Forever May Not Be Long Enough
A New Novel by Christopher W. Thayer
Book One
Chapter 1.1
“Time to face the music,” poured a soft, seductive whisper into his dreaming ear. As his eyes slowly allowed in the light of morning, a warm, soft hand slithered its way over his right arm and gently stroked his bare chest. Releasing a sigh of contentment, he again struggled to pry open his sleep-encrusted eyes.“Do you think we have time?” her barely audible voice breathed again into his ear, her lips gently caressing the lobe. Her hand slid slowly down his stomach.“What time is it?”“Six forty-five.”As Matt rolled over, her hand grasped the small of his back and pulled them together. He could still smell her perfume on her neck as he placed several delicate kisses there. “Oh, we definitely have time.”*****
****The smell of coffee brewing greeted him as he stepped, wet, from the shower. The bedroom, its brown suede walls still clutching the night, sent a blast of crisp morning air into his face as he walked out the bathroom and over to his antique rosewood dresser. He quickly threw on a pair of boxers and yesterday’s jeans and headed down the hard wood floored hallway leading to the kitchen. The steam was rising from his hot, damp shoulders, his auburn hair. “Honey, coffee’s ready!” Jennifer yelled down the hall, the sound of a knife scraping butter on toast echoing after her.“Why thank you, my precious,” he called back, turning the corner into the kitchen where Jennifer was perched by the sink, nibbling her toast. Her left leg was bent, her foot resting on her right thigh, like a flamingo. “Hey Mr. Sexy, what’s your name?” she grinned.“I sure hope you know my name after what we just finished doing.”“I sure do. You’re my amazing husband,” she proudly stated.Matt slid into place in front of her, his hand on her left knee, suspended in the air, and slowly moved toward her hips. He placed a slow, deliberate kiss on her left cheek and slid away to toward the refrigerator, his right hand trailing behind to brush gently her stomach as he went. Her light brown hair (which she insisted wasn’t dishwater blond) fell perfectly disheveled around her shoulders. She was about 5’8”, a height that made dating in high school a problem, since most boys were 5’7” or shorter, and there was no way she would ever date someone shorter than she. No matter how grimy, sweaty or exhausted she got, she never appeared anything but beautiful. At least that was what Matt was thinking as he poured a large glass of orange juice and gulped it down. Beneath her robe, her luxurious, pink flesh called to him. Tiny freckles were sprinkled over her curvaceous frame, a lingering sign of her Irish lineage, and he loved to play connect the dots as they lay there in the late morning glow of Sundays, content doing nothing together. He felt like a junkie, or at least what he’d read about addicts and their constant cravings. Not to sound sentimental, but if they had indulged their desires whenever they felt them, they would likely be the first couple to actually be killed by love.“So, Presh, what’s on your plate today?”“I thought I’d do a little painting,” she confessed.“Really? What are we painting this time?” he inquired suspiciously.“The living room.”“And what color is our living room going to be now?”“Look, you, don’t you start,” she warned playfully. “What?” he insisted. “I just asked a simple question.”“Bullshit! It’s never just a simple question. Besides, I can tell when you’re being a pain. Your left eyebrow goes up,” she laughed and smacked him on the arm. She watched him quietly grinning for a couple seconds, silent.“So what color is the living room going be?” he asked finally.“Rust,” she mumbled.“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”“Rust,” she repeated, this time with confidence.His face slid into a pitying smile, his head tilted to the side slightly.“You stop it right now!” she demanded and smacked him again on the arm.“Stop what? I didn’t even say anything!” he laughed, running away. “That’s it.” She caught up to him as he entered the bedroom and she leapt and tackled him onto the bed. Wrestling, she eventually wrapped her legs around him and pinned him to the bed, laughing themselves breathless.“Okay, I give,” he conceded.“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you.”“I give,” he hollered.She released her death grip her legs had and rolled off of him onto her back next to him, both fighting to catch their breath.“I really love you,” he said after a few seconds, his chest bouncing in its quest for oxygen.