Anyway, I drove home and delivered the cranberry sauce to my stepmother and then got the hell out of the kitchen. I wondered if Maggie had calmed down, if she was still mad. Maybe we could go for walk around the neighborhood, shoot some baskets, I don’t know. I just wanted to hang out with her and have her tell me how things were going at school. Catch up.
Yeah, right. So why was my pecker starting to swell as I climbed the stairs to her room?
She wasn’t there.
“Margaret?”
No answer. I stepped into her room, which I’d barely ever been in because the parents only moved to this house last year. They do this thing where they blame all their problems on whatever house they’re living in, and pack up and move. Their problems only keep multiplying, so they keep moving. It sucked when we were kids, I’ll tell you. We’d get settled, get to know the neighborhood kids, and oh, sorry, goodbye, we’re moving across town where Maggie and I knew nobody.
“Mags?” I called again, softly, even though it was clear she was gone.
It was easy to tell this was her room. There was a stack of textbooks sitting on her desk, and also a bunch of candles on the windowsills—she loves candles, especially the really smelly kind. On the wall was a poster of a giant sequoia, which surprised me. I’d have expected a photo of New York at night, or something like that.
Everything was neat and orderly. Her clothes were put away, there was only a lipstick and a small bottle of perfume on the dresser. I stared at them. It seemed so feminine, so womanly, and I got turned on thinking about Maggie swiveling that lipstick up and putting the red on her lips.
I glanced out the window but I guess everyone was inside watching football and eating, or getting ready to eat. The street was dead quiet. I wondered where Maggie had gone. At least her duffel was still there so I didn’t think she had run back to school.
Not that I’d blame her, really. That kiss last night…and then this morning, we’d almost…and I keep changing my mind. Or no, it’s not that, it’s more like I lose control, and then I get it back. Just barely.
I opened up the closet. I knew I was snooping, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. It was like I wanted to be with her so much that just being in her room around her stuff was better than nothing.
I’m so far gone. I need to get back to my own life, to running my company, to the mountains.
But I didn’t leave. I flipped back the lid of her laundry hamper that was neatly tucked into her closet, and right there, right on top, was a pair of panties. Maggie’s panties, light pink cotton with a strip of lace around the top. I snatched them up and pressed them to my face. I inhaled, then quickly again, the crotch covering my nose, and I was swamped with the smell of Maggie’s pussy, the deep, sweet smell of her.
I couldn’t help it, I reached a hand down my pants and touched my boner. Oh Maggie, oh Maggie….
At least I didn’t beat off, not right then in her room anyway. I stuffed the pink panties into my pocket like the contraband they were and walked quickly out of Maggie’s room and into mine, and shut and locked the door. I’d have run after her if I only knew where she was. I was completely in the grip of wanting her again, of feeling like I had to fuck her that minute, and we’d figure the rest out later.
I love that girl. That is never, ever in doubt.
Okay, I admit, I wasn’t behind my locked door for five minutes before I had taken Maggie’s panties out of my pocket and buried my face in them again. I slid out of my jeans and sat on the edge of my bed, her scent on me, filling me, my erection throbbing against my boxer briefs.
I spend so much time in the wilderness, with no women around at all, that I’m used to beating off as a regular thing, a way to relieve tension. For me it’s just part of the routine: brush my teeth, stretch my hamstrings, spank the monkey. But that afternoon, in the slow hours before Thanksgiving dinner, when I was alone except for the smell of Maggie—that afternoon it was a whole different thing. A romantic thing, actually.
I let my fingertips touch the head of my cock and pretended it was her tongue giving me short licks. I laid back on the bed and wrapped one hand around my shaft, imagining it was her hand, then her tight pussy, and I swear it was almost like I could feel her lying on top of me, and hear her giggling in my ear.
Everything fell apart then, because I got so excited that I rushed it and my mind sort of exploded and then I was lying on my back on my bed, covered in cum, but no Maggie.
No Maggie.
I had had enough.
