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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Love stories / Romance
- Subject: Relationships
- Published: 08/20/2013
MAY THE ROAD RISE TO MEET YOU
Born 1969, M, from Herten, NRW, Germany.jpg)
“I would still adore that woman, even if she took away all of my belongings and left me homeless,” Robert whispered under his breath and laughed to himself. “I just can’t bring myself to tell her how I feel.”
“Why is that?” James inquired.
“I am afraid of being turned down,” Robert answered.
James smiled to himself. “You know Charmian likes you. If you don’t tell her, you will never ever find out.”
“Then when shall I tell her?”
Looking down into his beer, it must’ve looked as if Robert searched for an answer inside that liquid, alcoholic wheat and barley. There was no response at the other end of the table, just silence. He knew what James was going to say, too. Why hadn’t he gone after her already? Why was he so scared? Everybody at campus knew, anyway. It was an open secret that those two were crazy about each other. My lord. He should go after her right away.
Well, James was right.
Robert looked up and gazed at James. But, contrary to his own belief, James was not gazing at him at all. He was holding his own mug, wagging his head to the rhythm of the song in the background. What was that song called? Oh, yes. A group called “The Moneymakers”, probably a one-hit-wonder, had written a boogie-and-disco-influenced dixieland-tune named “Searching for the One You Love”. Robert had to laugh. Here he was with a friend from college, instead of calling a girl he was madly in love with. He had been with girls before. He was what? 22? In all his years of high school and young adulthood, he had never been afraid to ask a girl out. She was good looking. She was smart, she dressed well, she was polite, even hardworking and studious.
James tired expression accompanied half-closed eyes. It was almost as if what Robert had said actually made him want to give up the friendship for good.
Robert sat up and leaned across the table.
James looked at Robert and smiled.
Running his fingers through his hair, James pushed the beer away an inch and leaned over across the table himself. Now, James was just four inches away from him. He breathed in, as if he wanted to say something.
“All you do, Robert,” he began, “is talk.”
He shook his head and threw his hands to his side.
“Man,” he continued, looking around for someone or something to use as an example to wake his friend up out of his world of illusions, “Do something.”
Robert leaned back. Was he passive? That could be. Dear, that really might be true. He was here, studying Drama at Northwestern University. He was working part time in a theatre, selling tickets and doing bit parts. He was here with his friend during his free time. But, on the other hand, he stayed home on campus a lot when his friends were out. He had waited over a half year in asking Charmian out. Passive? Maybe. Scared? Yes. Certainly. Of what? Of the response. But he knew that Charmian felt something for him. What about those other guys? They were much more suave than Robert. Wouldn’t she be more happy with them?
“Let me give you an example,” James sneered. “See that waitress over there.”
Robert shrugged. “So? I know her. She studies English at our college.”
“Yeah, yeah. Martha. That’s her name.”
See, Robert didn’t have that determination. Why was that? James acted so self-confident. The All-American Entrepeneur. Robert wanted so to have that security. But he didn’t. How did one get that? Where did one get that? In what shop? Robert had to laugh to himself.
“That name amuses you?”
Robert looked up and shook his head.
“No, no.”
Determination did indeed hit Robert’s brain. Not really to prove anything to James, but honestly because he was starting to bug Robert. Frankly, it was annoying.
“Look, James. You really don’t need to prove anything to me. I am a big boy. Let’s get the check.”
“I wanna ask Martha out.”
“So, do! I am gonna ask Charmian out. I am gonna kiss her. Tonight.”
Robert stood up from his chair, smiling at James, pointing at him.
He slapped two bills on the table, hoping that would cover for the two beers and the pizza he had eaten.
“She better.”
James hooted once, moving his chair across the floorboards. Martha looked over toward their table and threw them a confused smile.
Robert handed James a hand and James stood up, slapping his back.
“Go get her, boy.”
Off he went, through the nostalgically furnished diner with its round tables and antique furniture, its traditional cuisine, its pretty waitresses, its high landings and long bar. Robert walked out into the cold January night, hoping somehow that he could make up for not having asked Charmian out this Christmas. They were all back on campus now. The new semester was in full swing and Robert was feeling lonely. Too many missed chances ached in his heart.
It seemed the wind worked against him, making every step on his way harder for him to reach his goal. Campus approached, but seemed so far away. What if Charmian was out? What if she had teamed up with someone? What if she had a new boyfriend?
And James? Now he sat there alone.
Robert stopped at the traffic lights, shivering, feeling sorry for himself.
“You are such a wimp,” he said to himself, crossing the street and walking toward Charmian’s quarters.
He had to try it.
James had been right.
Robert’s incapability to act on his romantic impulse was getting on his own nerves.
Something had to be done.
Charmian slammed the door shut to her car, lowering her head down on the steering wheel. She heard the roaring of the wind outside. Actually, that was all she heard. The wind. Slumping back into her driver’s seat, she closed her eyes. Three hours. Three full hours. That annoying person had kept her in her flat for three hours, blabbering about her aunt.
Yes, she knew that Miranda was lonely. But could she help it? Could she? No. She was happy to help, but not after six hours of studies and four hours of work. What did that make? Sixteen hours of activity?
