Laid Up, Cried Out
 
Author: Limonize
 
Email: spiral@spinfinder.com
 
Rating: R
 
Summary: Screwed up communication
 
ADULT MATERIAL; SEXUAL SITUATIONS; MUST BE OVER 18*

--+-- 

Gretchen dropped the travel tickets on Nick's desk. He resisted the
urge to look up.

"Uh, they're for my father, Gretchen. Make sure he gets them handed
to him personally!" He paused a second, and looked up at her
somewhat timidly. "- Please?"

Gretchen wasn't used to hearing "Please" from Nick. He was in a
strange mood, she reflected.

"Oh say, son? - Those my plane tickets?" asked Burton cheerfully, as
he poked his head through the door.

"Uh, yeah." answered Nick in a low voice. Burton made an appraising
glance of Nick, after noting the quietness of his reply.

"Nicholas, I've gotta tell ya – you look pretty haggard for a Monday
morning. You been paintin' the town?" Burton smiled. It was as
much monitoring of Nick's well-being that Burton dared, if he wanted
to keep their communication friendly – which it too often was not.
He was concerned that his son looked as if he hadn't a decent night's
sleep in a long time.

"Yeah, a little, I guess!" Nick laughed a small laugh, which died a
quick death in his throat, endig up as an ill-concealed, grimace.

"The Powells will be here in half an hour to review that tape we got
from the Roisey Investigations people.." he advised Nick. With that,
Burton decided to retreat "while the going was good".

~ ~ ~

"Mr. Burton Fallin, please." requested a female caller.

"He's temporarily away from his desk. May I ask who's calling,
please?" Gretchen queried swiftly.

"Its Venna Edwards from `Mikado Worldwide Travel'. Please have Mr.
Fallin call back right away regarding his Wednesday flight bookings.
The number here is 666-4551. Thank you."

Three of Gretchen's phone line lights lit up simultaneously. In her
haste to record the message, she neglected to insert a Fallin initial
on the message. Some three quarters of an hour later, Venna was on
the line again.

"Burton Fallin, please."

Gretchen recognized her voice this time, and not wanting to put her
off unduly, she replied, "he's still away in conference – but he will
receive the message as soon as he returns to his office."

Venna wanted to dispense with the matter of Nick's father's booking
as quickly as possible. She hoped neither of them ever used the
Mikado's services again.

Burton picked up his stack of messages, flipped through them quickly
and seeing only the name "Venna, Mikado". No first initial was
evident in front of the Fallin name. He assessed that perhaps
Nicholas' message had been put in with his by mistake, since he did
not recognise either the name nor the number. I wish these
secretaries were a little more thorough, thought Burton.

Late in the afternoon, Venna tried a third time.

"Just a second..". Gretchen replied – it was the busiest Monday she
could remember in a long time – and again tried Burton's line. His
signal was busy. She decided to forward it to Nick, who sometimes
covered Burton's calls.

"Nick, this lady's called 3 times today for Burton?.."

"Put her through." growled Nick on his intercom.

"Burton Fallin?" asked Venna in a clear, professional tone.

"No, this is Nick, his son." The voice sounded suspiciously
familiar, "Who am I speaking with?"

Venna froze.

"I asked to speak with Burton." she said after a pause. It was then,
that he realized it was Venna on the line. He too, was mildly
horrified. Recovering himself, he replied,

"He's tied up, so our receptionist put you through to me" explained
Nick, trying not to let his brewing plethora of uncomfortable,
contradictory feelings completely overwhelm him. He sounded
outwardly calm. His last coffee was threatening to cramp him into a
huddle over his desk, however. Nick knew if there was anything to
be said, it was going to be said now. She would hang up quickly, he
was sure.

"Would you mind if we talked – got together and talked about our…I
regret…I'm sorry things ended…I don't behave well when I've been
drinking.." spluttered Nick.

"Why don't you say what you have to say, Nick?"

"I…" he felt so terribly, terribly uncomfortable. He tried again:
"I'm at work - it's hard to talk - Venna, I DO want to see you
again!?" Breathlessly, he waited for the axe to fall.

"Okay." What a fool she was. She knew how pathetic she was, as
surely as she had said "Yes." But it was easy to get over a dislike
of jazz, compared to a distanced aloofness. And she had managed to
get over far worser things than a dislike of jazz.

Her "okay" was almost anticlimactic. He remembered her friendliness
and agreeableness more now, and felt grateful.

"Okay. Good. I'll call you… he was about end the sentence in his
usual non-committal way, by not offering a specific time, and thought
better of it. "- tonight, ok?"

Venna didn't want to appear too eager. She tucked a few strands
behind her ear, and twisted on them playfully.

"How about tomorrow night?" her voice crackled huskily in his ear.
Nick could tell he had struck a good chord with her.

"Tomorrow night" he was about to hang up, and added quickly in last-
minute seductive ruse, "You're a hot lady!" As soon as he hung up,
he realized how gauche he had been with this remark, even though he
had tried to quickly compliment her, to maintain the aura of trust
that they had started to resurrect between them. He would without
fail, have to find something else complimentary to say to her in
person.

Like how gutsy it was for her to have told him the origin of her
scars, so soon. Or maybe I should just leave that subject alone, he
thought.

~ ~ ~

The next day seemed to drag on forever for Nick. It gave him too
much time to ponder the possibilities of his next encounter with
Venna He arrived at her place, palms sweaty, after having called her
on his cellphone while driving home from work, and been invited over
again. He punched her worn doorbell, feeling for the first time
since he spoke to her, a little less apprehensive. She appeared at
the door, with a small Siamese kitten enfolded in her left arm,
wearing a yellow blouse and tight white pants. Small animals made
Nick nervous, but he did his best to hide this, smiling at her and
looking at the kitten approvingly. He noted how good she looked.