I got dressed. My stepmother was banging pots and pans in the kitchen like she was making a grand feast, but I knew that was never going to happen. I swung by to tell her I was taking off, and to see just how bad this Thanksgiving was shaping up to be.
Something was burning in a saucepan. Dirty dishes from last night were piled in the sink. A bottle of gin was on the counter, open, halfway gone.
“What are you looking at?” she snarled at me.
“Not a thing,” I said, backing out of the kitchen and then racing to my car and driving off. It was almost noon, stores were starting to close up for the day, so I didn’t waste any more time.
This year, I was going to make sure Maggie and I had a decent holiday. No, fuck that, a great holiday.
I had some stuff to pick up first. And then I had to find her.
It was unusually warm that Thanksgiving, the kind of beautiful weather where you can play touch football in a T-shirt easily, maybe even taking that off if you’ve run around for awhile. So when Maggie was still not home after I finished my errands, I drove around looking for her, thinking she might be out walking in the nice weather.
I knew she was avoiding me, and I didn’t blame her. But I was going to do my damnedest to make it up to her, to make sure this Thanksgiving wasn’t a pile of crap—and for starters, that meant not sitting down with her drunk mother who was wallowing in self-pity because my dad was off somewhere and failed to come back with the cranberry sauce. Not spending another holiday trying to pretend everything was okay when it absolutely wasn’t.
I checked out the neighborhood playgrounds, thinking she might be on the swings or something. I checked out a trail along the river I knew she liked. But no Maggie. No Maggie anywhere I could think of.
I headed back home and parked in front of the house but I couldn’t make myself go back inside. It was poisonous in there, except for Maggie, and I’d already had enough of my stepmother for one day. For all days, actually.
The back seat was filled with shopping bags and I reached into one and cracked open a drink, one of those healthy sodas made with carbonated water and fruit juice that I knew Maggie liked. I put on some tunes. And I settled in to wait.
Look, I do love being out in the wild and having to manage with only the barest necessities. Spending time that way is part of who I am. But I’ll tell you right now, this fucking Lexus? If you’ve gotta sit in a parked car for a long stretch, you could do a lot worse. The seats were fantastic, the sound system awesome. Maybe Maggie was a little bit right, wanting some nice stuff. You know, as long as you’re not totally overdoing it just to impress people.
I waited for two hours. It was 1:00 before I saw her ambling down the sidewalk, a stick in her hand, hitting and poking at things as she walked along just like she used to do when we were kids, although now she was clearly a grown woman, and a striking, sexy one too. The sight of her walking along like that, looking so lonely, absolutely broke my heart. All my worries and concerns about all the bad things that might happen if we got together evaporated and all I wanted to do was make things right with her.
And give her a Thanksgiving full of love, instead of what was waiting for her inside that house.
I jumped out of the Lexus and trotted down the sidewalk towards her. She saw me and grinned, and then the smile fell and she looked wary. That right there broke my heart even more.
“Just this once,” I said to her, my voice as gentle as I could make it, “just this once do what I
say.”
She still looked wary, but not mad. I thought I had a chance, however slim.
“Get in the car.”
“To go where? Dinner is at 5 and we better not be late,” she said.
“Just get in.”
Thank god, for once she wasn’t stubborn. She climbed in and I drove fast, wanting to get where we were going while the sun was still warm. We didn’t say anything on the drive, but I reached for her hand and she let me hold it, even though she didn’t give mine a squeeze or anything. She was just barely going along with me, and I knew if I made a wrong move she’d run off like a skittish filly.
But this time, I wasn’t going to make a wrong move.
“Okay, now close your eyes,” I said when we got close. I turned off the main road onto a dirt road that was almost totally hidden by a lot of underbrush. The Lexus handled the rutted road like a champ, and before too much longer, we got to the end.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” she asked, and I could tell she was curious about what I was up to. “And listen, I’ve been meaning to ask you, where the hell did you get this awesome SUV? Did you borrow it from a rich friend or something?”