Sigh. That was funny. Charmian started the engine. It jump-started like a coughing frog and Charmian manuevered that small covered engine with a seat through the mellow night traffic of Chicago, barely seeing where she was driving, her eyes aching to close themselves for the day at last.
Still, that thought just wouldn’t leave her mind.
“Come on,” she told herself. “I don’t want to think about Miranda now.”
“A short cup of tea,” was all she had said.
A short cup of tea, my foot.
A long cup of blabbermouth after an even longer day was more like it. She had backed all the way down her hallway and ended up standing in her doorway for a half-hour.
“I’ll do that to you some day,” she spat. “I’ll talk until your ear bleeds after you have had a long day.”
Traffic lights, how don’t you hate them.
Charmian told herself to calm down.
She urged herself to think of something postive.
She was close to her Master’s Degree. That was good.
In spite of the snow, she smiled.
The car skidded a bit and the snow made it really hard to see anything.
Charmian's tired eyes made her wonder if she would make it to campus at all.
But then she did arrive.
And she knew that she would have to present her model tomorrow.
Whilst walking over to her room, she wondered if she had thought of everything. The model had been built and was complete. She had created the folder, the film, the lecture. The faculty was going to listen to her lecture and then maybe she would be one step closer to her degree. Another half year, just like Robert.
She turned the corner carefully with her car, seeing the university now. That meant one more street closer to home.
Robert. How she liked that guy. There was nothing like sitting an hour and talking with him. But why didn’t he ask her out? What was that? Her grandma had always urged her never to make the first move when she liked a man.
“That’s a man’s job,” she had said.
“Honestly, grandma,” she had responded. “Things are a little different nowadays.”
Still, she loved the guy and waiting for him to do something was hell.
Charmian parked the car, stepped out and pulled her boots through the tightly packed winter snow, faint voices in the distance. She wondered if Robert would be at Mulligan’s. Nah, he had classes tomorrow. It was too late. Besides, they would probably meet tomorrow at some point criss-crossing campus. They would stand in a corner and talk about this and that. Charmian would bat her eyelids and Robert would smile and then walk away, leaving Charmian confused. How could a man be so passive?
Did she love Robert? Yes.
Did she want to tell him that? Most certainly. But every time they met, it seemed like something was waiting to come out of him. Fear kept it in. Fear of what? That she would shove him away? Yes. She wouldn’t. She was just waiting for him to make a move.
The corridor with the rooms was dark when she arrived, except for a light at the end. She was happy that the light was there. After all, her room was there. She turned on the corridor light. What was that shining light anyway? A lamppost? No. That was a guy. Was that someone living on campus? Geez, it was too far to tell. Was it someone dangerous? Her strength had failed her. Walking down the isle, she dared to make her heels click too much. If Robert was here, he would protect her. Mulligans? No, he was probably immersed in some deep conversation with James. What did they talk about, anyway? Theatre? Well, Charmian supposed it was shop-talk, just like she and her architecture-buddies talked about buildings.
Wait a minute. That was ...
Robert turned around, facing Charmian.
He was holding his cellular phone. That had been the light.
That a phone could shed so much light.
He smiled.
Any other person would have made her angry at this point.
Robert didn’t.
He was exactly the right guy for her at this point.
God, it was nice to see him.
“Hey, Robert,” Charmian chirped, albeit tiredly. “What are you doing here?”
Robert shrugged and it was noticable that he was fighting to tell the truth, so, for once, Charmian made a move. Otherwise, it was obvious that nothing would ever happen.
“You came to see me, right?”
Robert nodded. It was cute, in a way. A grown man looking like a school-kid.
“You wanna come in?”
“Sure,” Robert chuckled. He nodded again, as if to underscore that he really honestly wanted to come in. Charmian smiled, her toes tingling as she did.
“It is nice to see you,” she said.
Robert blushed. “Nice to see you, too.”
She caressed his cheek and, obviously, something happened there. A magnet awoke. It was a dormant angel that now knew a couple was being joined at the hip and in the soul.
Charmian’s key slipped into the keyhole and the smell of stuffy air met their nostrils. This room was untidy and had not seen a living person since seven o’clock this morning. It was now close to ten thirty. Charmian threw her bag on the table.
“I have had a very long day, Robert, so we have to be brief. A chat and then I will throw you out, okay?”
Robert grew nervous. He had to say this. He just had to. The feeling was urging him to say it. He couldn’t live without this girl anymore.
Charmian grabbed two beers from her makeshift fridge and took out a plate of cheese and grapes she had put together this morning, knowing fully well how hungry for tidbits she would be. “Have some stuff!”
Robert nodded and sat down on a chair opposite Charmian. “Thanks.”
“So, what’s up?”
Robert raised his eyebrows for a bit, shrugged, looked down.
Then, something just clicked inside him.
He looked that brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty in the eyes, gave her the soppiest grin anyone could imagine and blurted out something he should have said months ago. It was the most honest thing anyone had ever said. It was also a complete gamble that could have gone completely down the tubes. But, as James sometimes put it: “What the heck? If you don’t take a risk, you will never know if you were right or wrong in the first place.”
