The Seattle Boy

When Charlie woke up in the morning, he felt like he had been hit repeatedly over the head with a wooden mallet, and the inside of his mouth tasted as though some small furry rodent had crawled in and died weeks ago. As he shuffled into the bathroom off the hallway, he paused. How had he gotten home from the bar he had gone to after work? Usually he did his best to avoid drinking during the week, but the truly awful day at work had driven him to the comfort of his local bar. Had he walked home, or did the bartender call a cab for him?

He peeled back the curtains from the front window, and was met by his green truck, parked in its usual spot. It appeared that while he had been out, it had dumped snow, burying his truck in a foot of it. The road was smooth, indicating that he had been home for quite some time, and that he'd had no visitors since. Stumped, Charlie turned away to get ready for work, the headache from the hangover melding with the one from a hard day at the office melding into one.

It wasn't until after work when he walked into the bar again, this time to thank the bartender for getting him home safely, that he realized his mistake.

"What do you mean, you didn't drive me home," he asked, staring stupidly down at the petit redhead.

"I mean, I am not the one who drove you home," she repeated, slightly mystified. "I told you, I do that three times for customers, no more and no less. You used up your last time two Fridays ago."

Charlie blinked at her.

"I thought you left with that pretty little brunette you met last night? I figured you two were going back to her place for the rest of the night, so I wasn't too worried," she continued.

"What brunette?" Now it was his turn to be mystified. "I don't remember meeting anyone last night."

She snorted. "I doubt you remember much of anything from last night Charlie, you were pretty drunk. She kept buying drinks, and you kept drinking 'em down. You two seemed to know each other pretty well, though, for two people who supposedly just met."

"Did you happen to catch her name?" He shoved his hands in his pockets, distinctly uncomfortable by the appearance of a familiar brunette stranger.

She shook her head, placing a newly polished glass on the rack behind her. "No, she never said when you asked. You made up a name, and she just went with it."

"Oh," he said, disappointed.

"I think you called her Clare, if that helps at all," she said, picking up a new glass. She looked down at her hands, frowning to remember the evening more clearly and by the time she looked up again, Charlie was already gone, out the door and halfway across the parking lot, stomping through the snow. She shook her head, and wondered why she chose to be a bartender instead of a shrink.

"Shit, shitshitshitshit," Clare muttered angrily, revving her car and finally hitting the steering wheel in defeat. The car, after forcing Clare to unbury it from the foot of snow, was now refusing to start. After half an hour of pleading and begging, swearing and cursing, Clare was forced to look for alternatives. The plane she held her ticket home for was leaving in less than an hour, and she was at least an hour and a half walk from her friend's apartment to the airport. Kelly was on a vacation home for the Christmas season, and had offered her house to Clare while she was in town for her conference. The snow was impossible to walk in, and she hadn't brought any of the appropriate clothing for a trek through the snow. She reluctantly climbed out of the car, grabbed her bags, and trudged back into the house and grudgingly opened it back up. She picked up her cell phone and dialed.

"Hi... Mom! It's Clare. Look, I have some bad news...."

She found herself back in the same bar as the night before, and the sense of deja vu was overwhelming. The redhead behind the bar eyed her more suspiciously tonight than the night before, but Clare paid it no mind. That is, until she approached Clare.

"He doesn't drink during the week, you know." Clare looked up and saw the redhead scowling down at her. "And tonight's a Thursday, so if you're looking for a good time again, you'll have to find it from some other guy in here."

Clare blinked slowly. Who was this woman, and what right did she think she had to judge what went on between her and Charlie?

"I'm sorry," she said carefully. "I missed your name, and your relation to me or Charlie."

The redhead's scowl deepened. "I'm no one to you, lady, just here to serve your beer and food. But I'm a friend of Charlie's, and he came in here this morning asking about what happened last night. Seems to me, you two know each other pretty well, you should have known he wouldn't remember anything today, and yet you kept buying him drinks and asking him painful questions about Clare."

"What do you know about Clare," she demanded, her voice accusatory and sharper than she had intended.

