Satyrday Afternoon
Part Two of the Satyr Saga
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~~ All characters in this book are 18 or over. ~~
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Owen Howard's mind whirled. After months of enforced celibacy, he had just engaged in mind-bending sex with the one person who he never expected to go to bed with, his boss and long-time crush, Anaya Ansari.
Not that they ever got to a bed, of course. They had made love in the tiny office of Mama Juliana's Pizzeria right before the day shift started, screwing in a chair like something out of
The Kama Sutra
.
"Making love" seemed a thin and weak way to put it, though. The passion which had sprung up between them, full grown like a phoenix rising from its own ashes, had been almost elemental in its fiery heat. Even now he had to convince himself that it had really happened, and wasn't some sort of bizarre daydream.
He glanced over at Anaya, spooning sauce onto a crust on the prep line as he bagged his first run of the day. She looked back at him, smiling in memory, her eyes hot with the promise of more to come.
Something strange is going on.
He gripped the copper bracelet which the strange woman, Phoebe, had given him the night before. Ever since he met her, the women in his life had been acting strangely. His mother, Isabel, had unzipped her pants and touched herself in front of him the night before, and this morning had not only spoken alarmingly frankly about her sex life with his long-dead father, but had seemed to be on the verge of trying to make out with him before he had left for work.
He snorted at himself.
Delusional much, Owen? Mama finally opens up a little bit to you, and you manage to score with Anaya, and you think that some tacky-ass bracelet is having an effect on them? Get a grip.
He clocked out his run and left the store.
For some reason, the thought of taking off the bracelet never crossed his mind.
%%%
"Get out, and
stay
out!" Samara Howard shouted, shoving her former boyfriend out the door. She stormed back into her apartment and made a quick scan of the premises. Grabbing Charlie's overnight bag, she tossed his stuff into it. Toothbrush, mouthwash, hair product, cologne,
more
hair product, the spare clothes he had left behind at one time or another, shoes...
She opened the door again and heaved the bag into his handsome, stupid face. "I'll have the rest of your crap boxed up and outside the door before I take off this afternoon. You can pick it up once I leave for Des Moines. Keys," she demanded, holding out her hand.
"Listen, Angel, I don't know why you're so upset..." he began, a condescending smile on his lips. He moved towards her.
"One more step," she grated, "and I call the police.
"Get. Out."
Charlie's model-perfect good looks faded as a cruel snarl dropped like a mask over his face. He twisted her keys off the ring and dropped them at her feet. "Best thing that ever happened to me. Don't have to deal with your Latina bullshit any more. Never could tell if you were on the rag or not. Stupid bitch." He turned on his heels and stalked to his car, peeling out of the parking lot in a macho stink of burned rubber.
Samara went back into her apartment and huddled on the couch, shaking in anger.
It had all blown up this morning. After she got off the phone with her brother earlier, she had been in the mood for a quickie with Charlie. And then, afterward, a not-so-quickie. Her sex drive had been gearing up for days, and she had been woken from a particularly hot dream when her brother called. A day spent in bed with her boyfriend before they drove home to visit her mother and Owen had seemed very appealing.
But Charlie wasn't in the mood. In fact, over the last few months of their relationship, had rarely seemed to be in the mood at all. Whether he was undersexed or simply oblivious to her ever-more-blatant hints had been confusing her for weeks. And a frustrated remark about her needs had led to a conversation steeped in the sort of ignorance and casual racism which drove her into an absolute frenzy.
Latina women. Hot-blooded Cuban.
Not like us Americans.
Anchor baby.
She went into her tiny bathroom and splashed water onto her face, wiping away the marks of her tears. She scowled at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was practically the image of her mother's; dark skin, coarse black hair pulled back in a hair ring, dark eyes dilated by anger. Nothing of her father in her at all. Only Owen had gotten anything from him, with his height and his fair skin.
A muffled giggle broke through her fury as she remembered her half-panicked conversation with her big brother earlier in the morning.