“I love you too, Mr. Meany,” she added.They lay there for several minutes smiling giddily at each other. She often found herself lost in the soothing blue of his eyes. When their breathing had just about returned to normal, that same devious smile returned.“I’m sure our living room will look wonderful covered in rust.”She smiled back deviously, and then suddenly socked him in the stomach as she sat up and made her exit to the bathroom. “But I love you, Precious,” he called to her sweetly through the door.A few seconds passed and the door opened slightly. A pair of lush, pink lips whispered back, “I love you, too.”*****
****Dressed in his usual shirt and tie and slacks, Matt grabbed his leather satchel and slung it over his shoulder, like a bandolier strap. “I’m out, Presh,” he yelled down the hall.“Okay, honey. Have a great day. I love you,” she answered from the bedroom.He pulled open the front door, paused a second, closed it, and then waited. The sound of bare feet shuffling quickly down the hall soon followed. As she turned the corner, he was standing there, leaning against the door, a knowing smile on his lips. Her surprise quickly melted away and she flew into his arms, kissing him deeply.“I thought you left without kissing me goodbye.”“Presh, we’ve been married for four years now. Has there even been one day that I haven’t kissed you before I left?” he asked, proudly.“No, there hasn’t,” she said, comforted. “That’s my ever-faithful husband.”“You know it, baby.” He gently smacked her on the backside and reached again for the door knob. “Okay, I really got to go now.”“Be safe and think of me at least 100 times an hour,” she insisted.“Only a hundred? No problem.”He leaned in for one last kiss as he extended his arm to deactivate his car’s alarm system. Safely buckled in, he started the engine. Live’s “Forever May Not Be Long Enough” screamed through the speakers. He instinctively reached out and jerked the volume down to a more reasonable level for eight in the morning. Jennifer stood in the doorway in her soft, pink robe, watching him, a wide grin plastered to her face. When he noticed she was still standing there, she reached down and pulled back one side of the robe to reveal her soft, milk-white leg, all the way up to her hip. He opened the door and pretended that her seducing was working. She quickly covered herself again and waved, closing the door behind her.He watched her until her shape in the windows had disappeared and eased the year old Nissan Altima into drive. He looked again, in the rearview mirror, hoping for just one more instant, one more glimpse of her before he left. *****
****In the split second before the explosion, before the sounds of screaming, the music of shattered glass, and the grinding of a freight train derailing, there was the utter serenity and silence of eternal peace, the kind of calm that even Buddha dreamt of. The world slowed, every second was an hour, every hour, a millennia. A bird dashing between cars on the street, like an indestructible child on a dare, was frozen in mid air, terror in its eyes. On the sidewalk, a woman pushing a stroller bent down to shield her infant child, like a soldier falling on a grenade to save his platoon. The green light above, the signal that it is safe to proceed, flickered slightly, a flickering normally undetected by the human eye. “No,” was all he could think, over and over. “No….no....no…no….no…”Then, as time began to gain momentum, he felt himself lifted into the air, blessed temporarily with the gift of flight, a solemn weightlessness. He soared, watching the bird in front of him climb toward a tree branch, unfettered by the laws of God and science.But almost as quickly as he became aware of his flight, gravity and sheer destructive force reached up with indifferent hands and began to pull him back down to the Earth, squeezing tighter the closer he came to the ground. Laying there, crushed beneath the tonnage of plastic, metal and glass, his eyes found focus on that symbol of safe transition above, that green traffic light. The flickering quickened and became again a solid emerald. As the weight pushed down upon his chest, his legs, he saw the light jump to amber, the sign of caution. If only it had been more swift. Then this whole incident may have been prevented. But that lazy yellow looked guiltily down upon him, in a twisted pile of technology and delicate, fragile matter.And then yellow became red, a blinding red that swallowed him whole in a tender embrace.