"I'm babysitting her for a neighbour whose gone away for a couple of
days" explained Venna, motioning him to follow her. Nick was
privately relieved to hear that the kitten was not a permanent
fixture of her life.

"Mind holding it for a sec?" She reached over with her second arm
and extracted the soft little body that looked unhappily disrupted
from its perch. It began to mewl. Before Nick could protest, the
thing had been unceremoniously plopped on his shoulder, where he
quickly reached to pull it down into his palms where he could
supervise its any unexpected activities. The kitten showed great
signs of nervousness and huddled in his hands, mewling now at him.

"She's looking pretty scared." he smiled nervously over at Venna.

"You're looking a little scared yourself, there" commented Venna, not
unkindly. "They don't bite unless they're hungry, and they don't
scratch unless they're nervous or they're trying to stop themselves
from falling."

"Oh." replied Nick. Sounds manageable. Don't freak the thing out,
Fallin. Your suit threads are way too new for the "tiny claw
treatment"

The kitten began to purr in his hands.

"It's purring." announced Nick

"Yeah, cats do that a lot when they're enjoying themselves.

"Hm." Nick sat down finally, while Venna pulled out a couple of
cold beers for them.

"Aa - " hesitated Nick. He was going to decline any alcohol,
remembering how it had jinxed their last time spent together.

Venna looked at him mischievously. "It's just a beer, Nick. I
thought you would like a beer over a scotch, after watching you last
time."

Observant, thought Nick.

"I was thinking, that it took a lot of guts for you to tell me about
your scars. I know I never could have done that with someone I
hardly knew. You've got guts." Nick said finally.

"Thanks, Nick. I don't make it easy, do I?"

"How do you mean?"

"Strangeness and all. It's not easy to get past people's strangeness
when you're only getting to know them sometimes."

"You seem to do a good job" said Nick, with sincerity.

All depends on what it is, thought Venna, not ever intending to share
that thought aloud with Nick.

"You'll share a beer, then?" she asked, dropping her face down to
the level of his forehead from behind where he was sitting.

"Yeah, why not?" he replied, unsure if he had made a good decision or
not. "Will you cut me off about halfway through, just in case?" he
quipped.

"I'm not your keeper" answered Venna. "But I can remind you when
you're getting to be bad company."

She was nobody's fool or pushover, thought Nick. But she's not
bitchy either.

She brought him a glass, and set it down.

"So tell me about your day at Fallin & Fallin…"

"Oh..you don't really want to hear about that stuff, do you?"

"Not trying to be evasive, I hope" she prodded him playfully with her
finger.

"No, no. It's just been a slow day. I was pretty psyched out about
coming here. I didn't know how things would go. " he replied
honestly, watching her reaction to his self-disclosure carefully.

"Me too." she said quietly, not letting him know how much thought she
had given it.

"Yeah?"

"I'm thinking I didn't take much responsibility for us connecting.."
Venna said simply.

"No, no – I was..am..the prick. I wasn't letting anything except
small talk happen. I…sometimes I just don't want to be where I am,
no matter who I'm with."

"How come?'

"Venna, if I start talking, this isn't going to be much of a party."

"C'mon Nick. We've all been on bummers. Think I'm just a party
girl?"

"That's not what I meant. I mean, shit – I just don't want spray my
grief everywhere." Venna was unsure of what he meant exactly.

"Did someone close to you die?"

"Yes! – I mean "No!! - No one DIED." He tried to compose
himself. "My..I was going to propose to this woman. And she took
off!" A look of contorted agony gripped him, and he tried with all
his might to avoid losing his self-control, but his voice had
already grown in volume like an ocean swell.

"Whoa, easy Nick. I'm sure she had a lot of feelings for you!"
Venna said appeasingly.

"Then why did she FUCKING –" he could feel his insides crack like car
metal in a derby collision. It was difficult to breathe. "- LEAVE
me?" His voice sounded both seared and panicked from monumental inner
pain. His abdominal walls began to release their "bricks" slowly, as
if dynamited. He could only grab himself and hope there was piece
left of him left when it was all over. He tried to turn his head
away from Venna's view. His wrenching cry was so fierce, that the
smallish kitten who had been huddling in the corner of the couch, now
found a way to climb for safety, under the couch.

His flood of tears began. Nick sobbed so uncontrollably, cried so
hard and so long, that he was sure he had lost himself in a sea of
his own tears, never to return to shore. Venna brought him a box of
kleenex in readiness for when he was steady enough to use one.

Throughout, Venna said nothing to him. She simply sat beside him,
caressing his back gently. It was a very long time before Nick
physically emerged from his numbness and pain. He gradually became
more aware of her rhythmic, soothing warm motions. It began to calm
him in spite of his also returning self-consciousness.

"There you go. You got some of it out of your system." she cooed
sympathetically, continuing to rub him gently.

Again Nick was surprised at her awareness, that she knew that this
profound crying episode had only moved some the debris away from his
tortured angst. How was she able to be so sure?

"You scared the kitty, you know. Want to help me find her?" Venna
asked him, deliberately directing his attention away from his inner
thoughts.

"Oh. Okay." He sniffled. His eyes and nose were both red and swollen
beyond recognition. He was eager to be directed to any activity that
required little thought. He wriggled himself down on the carpet.
Where do frightened small animals hide? He recalled the time when
had accidentally squashed a mouse that had hidden inside his shoe -
that's easy, he said to himself - they hide in small, dark spaces.

~ ~ ~
 
THE END