Charmian looked at Robert, handing him the bottle opener and gulping down the first tasty drink in four hours. She made a ‘happy-sound’. That was her mom’s expression for an ‘audible uttering of delight’.
“I love you, Charmian,” Robert said, his heart racing like a rocket. Charmian lowered the bottle to her knees. She almost let it drop. Never before had anyone been so blunt. “I can’t think about anyone else but you. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I am lousy on stage. I couldn’t get my guts together and tell you how much I love you. So, James told me I was too passive.”
Robert indicated toward the door. “I waited for you for two hours out there. I am addicted to your face, I need your soul. You are the air that I breathe. I love you.”
He heard that wind again, crying like a big monster baby or a ghoul waiting to eat them. It was scary, but inside here it was warm and sweet and the look in Charmian’s eyes told him that he hadn’t been wrong. Charmian was grinning from ear to ear.
“Two hours?” She stood up, impulsively. Grabbed Robert by the hand and pulled him out of his chair. She cocked her head in an almost pleading gesture of comfort. No, of love.
“You don’t how long I have waited for you to say that. God, those words come to me like words of salvation.”
Those words made them both laugh and they laughed as they kissed there in that tiny college living room.
In one instant, sixteen hours of hard work and strenuous blabbering seemed a universe away. Now, all that counted was that Robert was here. Charmian’s aching toes didn’t matter. Her headache disintergrated. Her sleepy eyes were awake again.
Without even saying anything, two souls just stopped thinking. Because, ultimately, they knew that thinking was overrated in times like these. The soul lead the way. The heart.
Almost in slow motion, Robert and Charmian approached each other, gently gazing at each other’s lips as they did. Once these lips met, the two young adults tingled from head to toe. To Robert, Charmian’s lips were soft, skin so gentle and sweet. Her lipstick tasted of strawberry and her hair smelled of coconut flavored shampoo. The perfume she had on made him dizzy, in spite of the fact that she had been on the road now since morning. No, that made him even more aroused. They stood there in coats and scarves and kissed. Yes, Robert had waited for two hours outside her door in his coat and scarf. It had paid off.
To Charmian, a long day was coming to a close. All those fights with female study colleagues. All those hard lectures, all those tests, all those books, all those questions, all that talk, all that snow, all that traffic, all that stress. It was all gone.
Robert’s lips tasted so masculine. He smelled of musky after shave. He tasted like protection. Her arms embraced his face and swung around his neck. There was no more I or you anymore.
Charmian and Robert were one. One soul and two hearts. The kiss got more intense and the feeling grew more intense. Eyes were closing, hearts were opening, coats dropped to the ground and were left laying there over bags of college literature.
Not another word was spoken for the next coming hours.
Charmian and Robert didn’t get much sleep that night.
But that didn’t matter.
My God, they were in love.
And it was obvious.
They wanted to spend their lives together.
Robert kissed Charmian, made love to her, felt at one with her and repeated those words in his head, again and again. The words that he had whispered to James, sitting by the table at Mulligan’s hours before, rang true in his ear:
“I would still adore that woman, even if she took away all of my belongings and left me homeless.”
A very intense love-affair had just begun.
Two soul mates, coupled in hearts and joined in spirit and addicted to one another, had met. Letting go would never be an option. In fact, in spite of circumstance, Drama-student Robert Young and budding Architecht Charmian Manchester would never let go again. Never ever again. Maybe in body. Never in mind.
***
Two hours of withheld passion proved too difficult to bear.
Charmian’s mom Trudy had thrown Robert a pleading gaze over the Irish Coffee, leading him to nod and smile and put down his Ruby Cabernet.
“Didn’t you guys want to sing us your favorite song?”
James chuckled as both Charmian and Robert took off.
“I think he can get the guitar himself,” he had mused.
“No,” Charmian spoke as she ran. “I just wanna pluck the strings a bit.”
The giggles from the livingroom were hard to silence.
“What strings? His or the guitars?”
Of course, the guitar landed in Robert’s hands. Nevertheless, the instrument eventually insisted on a small intermission shortly before the livingroom corner.
The guitar waited there, next to them, unplucked, the smalltalk around the corner persisting, the lovers kissing, their hands feeling each other out. Her hands felt his white, cotton shirt, ran up and down his back and let the fabric caress her finger tips. The texture and the strong back behind it made her tingle. Okay, not just the masculinity. The warmth and the life inside that beautiful man. It owned something that gave her way much more than the success had given to her, something way beyond career and selfishness. The soul of Robert spoke to her in kisses and hugs. The endless spirits met. The endless kissing hearts mingled. His warm breath warmed her face. His soft lips seduced her femininity.
As he kissed her, he grabbed her face gently and ever so tenderly ran his fingers up and down her cheeks. Charmian squeaked at this. Her squeaking inspired Robert’s mouth to kiss her more intensely, leading Charmian to the border of insanity. The emotions rose to such a zenith, that she wanted to screech out and jump around like some insane rockstar. Only, she couldn’t. She was kissing Robert. At that point, Charmian ceased to be Ms. Manchester, the architect with a degree. She ceased to be the girlfriend of a newly hired Off-Broadway-singer. She ceased to be the woman, not the girl, employed in an aspiring conglomerate of architects in New York. Even if it were to good to be true, it was too good, this time she was kissing Robert. Her soul felt the love that poured out of his heart. More love than she had ever felt before reached her soul.