"What's it to you," the barkeep retorted. "If it's so important, as him yourself. He's usually in here tomorrow after work."

"I won't be in town tomorrow, so why don't you just tell me now and save him the trouble?" She couldn't explain it, but this curvy woman behind the bar who seemed to have a good relationship with Charlie irked her beyond reason, and aroused in her a feeling of ugly jealousy that had lain dormant for years.

"Fine," she snapped, irked herself. "Clare was a girl he fell in love with when they were kids, and he's loved her ever since. She's a bit of a wild one, never could bring herself to settle down in one place with him, but he's never been anything but loyal to her, both in fidelity and in social circles. I've told him for years to move on and find someone else to help him forget her. But he's always shut me down, not keeping anyone around for more than a week. Now, is that all you wanted to know, or did you want a flowchart to go along with it?" She looked intently at Clare from her vantage point across the bar.

"No, thanks. That's just great, all I needed."

"Great. Now, what was your name again?" She wanted to catch it for real's this time, so she could tell him the following evening.

Instead of answering, Clare paid for dinner and got up to leave, to walk across the snowy parking lot, along the busy but now deserted street, and up to Kelly's house where she could fall into bed in a drunken stupor.

When Charlie finally made it to the bar the following night, he half expected his brunette ghost to appear on the empty stool next to him, and every time he replaced his glass, he was disappointed that it remained without a tenant. Throughout the day, the half image of his ghost, a flash of brown hair around a corner, the hint of a perfume that aroused the hell out of him stalked him, and yet he could never quite chase it fast enough. As he pondered this, Keri minded the bar with one eye and him with the other, and she watched him get slowly drunk as the night wore on.

Finally when he waved his hand to ask for a third glass, she swatted his hand away. "No more for you! You don't have your pretty little brunette angel to drive you home today, so no more beer for you. She came in here yesterday, by the way," Keri added, hoping to distract him.

"She did?" His hopeful expression tugged at her. "What did she say? Did you catch her name?"

Keri sighed, rubbing her forehead with the palm of her hand. "Nothing much but to ask some questions about you and Clare. I didn't even the chance to ask her name, she was gone too fast. And I don't think she'll be back tonight, sounded like she was on her way out of town, so don't bother waiting up."

He looked sorrowfully down into his glass, split between desperately wanting her to walk in, and fervently hoping she was really gone. "You're right, Keri. I think I will go home and go to bed. It's been a shit week, I think it's time to call an end to it." As he headed for the door, he let his feet guide him completely oblivious to his surroundings and to the other patrons. He reached for the door, to push it out and release himself into the chilly world, when he found it open already, and collided chest first into a small woman with brunette hair.

Clare gasped in shock, her nose crunched against a man's chest, held in place by the arms that had caught her instinctively. "Sorry," she muttered, not looking up. "I wasn't looking, my mistake."

She tried to pull away, but found he had not let go. Instead, he was staring down at her, at the ghost and the phantom of his mind.

"Clare?"

She sat on the couch she had almost tripped over the night before last when she had stumbled blindly through his house, perched on the edge in a nervous attempt at keeping herself prepared to flee at the moment's chance. He paced before her, pulling his hair and then stopping to stare at her.

Finally: "What the hell are you doing here?"

It was spoken with a deadened calm, like his mind was still racing to catch up with the current events.

Clare cleared her throat. "I, um, had a business conference here a day ago, and I missed my bus home when it was over."

He continued to stare at her, his jaw working in quick, tense movements. Suddenly, without warning, he leaped forward and seized her by the shoulders and drew her upright, flush against him. Charlie stared at her for a moment, before he kissed her, all anger and passion and fury, relief at finally finding his ghost, and agony at knowing she was here, in his house, and had been before.

She stiffened for a moment, shocked at his actions, before she relaxed into him, melting her shoulders and her lips against him, luxuriating in the feeling of having his massive frame hold her smaller, more brittle one. He could sense her willingness, and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her so tightly in almost hurt, just to reassure both of them that she would not leave again. He bent his knees, and she understood his silent signal and wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling five foot two inch self closer to equitable height with his own roughly six foot one.