God, what a dope. Mama mentions her sex life with Papa and he thinks she's had a stroke or has brain cancer.
She snorted more laughter, then broke into full-bodied hoots, sitting on the cool linoleum of bathroom, clutching her stomach, her hysterical anger at Charlie fading.
When she regained control, she felt as calm and hollowed-out as an old gourd.
Fuck him. You don't need him. Anyone who thinks that Donald Trump has some good ideas is a waste of fucking time.
She got a cardboard box from under the sink and began a thorough search of her small apartment, dropping Charlie's crap inside. She'd send him a text before she left.
Good riddance.
%%%
Owen pulled up to the small, cheerful house. Balloons were tied to the handrails leading up to the front door, and cars lined both sides of the street. A big sign in the yard read "Happy Birthday Tommy!!" and from the back and inside he could hear the shrieks of children.
He grinned as he pulled the pizzas out of the back seat of his Pontiac. He liked kids, and they were usually happy to see him. Or, if not him, at least what he had with him when he arrived at their houses. He checked his watch, which read just a few minutes after one o'clock.
Right on time. Good.
He stuffed the toy he had grabbed out of the bin at work into the top bag, then walked to the door.
He rang the front doorbell, and excited shouts of "Pizza man!" immediately followed. The door opened, and a cheerful woman wearing a flower-print dress appeared.
"Come in! Come in!" she said, holding the door open for him. "The mother is getting the birthday boy ready...oh, here he is!" Owen walked into a brightly decorated room, hung with streamers and with paper plates waiting on a table. What seemed to be hundreds of small children looked at him expectantly, though when he counted, there didn't seem to be more than six or seven. Several adults looked on, with cans of soda or beer in their hands.
"WHO'S THE BIRTHDAY BOY?"
Owen said loudly, in his best TV-announcer voice.
"I am! I am!" said a little boy with a paper crown on his head, jumping up and down. He had blond hair and bright blue eyes and was grinning from ear to ear.
"AND DOES THE BIRTHDAY BOY LIKE PIZZA?"
Owen continued.
"Yes yes yes!" said the boy. Owen knelt down beside him and looked him in the eye.
"What's your name, buddy?"
"I'm Tommy!"
"Well, Tommy, I have a special present for birthday boys. But you have to answer a question before you can have it." Tommy's brows drew down in a frown, looking worried. "The question is...How old are you today?"
Tommy held up his hand, pudgy thumb and one finger turned inwards. "I'm three years old!"
"AWESOME!" Owen said loudly. He held out his hand. "High five!" Tommy smacked his hand with a laugh. He opened up his warming bag and pulled out a toy racecar.
"Happy Birthday, Tommy," he said to the boy, handing him the car. Tommy took it, eyes wide. "How about you sit down and I'll get you and your friends some pizza?"
He set the boxes down on the table and little hands reached eagerly to load up their plates. Smiling, he turned around, eyebrows raised, looking for the person who would be paying...
"Hello, Owen," said a soft voice at his side.
He blinked as he looked at the woman next to him. Slim, pretty, with blonde hair that was the match of Tommy's and dark blue eyes. Her face was tired, but her lips were turned up in a sweet smile that he remembered.
"Sandy," he breathed. "Sandy Jorgensen. How are you doing these days?"
He and Sandy had dated for nearly three months at the end of their sophomore year and the following summer. Their relationship had been poisoned, then killed, by the death of Owen's father, and Owen's realization that he would have to work and bring in money if his family was going to keep their house. She had been decent about it, he remembered, and had not hurt him any more than necessary when they broke up.
She had married Jim Turlbot not long after graduation, he recalled, and there had been some snide remarks that she had to if she didn't want a baby out of wedlock. Doing the math in his head, it looked like those rumors were wrong, since Tommy would have been born a year after they left high school.
Sandy shrugged as she walked him to the door. "Not great, not bad. Jim and I split up a year ago. He pays the alimony on time," she said, only a little bitterly, "but he doesn't want to be involved in his son's life. He takes him out for lunch once a month and drops him back here as soon as he can."