Robert withdrew his lips and, like Charmian, he closed his eyes, blowing out the passionate heat of his breath, trying somehow to digest that lucid fire of his spirit.
Images of old Hollywood movies whiffed like fog through her brain. Vivien Leigh kissing Clark Gable. Ingrid Bergman kissing Humphrey Bogart. Leonardo kissing Kate.
“Wow,” Charmian said. “That certainly beats the cha-cha-cha.”
Robert laughed and put his head against his girlfriend’s forehead.
They had just made love, only that this had occured with their clothes on.
Their spirits had made love.
Charmian let her left hand drop down, away from Robert’s right shoulder to her side. Her pink polished fingernails hit the G-string of the guitar next to her and made a pretty sound, reverberating in a sweet mezzo-piano and dying down to extinction. Their bodies hot and their faces steaming, they waited a second, hearing the small talk from the other room.
Robert’s guitar now finally silenced, the reverberation produced now came from the breath of lovers. The guitar brought with from the college dorm room weakened in beauty in comparison with Charmian’s voluptuous splendour. The guitar that graced the corner with elegance seemed to gaze at the couple in admiration.
Obviously, Charmian wouldn’t spend more time than necessary here in the house of her parents. But Robert and Charmian both had their Master’s Degrees. No more college for them. Off to New York. The house was big and there was no reason not to be here. The furniture and the boxes would arrive sometime next week. Charmian’s amazing job allowed them to live near Central Park. Robert was scared out of his wits. He thought this was too good to be true and that somehow, sometime, this whole thing would turn mean and they would have to pay for so much luck at once.
Regardless of that, now they were here and the guitar had been brought down from Charmian’s old girl room in the old house here in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. But it was obvious that the entourage in the livingroom, lead by Charmian’s big bear of a dad, wondered where Romeo and Juliet were hiding. The post-degree week here at the house had consisted of three things: party, music and kissing.
For the first time in about ten minutes, the lovers opened their eyes, almost simultaneously, and smiled. The communication was at first merely telepathic. Then Robert said, “You know that they are waiting, don’t you?”
Charmian nodded. “What did they want to hear us perform again?”
“Buddy Holly.”
“Everyday, right?”
“Um-hmm.”
Martha popped her head around the corner, displaying her toothy grin and blue eyes.
“You finished smooching?”
Charmian and Robert turned their heads to the side and watched James’ cute girlfriend, who still had a year left before achieving her degree, appearing like a corpusfree floating face in mid-air.
Charmian bit her lip, feeling like a schoolgirl caught with her hands in a cookie jar.
James, now Martha’s boyfriend for a half year, started plunking out the tune on Joshua Manchester’s Steinway Grand Piano.
“In lack of a celesta, we have to use a piano,” he called out.
“Come on, kids,” Charmian’s father said, “we wanna hear your love song.”
Robert and Charmian could hear Trudy slap Joshua’s hand. This made the lovers look at each other with a mixture of amusement and sceptic tiredness.
“Well?”
Martha’s now second plea made Robert grab his own guitar and start playing the chords. Martha accompanied the whole thing by performing the famous light knees-slapping rhythm. The parents leaned back into the large and beige sofa. They embraced each other and listened to their daughter sing her favorite song with a boyfriend that, like her, had received a job in the hardest working city in the world right after college.
“Pinch me,” Robert had said.
“It’s unbelievable,” Charmian had answered.
Anyway, now they were here in the family mansion. Three bottles of red wine later and four portions of barbecued meat in the bellies, they sang Buddy Holly’s song. It had become Robert’s and Charmian’s song on their third date back in March. Yes, the double date with Martha and James turned into two single dates. The lovers invisioning duo smooching proved itself a utopian illusion. Soon enough, Robert and Charmian were in her room at the college quarters. Two bottles of Chardonnay and a whole lot of pop corn waiting and waiting on her desk, they left Charmian’s stereo running all night.
Somehow, “Everyday” stuck in their heads. They danced to it for an hour, had it running in a loop, while they made love. The song about a love that surely would come Buddy’s way was perfect, or so they thought. That love had come their way. But why would it when it already had? The song should have told them something. But did it?
So, here they were, singing their hearts out. Martha about to embark on studies in the dramatic arts and James looking for jobs, but the happy couple beaming with joy. The sweetheart seemed to be saying: “Look at us, we are in love and we are successful. Soon enough, you will be reading about us in the daily newspapers.”
When the song ended, it was played again and ultimately Joshua and Trudy brought out their old music books and the six inspired creators performed music together until midnight. James and Martha waddled over to their car, tipsy and full of delicious food, laughing their heads off. Joshua and Trudy, Charmian’s posh parents, cuddled up in the large water bed. Robert and Charmian went to the guest room in the rebuilt attic and made love until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
“Do you ever long for true love from me?”
The song seemed to haunt their inner ears.
How they hoped for eternal happiness.
Nothing could harm them.
Not just yet.
