::TWENTY FOUR::
It’s strange to wake up and have Jeanette watching me for a change. I’ve watched her wake, every morning since we’ve been together, and more than a few times just sat and watched as she fell asleep as well. I watched her for what felt like an hour last night, curled up behind her braced on my elbow. I couldn’t sleep, not after the thing with the string, to get her ring size. I was restless but couldn’t stand the thought of getting out of bed, of being away from her. So I watched her sleep, her face beautiful and peaceful in the moonlit room.
She’s lying on her belly with her chin resting on her arms, looking up at me. I’ve seen pictures of angels that looked just like that. There’s one in Alvarez’s house, in the hallway leading to the bathroom. Jeanette looks like that now, like an angel. I don’t think angels are supposed to look seductive though. Maybe I’d go to hell just for thinking that.
“Have you been awake long, ‘Nette?” I tuck my arm under my head so it’s easier to watch her, my other hand playing with her hair. She shakes her head no as she moves up a little, braced on her elbows now with her chin resting in her hands. Her hair spills around her shoulders, flowing over the curve of her arm and resting against the sheets, the very ends of it tickling the tiny hollow between her breasts. I grin at her as I tickle her breast with a long tress of her hair.
“You were watching me sleep?” I leave my hand in the hollow between her breasts, my thumb tracing the curve of her cleavage. I don’t know why it would surprise me that she would watch me sleeping, I’ve watched her enough.
She lets out a giggle before she answers, her face breaking into a big grin. “I’m just amazed I woke up before you.” She watches me a little longer, her dark brown eyes soften when they meet mine. “You’re beautiful when you sleep, Sean.” Blushing, she drops her head, her lips brushing over my arm.
I’ve thought of her as beautiful every time I look at her, more so lately. I never really occurred to me that she might see me the same way. Unable to think of anything remotely intelligent to say, I sit up just enough to hold her by the hips and pull her into my lap. “You’re beautiful, ‘Nette.”
Her hips shift across mine as she lowers slowly, her breasts pressed to me. I let my hands take the longest route they can over her to get lost in her hair as I pull her to me to kiss her. Softly at first, watching the fire build in her eyes at every gentle touch. Her hips shift again, the wet velvet of her open flower slicks over me, making us both moan. “‘Nette?”
“I dealt with it before you woke up.” I had a fleeting dream that she was gone, but when I felt for her she was back again, and I drifted back to sleep. I guess she got up to deal with her diaghram while I slept.
She nips along the line of my jaw, a trail of tiny sharp bites that’s oddly arousing. “You’re so fucking sexy, ‘Nette.” A low whisper against the skin of her neck as she sucks on my ear, driving me crazy. She pushes back, bracing her hands on my chest, waiting for me to position myself beneath her. Letting out a low moan she eases back into me, stopping partway to withdraw, before gliding gently to the bottom.
Closing my eyes, I press my head back into the pillow, my hands holding her hips still while I try to breathe. All I want to do is scream her name and come, she feels so damned good.
“Sean…” Her voice quavers, a whimper forming words, as her hips fidget in my hands. When I open my eyes again to look up at her, her throat is already deeply flushed, I guess I’m having the same effect on her.
“If you stay on top, ‘Nette, I’m going to come too fast.” I can already feel the deep flutter within her, her own orgasm imminent.
“Make love to me, Sean.”
She’s not quite begging, but it’s so close, her voice a little breathless and her need evident. Her back arches when I drive up into her, her hand pushing hard into my chest as she presses back into me.
“…oh fuck Jeanette…”. Neither one of us is going to last, and I don’t think either one of us cares. She’s already coming, her thighs trembling as I hold her still, bucking hard into her. I come at her first short scream, the sound of her, the hot wet feel of her, pushing me mercilessly over the edge. “Oh fuck, ‘Nette, I’m sorry.” I pull her to my chest, holding her tight and burying my face in her neck.
She’s smiling when she pulls back to look at me, tucking her mane of hair behind her ear. Her grin gets a little wider as her hands cup my face, right before she leans down to kiss me, a deep passionate kiss. “Don’t be sorry, Sean, you’re wonderful.”
“I love you, ‘Nette.” We watch each other for a few moments, neither of us saying anything, just lost in each other. Making love with our eyes even if our bodies have stopped. I could hold her like this forever.
Her small hands still resting against my face, her thumbs stroking over the corners of my eyes, just touching my lashes, the way I have done with her so many times. Everything in her is wide open, as she looks down at me. “I love you, Sean. With my whole soul, I love you.” Her words are spoken quietly and softly, the truth of them so plain and clear in her eyes that I could never doubt, I could never question.
