old geezers need help, and you’re the one to do it.  Suck it up and get your ass down here to help.”  Her voice was rising, and Dalton could tell she was getting pissed, but he wasn’t giving in to her demands.  She may be the older sister, but she wasn’t going to boss him on this one.

“I’ve got to work this weekend.”

“You always have to work, Dalton.  You know, this is turning into a little ‘Cat’s in the Cradle.’”

That made him mad.  “Well, I don’t particularly feel like listenin
g to Dad lecture me on the herd and why my ideas are stupid.  He’s the one who insisted I get an Ag Science degree, and he never listens to my suggestions.  If he wants to do it by himself, let him.  If he calls me and asks me himself, I’ll come down.  But I’m not going to come help him if he doesn’t want my help.  I need to make money more than I need a lecture.”

“Whatever, Dalton.  The fact of the matter is, our parents are getting older, and I can’t take care of them all the time anymore.  I really wish you would step up and help out a little.  Are you ever going to move back home?  I thought that was the plan all along.”

“Plans change.”  Dalton was short with her, but he didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to let her feel guilty for not doing what everyone else expected him to do.  “I’ve got to go.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’ve got to work.  See you at Thanksgiving.”  Her voice was dripping with antagonism, but she ended up hanging up on him without allowing him a retort.

He sighed heavily, and turned off the ringer on his phone.  What was it about family dynamics that always made him feel guilty?

“She’ll get over it.”  He told himself, as he unfolded his long legs from the car, and ambled toward the entrance to the club.

Inside the smoky interior, he immediately scanned the area, noticing a few people he knew.  Dan came up to him right away.

“Dude!
 Glad you could make it.  I thought you were going to flake out tonight.”  Dan bumped knuckles with Dalton while he grinned like a mad wolf.

“Got hung up with something.
 No big deal.  I thought mesh was out with straight guys in the 90s, man.”  Dalton was pointedly looking at Dan’s nipples poking through the mesh of the shirt he had on.

“Feels free, you know?”
 Dan rubbed his own nipples through the shirt, “I’m tactile.  I learn better while I do this...”  He turned and walked away, still rubbing his nipples.

“Freak...” Dalton muttered to himself as he went to the bar for a drink.
 “Speaking of which,” Dalton was eyeballing a couple a few feet away from him.  The man had surgically implanted horns on his temples, and the woman was wearing a chainmail tank top, with no bra underneath.  Dalton couldn’t stop himself from staring at the nipples poking through the chain mail, and wondering what kind of sensation that evoked in a woman.  It looked damn painful to him, but sometimes pain could be a turn on.

His thoughts were interrupted by two women, dressed and made up to be identical twins, wearing Catholic school girl outfits, their hair in pigtails. They weren’t twins of course, but they wanted to pretend they were.
 That’s what this place was all about, playing pretend.  He ambled over to the corner of the bar where they were sitting.

“Double your pleasure?”
 He gestured the bartender to bring them another round of drinks on him.  He briefly wondered again, when his life had turned into such a stereotype.

They looked at him, then at each other, and one giggled while the other smiled seductively.

“Double your fun.”  The girl who smiled at him licked her lips suggestively, while the giggling girl bit her bottom lip.

“Then drink up, girls.
 Let’s dance.”

“Steven, she’s their grandmother.
 She wants to spend time with them, too.”  Alyssa was on the phone with her ex-husband.  Her mother had taken the kids to the grocery store last night and ran into him.  

“I’m just saying you can hang out with your friends on your non-custodial weeks.
 Don’t pawn the kids off on a babysitter as soon as you get them.”  

“I repeat.
 She’s their grandmother.  Not a babysitter.  What I do on my own time is not your business.”  Thank God he didn’t know what she was doing with her friends, or he would really be having a cow.

“It is when it concerns my kids.”

“Spending a few hours with my mother is detrimental to them?You have got to be kidding me.  I don’t freak when you take them to your parents’ house.”

“My parents aren’t disabled.”

“She only uses the powerchair at home. She uses a cane when she’s out.  And being disabled doesn’t mean she loves them any less.  She’s not harming them.”

“She’s run over them in that thing.”

“She’s run over everybody in that thing, and only once.  Everybody knows to stay out of her way after that.  It’s a learning experience.  Like....fire burns.  Most people only burn themselves once.”

“All I’m saying is, you’d better be careful.”
 His voice was quiet, and full of menace.

“Are you threatening me, Steven?”

“I’m just telling you how it is.  A Christian mother spends all the time with her children.  She doesn’t pawn them off on a babysitter.”

“And I’m telling you.
 She is my mother, and if she wants to spend time with my kids, she will.  With or without me.  Period.”

“Fine.”
 Click.

She looked at the receiver in her hand and shook her head.
 

The kids were in bed, thankfully.
 They hadn’t heard the tears of frustration in her voice.  Those tears seemed to always be right beneath the surface when she talked to Steven.  Marrying him had almost been the worst mistake of her life.  If it wasn’t for Sierra and Cayden, it would have been.  Hands down.

She wished she didn’t ever have to listen to Steven’s controlling, belittling tone ever again.  When they had been married, he had tried to control her every waking moment.  He had told her how to dress, who to be friends with, and where to spend what little free time she had, all in the name of Christianity.  Now they weren’t married anymore,
but he still felt the need to try to control her actions.  If she didn’t act the way he though she should, he belittled her.  She tried not to let it bother her, but she just couldn’t help it.

The t
hing driving her crazy about it was he was always trying to throw "Christianity" into the things she did.  Steven had been "saved" sometime during their courtship, and he used it to insinuate her actions were going to send her straight to Hell.  He was superior to her because he had been baptized and "saved" by a preacher in front of a church and Alyssa wasn’t.  She felt her faith, and the baptism she had received as an infant was sufficient.

And then the whole thing with Stephanie had happened.  Alyssa shuddered in revulsion at the hypocrisy of it all.  He loved Stephanie, and it was his duty to try to show her the light.  That made the affair okay in Steven’s eyes.

Her phone rang again.  It was after eight o’clock, and most of her friends knew her kids were in bed and didn’t call late.  She sighed.  It could be her mother.  With a seventy-six-year-old mother, Alyssa didn’t dare not answer the phone.

“Hello?”

“Alyssa, hi.  Are you busy?”

“No, Mom, I’m not.
 What’s up?”

“Well, the neighbors down the street are doing something.”

“What do you mean, doing something?”  Alyssa tried not to sound aggravated, but she really couldn't care less what her mother’s neighbors were up to.  As long as it wasn’t dangerous to her mother, it wasn’t any of her business.

“It’s going to be some kind of wedding or something.
 They have at least ten tables and a whole bunch of chairs set up for some sort of reception in the yard.  I think I’m going to ride my power chair over tomorrow morning and see if I can scope it out.”  Since retirement, Alyssa’s mother had gotten a little bored and incredibly nosey about her neighbors.

She suppressed a sigh.
 “That sound like a plan, Mom.  Make sure it’s fully charged before you set out on your trek, okay?”  She tried not to sound patronizing, but it was awfully hard to actually sound supportive of some of her mother’s schemes.

“I will.
 It’s charging now.  I’m going to go early in the morning.  I have a new Paula Dean recipe I want to try tomorrow, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to take me most of the day to make it.  Do you and the kids want to come over for supper tomorrow night?”