CONTINUED IN A FOLLOWING SHORT STORY...
MAY THE ROAD RISE TO MEET YOU(Charles E.J. Moulton)
“I would still adore that woman, even if she took away all of my belongings and left me homeless,” Robert whispered under his breath and laughed to himself. “I just can’t bring myself to tell her how I feel.”
“Why is that?” James inquired.
“I am afraid of being turned down,” Robert answered.
James smiled to himself. “You know Charmian likes you. If you don’t tell her, you will never ever find out.”
“Then when shall I tell her?”
Looking down into his beer, it must’ve looked as if Robert searched for an answer inside that liquid, alcoholic wheat and barley. There was no response at the other end of the table, just silence. He knew what James was going to say, too. Why hadn’t he gone after her already? Why was he so scared? Everybody at campus knew, anyway. It was an open secret that those two were crazy about each other. My lord. He should go after her right away.
Well, James was right.
Robert looked up and gazed at James. But, contrary to his own belief, James was not gazing at him at all. He was holding his own mug, wagging his head to the rhythm of the song in the background. What was that song called? Oh, yes. A group called “The Moneymakers”, probably a one-hit-wonder, had written a boogie-and-disco-influenced dixieland-tune named “Searching for the One You Love”. Robert had to laugh. Here he was with a friend from college, instead of calling a girl he was madly in love with. He had been with girls before. He was what? 22? In all his years of high school and young adulthood, he had never been afraid to ask a girl out. She was good looking. She was smart, she dressed well, she was polite, even hardworking and studious.
James tired expression accompanied half-closed eyes. It was almost as if what Robert had said actually made him want to give up the friendship for good.
Robert sat up and leaned across the table.
James looked at Robert and smiled.
Running his fingers through his hair, James pushed the beer away an inch and leaned over across the table himself. Now, James was just four inches away from him. He breathed in, as if he wanted to say something.
“All you do, Robert,” he began, “is talk.”
He shook his head and threw his hands to his side.
“Man,” he continued, looking around for someone or something to use as an example to wake his friend up out of his world of illusions, “Do something.”
Robert leaned back. Was he passive? That could be. Dear, that really might be true. He was here, studying Drama at Northwestern University. He was working part time in a theatre, selling tickets and doing bit parts. He was here with his friend during his free time. But, on the other hand, he stayed home on campus a lot when his friends were out. He had waited over a half year in asking Charmian out. Passive? Maybe. Scared? Yes. Certainly. Of what? Of the response. But he knew that Charmian felt something for him. What about those other guys? They were much more suave than Robert. Wouldn’t she be more happy with them?
“Let me give you an example,” James sneered. “See that waitress over there.”
Robert shrugged. “So? I know her. She studies English at our college.”
“Yeah, yeah. Martha. That’s her name.”
See, Robert didn’t have that determination. Why was that? James acted so self-confident. The All-American Entrepeneur. Robert wanted so to have that security. But he didn’t. How did one get that? Where did one get that? In what shop? Robert had to laugh to himself.
“That name amuses you?”
Robert looked up and shook his head.
“No, no.”
Determination did indeed hit Robert’s brain. Not really to prove anything to James, but honestly because he was starting to bug Robert. Frankly, it was annoying.
“Look, James. You really don’t need to prove anything to me. I am a big boy. Let’s get the check.”
“I wanna ask Martha out.”
“So, do! I am gonna ask Charmian out. I am gonna kiss her. Tonight.”
Robert stood up from his chair, smiling at James, pointing at him.
He slapped two bills on the table, hoping that would cover for the two beers and the pizza he had eaten.
“She better.”
James hooted once, moving his chair across the floorboards. Martha looked over toward their table and threw them a confused smile.
Robert handed James a hand and James stood up, slapping his back.
“Go get her, boy.”
Off he went, through the nostalgically furnished diner with its round tables and antique furniture, its traditional cuisine, its pretty waitresses, its high landings and long bar. Robert walked out into the cold January night, hoping somehow that he could make up for not having asked Charmian out this Christmas. They were all back on campus now. The new semester was in full swing and Robert was feeling lonely. Too many missed chances ached in his heart.
It seemed the wind worked against him, making every step on his way harder for him to reach his goal. Campus approached, but seemed so far away. What if Charmian was out? What if she had teamed up with someone? What if she had a new boyfriend?
And James? Now he sat there alone.
Robert stopped at the traffic lights, shivering, feeling sorry for himself.
“You are such a wimp,” he said to himself, crossing the street and walking toward Charmian’s quarters.
He had to try it.
James had been right.
Robert’s incapability to act on his romantic impulse was getting on his own nerves.
Something had to be done.
Charmian slammed the door shut to her car, lowering her head down on the steering wheel. She heard the roaring of the wind outside. Actually, that was all she heard. The wind. Slumping back into her driver’s seat, she closed her eyes. Three hours. Three full hours. That annoying person had kept her in her flat for three hours, blabbering about her aunt.
Yes, she knew that Miranda was lonely. But could she help it? Could she? No. She was happy to help, but not after six hours of studies and four hours of work. What did that make? Sixteen hours of activity?