I remember being twelve and looking at Stacy, being scared and confused and knowing I loved her. The depth of that feeling changed my entire life, I never thought I could feel anything like that. Watching my friends I often wondered if they ever felt like that. A lot of them told me that they said they loved a girl because it was the quickest surest way to go to bed with her. I never really understood that, because I saw love so clearly that one day, that I could never lie about it. Love is the deepest thing I ever felt. I loved Stacy, not even understanding what love was, and having no real idea what it meant, just knowing that I did.
I know what love is, real love. I’m not a scared, confused twelve year old kid. I know what love is, and I know Jeanette loves me. I know that look. If I had seen myself, all those years ago, at twelve, I would be looking at Jeanette. But this is different, for both of us. Our eyes are open, the both of us fully aware that we’ve fallen in love. This is deeper, deeper even than what I felt with Stacy somehow, and that realization hurts more than I would have thought possible. How could I love anyone more than Stacy? How can that possibly be? I can’t change it, every time I look at Jeanette I know it’s true. I just wasn’t really prepared for it. That she would love me the same way is a thought that makes it hard to breathe.
I pull her to my chest again to hold her tight, probably tight enough to hurt, but I can’t seem to ease up. Her muffled voice against the side of my neck asking me if I’m okay. I nod, not trusting myself to speak, my nose brushing against her ear, the touch of her skin calming me. The feel of her hand against the stubble over my ears, as her hand traces patterns there, making the room come back into focus again. “Yeah, I’m okay, ‘Nette. I just love you so much it hurts sometimes.”
Her voice is a murmur in my ear, her face still buried in my neck. “It’s okay to love me Sean, it doesn’t take away what you felt before, or make it any less.” Her voice is nearly breaking and I can’t bear the thought that she might ever think I would love her less.
I put my head back, making her look at me again. “I would never love you less, Jeanette. You’re never second. Never, not to me…” There’s so much more I want to say, but I stop, feeling myself choke up, and not wanting to. I held her for a little while longer, until her breathing stilled a little, and I knew we could look at each other without breaking.
I whispered that I would make coffee, as we finally sat up, still holding on to each other. Neither of us wanted to let go. I called out to her around the corner as she walked to the shower. “Starting tomorrow, we won’t have to get out of bed, if we don’t want to.” That soft laugh, the sexy seductive smile, is her only answer as she steps into the shower. It’s almost seven. Damn, not nearly enough time. The few short steps to the kitchen seems to take a lot longer than it should.
“Do you like it out here, ‘Nette?” She sat between my knees, her back pressed into my chest, on the back stairs. Looking out into my yard that I still haven’t mowed, the grass brittle, brown and dry.
“I like being out here with you, Sean.” Her head rests back against my shoulder, her coffee cup held against her chest. It’s a little cooler in the mornings now, and there are goosebumps across her forearms. I put down my own coffee to pull her close to me, wanting to keep her warm.
“Maybe I could get some chairs out here or something, for when it gets colder.” My eyes close and I fight the urge to swallow hard, nuzzling over her ears. I love sitting out here with her like this. So many of the major things we’ve ever spoken about, we’ve talked about out here, while I held her and we looked out over the yard, the pale outline of the mountains in the distance. We’ve sat out here and said nothing, and sat out here and said everything. Sometimes at the same time.
“That would be nice, as long as you let me sit like this with you too.” I could sit with her like this forever. Forever. My wallet feels heavy in my back pocket, the weight of my whole world in that tiny length of string. Forever.
“As long as you’ll have me, ‘Nette.” She tilts her head up to kiss me on the cheek, her eyes narrowed, watching me as she does it. That soft seductive look, so at peace with herself, with me.
“You two, like a pair of teenagers.” Neither of us had even heard Alvarez, until the quiet clearing of the throat sound at the door behind us. “I knocked, but I can see you were busy…’morning Jeanette.” Jeanette gets the nice smile, and I get the leer, the look changing so quickly that you’d have to know Alvarez as well as I do to see it. There was a time it would have made me feel awkward. I pull Jeanette a little closer, settling her against my back and picking up my coffee cup.
“‘Morning, Alvarez. What did you bring?” I point at the bag he’s brought, knowing that he’s brought breakfast. Jeanette had the few scoops of yogurt that were left from our shopping trip before, but, other than that, we had nothing in the house. I’d have to fix that when we got back. Got back, from our vacation. I’m grinning again.