Charlie growled into her mouth, massaging her ass, grinding her into him, allowing himself to imagine she was really here, in his arms, not just a dream.. He could feel her seeping through the light cotton of her pants, a ridiculous choice for early January, but one that made it easy for him to pet her. He was like a hot brand between her legs, and her body cried out for him, overriding the warnings and distress calls her mind was firing out. She wove her fingers through his hair, never wanting to let him go, desiring to kiss him until the end of the world if that's what it took.

Suddenly, she felt herself falling, and found that he had collapsed onto the spot on the couch she had vacated, giving his hands free range. He swept them up, underneath her shirt, to hold captive her sensitive breasts, squeeze and weigh them, rolling their nipples between his fingers through the fabric of her bra. One hand went behind her, to work on the fasten of her bra while the other journeyed south to the clasp of her pants, when he found her silky and hot, and completely shaven. They moaned simultaneously when he touched her, his rough fingertips against her sensitive flesh something she both craved and detested. She ground down on his hand, wanting more, wanting him inside her. Charlie was only too happy to oblige, thrusting two fingers inside, and massaging the little bean at the front of her mond with his thumb. She whimpered, grinding harder, allowing her own hands to venture down from his chest and onto the evidence of his arousal, thick and pulsing beneath his jeans. As she struggled with the belt buckle, he paid her actions no heed, proceeding to nip and suckle at her breasts through the fabric of her shirt, her bra pushed away. When she managed to slip her hands into his pants, it was his turn to groan, the feeling of her hands against him was like heaven, at the same time that his own hands were inside her.

He growled into her mouth, squeezing her waist with his elbows and gently thrusting against her. She ripped her mouth from his, gasping and pressing her chest against him. He stood abruptly, tearing his hands from her pants and her hands from his. He picked her up, princess-style, his mouth still glued to hers, and carried her up the stairs into the attic bedroom, absent-mindedly turning off lights as he went. By the time he got them up the stairs and to the bed, she was practically begging him to take her clothes off, whimpering and groaning against his mouth. As she reached for his belt when he dumped her on the bed, he scowled dangerously at her.

Shocked, she sat back, lust forgotten. "What? Have I done something wrong?"

He was silent, eying her carefully. Fast as lightning, he grabbed her feet and pulled harshly, jerking her towards him. Grabbing her wrists, he pinned them one handed above her head and with the other he tugged her pants off, stroking her surprisingly lightly for his previous force. Her eyes fluttered and she thrust her hips at him, begging him to touch her harder. Instead his hand skated higher, tickling her ribs and her stomach as he reached his destination.

Determined not to make it easy for him, she wrapped her strong legs around him and pulled, managing to jerk him forward, his still-exposed cockhead rubbing against her opening. His eyes closed and thrust despite his best intentions. Charlie growled and fell forwards, pinning her down with the weight of his chest. Freeing her hands to use both of his, he made short work of her shirt and bra, finally releasing her aching breasts to plunder them with his mouth. Again she pulled him to her, determined to seduce him into giving her what she wanted.

He rolled her over, lying flat on his back, his head resting against the pillows as he gazed up at her. Delighted at her new position, she wriggled down until she was level with his almost angry-looking cock. Teasingly, she blew a mouthful of hot air against him, amused by the desperate twitching he gave in response. Suddenly she enveloped his entire length in her mouth, surprising him enough to shout in pleasure. As she sucked and swirled her mouth on him, he clutched the bed sheets and groaned. Sensing he was about to finish from the tightening in his balls, she released him and slithered her way back up his body, rubbing her breasts against his chest, and tickling him with her hair. She sat up straight, and taking him in her fist, guided him into her and slowly sank down, both groaning simultaneously as she did.

" I don't know how this is even possible," she gasped, "but I think you're even bigger than you were the last time we were together." Unable to speak, he just grinned and grunted at her, raising and lowering her hips as she held his shoulders. Suddenly he stiffened and froze mid thrust, and she felt him explode.