Sigh. That was funny. Charmian started the engine. It jump-started like a coughing frog and Charmian manuevered that small covered engine with a seat through the mellow night traffic of Chicago, barely seeing where she was driving, her eyes aching to close themselves for the day at last.
Still, that thought just wouldn’t leave her mind.
“Come on,” she told herself. “I don’t want to think about Miranda now.”
“A short cup of tea,” was all she had said.
A short cup of tea, my foot.
A long cup of blabbermouth after an even longer day was more like it. She had backed all the way down her hallway and ended up standing in her doorway for a half-hour.
“I’ll do that to you some day,” she spat. “I’ll talk until your ear bleeds after you have had a long day.”
Traffic lights, how don’t you hate them.
Charmian told herself to calm down.
She urged herself to think of something postive.
She was close to her Master’s Degree. That was good.
In spite of the snow, she smiled.
The car skidded a bit and the snow made it really hard to see anything.
Charmian's tired eyes made her wonder if she would make it to campus at all.
But then she did arrive.
And she knew that she would have to present her model tomorrow.
Whilst walking over to her room, she wondered if she had thought of everything. The model had been built and was complete. She had created the folder, the film, the lecture. The faculty was going to listen to her lecture and then maybe she would be one step closer to her degree. Another half year, just like Robert.
She turned the corner carefully with her car, seeing the university now. That meant one more street closer to home.
Robert. How she liked that guy. There was nothing like sitting an hour and talking with him. But why didn’t he ask her out? What was that? Her grandma had always urged her never to make the first move when she liked a man.
“That’s a man’s job,” she had said.
“Honestly, grandma,” she had responded. “Things are a little different nowadays.”
Still, she loved the guy and waiting for him to do something was hell.
Charmian parked the car, stepped out and pulled her boots through the tightly packed winter snow, faint voices in the distance. She wondered if Robert would be at Mulligan’s. Nah, he had classes tomorrow. It was too late. Besides, they would probably meet tomorrow at some point criss-crossing campus. They would stand in a corner and talk about this and that. Charmian would bat her eyelids and Robert would smile and then walk away, leaving Charmian confused. How could a man be so passive?
Did she love Robert? Yes.
Did she want to tell him that? Most certainly. But every time they met, it seemed like something was waiting to come out of him. Fear kept it in. Fear of what? That she would shove him away? Yes. She wouldn’t. She was just waiting for him to make a move.
The corridor with the rooms was dark when she arrived, except for a light at the end. She was happy that the light was there. After all, her room was there. She turned on the corridor light. What was that shining light anyway? A lamppost? No. That was a guy. Was that someone living on campus? Geez, it was too far to tell. Was it someone dangerous? Her strength had failed her. Walking down the isle, she dared to make her heels click too much. If Robert was here, he would protect her. Mulligans? No, he was probably immersed in some deep conversation with James. What did they talk about, anyway? Theatre? Well, Charmian supposed it was shop-talk, just like she and her architecture-buddies talked about buildings.
Wait a minute. That was ...
Robert turned around, facing Charmian.
He was holding his cellular phone. That had been the light.
That a phone could shed so much light.
He smiled.
Any other person would have made her angry at this point.
Robert didn’t.
He was exactly the right guy for her at this point.
God, it was nice to see him.
“Hey, Robert,” Charmian chirped, albeit tiredly. “What are you doing here?”
Robert shrugged and it was noticable that he was fighting to tell the truth, so, for once, Charmian made a move. Otherwise, it was obvious that nothing would ever happen.
“You came to see me, right?”
Robert nodded. It was cute, in a way. A grown man looking like a school-kid.
“You wanna come in?”
“Sure,” Robert chuckled. He nodded again, as if to underscore that he really honestly wanted to come in. Charmian smiled, her toes tingling as she did.
“It is nice to see you,” she said.
Robert blushed. “Nice to see you, too.”
She caressed his cheek and, obviously, something happened there. A magnet awoke. It was a dormant angel that now knew a couple was being joined at the hip and in the soul.
Charmian’s key slipped into the keyhole and the smell of stuffy air met their nostrils. This room was untidy and had not seen a living person since seven o’clock this morning. It was now close to ten thirty. Charmian threw her bag on the table.
“I have had a very long day, Robert, so we have to be brief. A chat and then I will throw you out, okay?”
Robert grew nervous. He had to say this. He just had to. The feeling was urging him to say it. He couldn’t live without this girl anymore.
Charmian grabbed two beers from her makeshift fridge and took out a plate of cheese and grapes she had put together this morning, knowing fully well how hungry for tidbits she would be. “Have some stuff!”
Robert nodded and sat down on a chair opposite Charmian. “Thanks.”
“So, what’s up?”
Robert raised his eyebrows for a bit, shrugged, looked down.
Then, something just clicked inside him.
He looked that brown-haired, brown-eyed beauty in the eyes, gave her the soppiest grin anyone could imagine and blurted out something he should have said months ago. It was the most honest thing anyone had ever said. It was also a complete gamble that could have gone completely down the tubes. But, as James sometimes put it: “What the heck? If you don’t take a risk, you will never know if you were right or wrong in the first place.”