He sits on the porch with us for a while, eating a danish, and drinking the coffee he’s brought with him. Jeanette and Alvarez talk about the boys and about Adrianna. Sandro still has a crush on her, it seems, he’s excited that we’re going over there for breakfast tomorrow before we leave. I close my eyes, my head pressed against the side of her neck, enjoying the conversation they’re having, the ease of it.
“You’re quiet this morning, Vetter. Cat got your tongue?” This time the leer is for us both as he stands up, brushing danish crumbs off a ghastly yellow shirt with blue martini glasses on it. So bright it makes my eyes hurt. I feel wonderful, laughing out loud, one of those laughs that makes your sides hurt. Alvarez just shakes his head at me as we make our way back out of the house.
The pink flower catches my eye as we’re leaving. It’s dry now, a few of it’s petals fallen off to litter the mantelpiece above the fireplace. I had left it there to dry, after moving it off the coffeetable to it wouldn’t get damaged or thrown out. The pink daisy she had left for me. In my head I see a field of them, and Jeanette sitting among them, laughing that soft quiet laugh that lights in her eyes first. It’s fleeting, just a glimpse, but I make a note to talk to Alvarez after.
I kiss her on the stairs when I drop her off, running up with her, covering her with my jacket against the big fat raindrops that started to fall as we pulled up. “We get to pack after, Sean.” She’s grinning up at me, her eyes sparking with that intense light that pulls me in so deep that I never want to let go, ever.
“And we leave tomorrow.” I close my eyes, knowing I’m grinning like a fool, and not caring. Pulling her to me and kissing her hair again. “You’re off around four, ‘Nette?”
“Will you come get me?”
“I’ll be waiting for you.” We both whispered ‘I love you’ at the same time, as we parted.
“I need you to arrange something for me Alvarez, when we’re gone.” The image of that pink flower comes back to me, of Jeanette smiling amidst all those pink flowers. When I told him he just went quiet, his mouth opening to speak, and closing again, like he wasn’t even sure where to begin. His hand reached out to squeeze my shoulder for a second, as we pulled into the parking space at the back of the lot.
“I’ll take care of it myself, Vetter. It’ll be done by the time you get back.” He looked over at me a couple of times as we walked past security, that same smile on his face. “I’m guessing the string thing worked?”
“Yeah, thanks for that, Alvarez, I never would have thought of that.”
Alvarez takes a turn once we get off the elevator, not on our floor, moving quickly now to another warren of small offices. “Where are we going?” I lean in to ask him quietly. The amount of time I’ve been here and I still haven’t seen everything here. All of these rooms and hallways are older, and I’m guessing they were part of the original part of the building. He pulls a swipe card out of his pocket, and I know without needing to ask that it’s not his own. I don’t even really want to know, or at least I don’t want to ask, where he got it.
One last look and we’re both inside the room. He doesn’t turn on the lights but instead pulls a small penlight from his pocket, moving to an unlocked file cabinet. Curiosity gets the best of me and I have to ask. What to start with is another question, so I start with the one I think Alvarez will like best. “Why look for a file here if it’s not even locked? There aren’t even any cameras down here, so why all the secrecy?”
I’m guessing I chose well, I’m rewarded with that sharp cunning glance, before he looks down again at what he’s found. “It’s not secret because no one knows why it should be secret yet, and I’d like to get a look before anyone decides to make it disappear.”
I take the penlight from him, holding the tight circle of light over the file he’s opened. It’s not a personnel file, those would be guarded, this just looks like requisitions of some kind, for the use of airplanes. In Miami, Florida. Alvarez and I share a look at that. Brubaker had been with the DEA in Miami, Florida. I don’t see the connection yet, or what Alvarez is getting at, but from the looks of it, those planes disappeared without being accounted for. I move the circle of light over to the neatly penciled letters on the side of the sheet. Bureaucracy can be a tedious thing, but it has a momentum of it’s own, a weight that can’t be ignored. An inertia that will have something set in motion half a country away resonate, even years later.
Alvarez adjusts the pages again, to get a better view, as he takes the tiny camera out of his pocket, taking several shots of the pages. Pages showing the tailfin numbers of three Cessna’s, signed out to Jeremy Brubaker, Sr., and his his partner. All of those planes were written off as lost, crashing into the jungles of Colombia. One of which would later turn up as the very plane the CIA used in the 1993 drug theft.