Charmian looked at Robert, handing him the bottle opener and gulping down the first tasty drink in four hours. She made a ‘happy-sound’. That was her mom’s expression for an ‘audible uttering of delight’.
“I love you, Charmian,” Robert said, his heart racing like a rocket. Charmian lowered the bottle to her knees. She almost let it drop. Never before had anyone been so blunt. “I can’t think about anyone else but you. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. I am lousy on stage. I couldn’t get my guts together and tell you how much I love you. So, James told me I was too passive.”
Robert indicated toward the door. “I waited for you for two hours out there. I am addicted to your face, I need your soul. You are the air that I breathe. I love you.”
He heard that wind again, crying like a big monster baby or a ghoul waiting to eat them. It was scary, but inside here it was warm and sweet and the look in Charmian’s eyes told him that he hadn’t been wrong. Charmian was grinning from ear to ear.
“Two hours?” She stood up, impulsively. Grabbed Robert by the hand and pulled him out of his chair. She cocked her head in an almost pleading gesture of comfort. No, of love.
“You don’t how long I have waited for you to say that. God, those words come to me like words of salvation.”
Those words made them both laugh and they laughed as they kissed there in that tiny college living room.
In one instant, sixteen hours of hard work and strenuous blabbering seemed a universe away. Now, all that counted was that Robert was here. Charmian’s aching toes didn’t matter. Her headache disintergrated. Her sleepy eyes were awake again.
Without even saying anything, two souls just stopped thinking. Because, ultimately, they knew that thinking was overrated in times like these. The soul lead the way. The heart.
Almost in slow motion, Robert and Charmian approached each other, gently gazing at each other’s lips as they did. Once these lips met, the two young adults tingled from head to toe. To Robert, Charmian’s lips were soft, skin so gentle and sweet. Her lipstick tasted of strawberry and her hair smelled of coconut flavored shampoo. The perfume she had on made him dizzy, in spite of the fact that she had been on the road now since morning. No, that made him even more aroused. They stood there in coats and scarves and kissed. Yes, Robert had waited for two hours outside her door in his coat and scarf. It had paid off.
To Charmian, a long day was coming to a close. All those fights with female study colleagues. All those hard lectures, all those tests, all those books, all those questions, all that talk, all that snow, all that traffic, all that stress. It was all gone.
Robert’s lips tasted so masculine. He smelled of musky after shave. He tasted like protection. Her arms embraced his face and swung around his neck. There was no more I or you anymore.
Charmian and Robert were one. One soul and two hearts. The kiss got more intense and the feeling grew more intense. Eyes were closing, hearts were opening, coats dropped to the ground and were left laying there over bags of college literature.
Not another word was spoken for the next coming hours.
Charmian and Robert didn’t get much sleep that night.
But that didn’t matter.
My God, they were in love.
And it was obvious.
They wanted to spend their lives together.
Robert kissed Charmian, made love to her, felt at one with her and repeated those words in his head, again and again. The words that he had whispered to James, sitting by the table at Mulligan’s hours before, rang true in his ear:
“I would still adore that woman, even if she took away all of my belongings and left me homeless.”
A very intense love-affair had just begun.
Two soul mates, coupled in hearts and joined in spirit and addicted to one another, had met. Letting go would never be an option. In fact, in spite of circumstance, Drama-student Robert Young and budding Architecht Charmian Manchester would never let go again. Never ever again. Maybe in body. Never in mind.
***
Two hours of withheld passion proved too difficult to bear.
Charmian’s mom Trudy had thrown Robert a pleading gaze over the Irish Coffee, leading him to nod and smile and put down his Ruby Cabernet.
“Didn’t you guys want to sing us your favorite song?”
James chuckled as both Charmian and Robert took off.
“I think he can get the guitar himself,” he had mused.
“No,” Charmian spoke as she ran. “I just wanna pluck the strings a bit.”
The giggles from the livingroom were hard to silence.
“What strings? His or the guitars?”
Of course, the guitar landed in Robert’s hands. Nevertheless, the instrument eventually insisted on a small intermission shortly before the livingroom corner.
The guitar waited there, next to them, unplucked, the smalltalk around the corner persisting, the lovers kissing, their hands feeling each other out. Her hands felt his white, cotton shirt, ran up and down his back and let the fabric caress her finger tips. The texture and the strong back behind it made her tingle. Okay, not just the masculinity. The warmth and the life inside that beautiful man. It owned something that gave her way much more than the success had given to her, something way beyond career and selfishness. The soul of Robert spoke to her in kisses and hugs. The endless spirits met. The endless kissing hearts mingled. His warm breath warmed her face. His soft lips seduced her femininity.
As he kissed her, he grabbed her face gently and ever so tenderly ran his fingers up and down her cheeks. Charmian squeaked at this. Her squeaking inspired Robert’s mouth to kiss her more intensely, leading Charmian to the border of insanity. The emotions rose to such a zenith, that she wanted to screech out and jump around like some insane rockstar. Only, she couldn’t. She was kissing Robert. At that point, Charmian ceased to be Ms. Manchester, the architect with a degree. She ceased to be the girlfriend of a newly hired Off-Broadway-singer. She ceased to be the woman, not the girl, employed in an aspiring conglomerate of architects in New York. Even if it were to good to be true, it was too good, this time she was kissing Robert. Her soul felt the love that poured out of his heart. More love than she had ever felt before reached her soul.
Robert withdrew his lips and, like Charmian, he closed his eyes, blowing out the passionate heat of his breath, trying somehow to digest that lucid fire of his spirit.
Images of old Hollywood movies whiffed like fog through her brain. Vivien Leigh kissing Clark Gable. Ingrid Bergman kissing Humphrey Bogart. Leonardo kissing Kate.
“Wow,” Charmian said. “That certainly beats the cha-cha-cha.”
Robert laughed and put his head against his girlfriend’s forehead.
They had just made love, only that this had occured with their clothes on.
Their spirits had made love.
Charmian let her left hand drop down, away from Robert’s right shoulder to her side. Her pink polished fingernails hit the G-string of the guitar next to her and made a pretty sound, reverberating in a sweet mezzo-piano and dying down to extinction. Their bodies hot and their faces steaming, they waited a second, hearing the small talk from the other room.
Robert’s guitar now finally silenced, the reverberation produced now came from the breath of lovers. The guitar brought with from the college dorm room weakened in beauty in comparison with Charmian’s voluptuous splendour. The guitar that graced the corner with elegance seemed to gaze at the couple in admiration.
Obviously, Charmian wouldn’t spend more time than necessary here in the house of her parents. But Robert and Charmian both had their Master’s Degrees. No more college for them. Off to New York. The house was big and there was no reason not to be here. The furniture and the boxes would arrive sometime next week. Charmian’s amazing job allowed them to live near Central Park. Robert was scared out of his wits. He thought this was too good to be true and that somehow, sometime, this whole thing would turn mean and they would have to pay for so much luck at once.
Regardless of that, now they were here and the guitar had been brought down from Charmian’s old girl room in the old house here in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. But it was obvious that the entourage in the livingroom, lead by Charmian’s big bear of a dad, wondered where Romeo and Juliet were hiding. The post-degree week here at the house had consisted of three things: party, music and kissing.
For the first time in about ten minutes, the lovers opened their eyes, almost simultaneously, and smiled. The communication was at first merely telepathic. Then Robert said, “You know that they are waiting, don’t you?”
Charmian nodded. “What did they want to hear us perform again?”
“Buddy Holly.”
“Everyday, right?”
“Um-hmm.”
Martha popped her head around the corner, displaying her toothy grin and blue eyes.
“You finished smooching?”
Charmian and Robert turned their heads to the side and watched James’ cute girlfriend, who still had a year left before achieving her degree, appearing like a corpusfree floating face in mid-air.
Charmian bit her lip, feeling like a schoolgirl caught with her hands in a cookie jar.
James, now Martha’s boyfriend for a half year, started plunking out the tune on Joshua Manchester’s Steinway Grand Piano.
“In lack of a celesta, we have to use a piano,” he called out.
“Come on, kids,” Charmian’s father said, “we wanna hear your love song.”
Robert and Charmian could hear Trudy slap Joshua’s hand. This made the lovers look at each other with a mixture of amusement and sceptic tiredness.
“Well?”
Martha’s now second plea made Robert grab his own guitar and start playing the chords. Martha accompanied the whole thing by performing the famous light knees-slapping rhythm. The parents leaned back into the large and beige sofa. They embraced each other and listened to their daughter sing her favorite song with a boyfriend that, like her, had received a job in the hardest working city in the world right after college.
“Pinch me,” Robert had said.
“It’s unbelievable,” Charmian had answered.
Anyway, now they were here in the family mansion. Three bottles of red wine later and four portions of barbecued meat in the bellies, they sang Buddy Holly’s song. It had become Robert’s and Charmian’s song on their third date back in March. Yes, the double date with Martha and James turned into two single dates. The lovers invisioning duo smooching proved itself a utopian illusion. Soon enough, Robert and Charmian were in her room at the college quarters. Two bottles of Chardonnay and a whole lot of pop corn waiting and waiting on her desk, they left Charmian’s stereo running all night.
Somehow, “Everyday” stuck in their heads. They danced to it for an hour, had it running in a loop, while they made love. The song about a love that surely would come Buddy’s way was perfect, or so they thought. That love had come their way. But why would it when it already had? The song should have told them something. But did it?
So, here they were, singing their hearts out. Martha about to embark on studies in the dramatic arts and James looking for jobs, but the happy couple beaming with joy. The sweetheart seemed to be saying: “Look at us, we are in love and we are successful. Soon enough, you will be reading about us in the daily newspapers.”
When the song ended, it was played again and ultimately Joshua and Trudy brought out their old music books and the six inspired creators performed music together until midnight. James and Martha waddled over to their car, tipsy and full of delicious food, laughing their heads off. Joshua and Trudy, Charmian’s posh parents, cuddled up in the large water bed. Robert and Charmian went to the guest room in the rebuilt attic and made love until they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
“Do you ever long for true love from me?”
The song seemed to haunt their inner ears.
How they hoped for eternal happiness.
Nothing could harm them.
Not just yet.
CONTINUED IN A FOLLOWING SHORT STORY...
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