It was called the “enterprise”. Planes would be “stolen” in the US, so that their owners would get the insurance money, then those planes would find their way into the hands of the CIA, where they would be used to ferry drugs, money, weapons, and who knows what other kinds of cargo, in and out of the US and countries like Colombia, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Brubaker just got a whole lot dirtier. My eyes widen in shock at the name penciled in next to Brubakers name, the name of his partner at the time. Jack Douglas. The same Jack Douglas who was now a senior agent at EPIC, here in El Paso.
“Douglas is the one that put the Torres kid on the case, Vetter.” Alvarez puts the file back carefully, everything looking exactly as he’d found it. Pulling a wipe out of his pocket, he wipes down everything either one of us has touched. Taking one last look around the room to make sure. Neither of us have to worry about cameras, there aren’t any in this section of the building. Other than the lock on the door, there’s almost no security measures here. What would be the need? There’s nothing in here that’s even remotely related to anything drug related, so nobody bothered. It would be like putting your grocery receipts in the family safe. He had said no one knew that it should be secret yet. Yet.
“If Douglas was really dirty, wouldn’t he know what that paper might mean, Alvarez?” My question is little more than a whisper as we make our way back out of the building through one of the quieter exits, to the grassy area across the street for coffee.
“I didn’t think that would get by you, Vetter.” He’s smiling as he says it, dropping quickly to drop the swipe card down into the sewer grate and continuing on without missing a step. “Douglas being his partner doesn’t necessarily make him involved, or at least not involved all the way.”
“You figure he knows something though, and maybe Brubaker leaned on him a little as far as the investigation goes, to pin everything on Frank Anderson.” We both go quiet again as we pay for our coffees and move to a spot by the picnic tables.
“Douglas was a junior agent when all this went down Vetter. He had no say in what happened, and if he saw it, would he have spoken up about it?” It’s something that goes through the mind of every DEA agent at some point. What if your partner’s dirty? There’s so much money involved, and so many chances to do something that’s never going to get noticed. Do you talk? Get DEA’s internal affairs involved? I’m guessing it’s not just the DEA that has that issue to worry about. Every organization from the lowest beat cop on up has the same code. We protect our own, we deal with our own. If Douglas knew, or even suspected, he might have kept it to himself. It didn’t necessarily make him dirty but it did make him easier to manipulate. That one act, that may have seemed insignificant at the time, could have been used against him. Cooperate, or be linked to a VERY dirty agent and have your career ruined, at the very least.
“So at the end it comes down to whether he put Torres on the case with the intention of helping Brubaker get off, or if he did it because he didn’t have much of a choice.” If it’s the latter, there’s a hope that once it’s safe for him to talk, he will. If it’s the former, then a high ranking DEA agent, and our boss, is in league with the very man both of us were investigating off the record.
We’re both silent for a minute while the heavy implications of it sink in. “You sure you don’t want to get out for a while too, Alvarez?”
“Maybe we could pack up the kids and stay with you two, they’ve got comfy cots at those hotel rooms, Vetter. We’ll tell the kids to be quiet, it’ll be like they’re not even there.” He tries giving me a straight look for a second before breaking into a laugh. “No, Vetter, I’m staying. I’m as safe here as I am anywhere, if not safer. I have a few connections of my own. A bad ass motherfucker, remember? I settled down, with Adrianna, but not all the way. We’ll be safe here.”
He swirls his coffee cup to lift the sugar off the bottom and drinking it in one pull. “Are you going to ask her when you get back, Vetter?” He doesn’t look at me when he asks, just smiles and looks across the middle distance, completely at peace with himself.
My chest tightens up, as I look out across the mountains to the south of us, remembering the first night we met, when she turned to look across her shoulder at the mountains. The light of the setting sun pink against her skin. I can’t speak, I can only nod, at a loss for words, and not trusting anything I might say. His hand rests on my shoulder and stays there. “We’ll get started on Tuesday, when you leave, that way they’ll be in bloom when you get back. I’ll get Sandro to plant them for her, he’ll get a kick out of that. If he was older I’d say you would have something to worry about, that kid loves her.” He gets up, pulling me up with him. “Don’t you faint on me Vetter, my luck you’ll fall on me and people will think we’re having some sort of affair. Adrianna will kill us both, maybe a couple of times. R…RRRRAAAMMOOOON!!!”
Alvarez goes into another one of his Adrianna impressions as we walk back to the office, but I can’t hear half of it. All I can see is Jeanette, sitting on the back porch with me, the pink flowers she loves so much planted in the garden around my house.
copyright © 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx