Light of Dusk Ch. 03

Thanks to Chargergirl for all her help.

During the waning minutes of the rehearsal dinner, the banquet hall tabletops sat empty, with the exception of dirty plates and used napkins. Though most of the guests had vacated, Dawn remained seated, a half-eaten meal taunting her. Roger tried his best to force her to eat, going so far as to offer her tiny bites of the expensive sugar-cured ham on the end of his fork. Behaving more like a father than a fiancé, he cut the meat into tiny triangles and begged her to eat.

Jeff watched her the entire time. Dawn knew because she watched him. Her brother tried to reclaim a casual demeanor after their talk by the fountain, but she could see the way he squirmed. Jeff needed to get away; like her, he must have felt a need to forget.

Many of Roger's friends had retired for the evening. Roger's sister, Jesse, had an early appointment with a patient the next morning, so she had evacuated too. Guests slowly peeled away, until the dwindling numbers included only very close friends and family. Before Roger hijacked the guest list, these were the only people Dawn had planned to invite to the dinner.

Roger tapped the side of his beer glass with a silver-plated butter knife, producing a nerve-gratingping. He cleared his throat before standing.

"Woo hoo, speech!" Tara shouted. She flashed a pair of thumbs at Roger, and then excitedly downed another flute of champagne. Dawn wondered if her tiny blonde friend was as drunk as she looked.

"Thank you...for that, Tara." Roger regarded Dawn's youngest friend distastefully. He regarded Tara as a bad influence on Dawn. She was not one of his favorite people. Tara stuck out her tongue in response, proving that the feeling was mutual.

Roger cleared his throat and began anew: "I see a lot of family still here. You're all such special people. Some of us had never met before tonight." For some reason, Roger leaned on Jeff's shoulder. "I want you to know how much I love my little Dawn. She's an old soul, someone I feel like I've known my entire life."

She listened to Roger but kept watching her brother. Jeff squirmed beneath Roger's meaty hand. She could sense how much he wanted to get away. She wanted to get away, herself.

"Jeff," Roger clapped Jeff's shoulder. "I want you and Vince to know that I'll take good care of her."

He reached into his suit, extracting a square of paper from the inside breast pocket. The square unfolded like a roadmap, expanding to reveal a computer rendering of an office building. He smoothed the sheet out, spreading it across the cleared dining table.

"We're calling it the Midtown Medical Center. Checkups, specialists, X-Rays, even cosmetic surgery, every outpatient procedure imaginable will be done at the Center. Bennett and I are splitting the costs. The contractors have already broken ground, and we should be in business by the end of next year."

Splitting the costs? Dr. Bennett was a very old, very rich man. Roger was relatively young, as far as doctors go; he hadn't had time to amass the same kind of fortune. She knew Roger never lacked for money, but the project looked exorbitantly expensive.

Roger's face sagged as he gauged Dawn's reaction. "Aren't you excited? I thought you would be excited."

Dawn studied the rendering. She traced the floor plan of the building with her eyes, eventually coming upon the office labeled Dr. Roger Walker. "What about the hospital?" she asked. She knew how important working in County General's emergency room had been to him.

"No more County General," Roger said. "No more thirteen hour shifts, no more late nights, and best of all, I get to see my pretty little wife anytime I want."

Dawn's brow crinkled. She was the receptionist at Dr. Bennett's midtown office. She had initially met Roger through Doctor Bennett.

"You're going to work for me, Sweet Thing." He pinched her dimpled cheek in a disturbing, grandfatherly way. "I'll pay you twice what Bennett does, more than enough to quit those stupid night classes."

Dawn had dropped out at Choteau University. After the incidents with Jase Riley, and the unfair expulsion her brother had received for protecting her, Dawn knew she couldn't go on there. She had enrolled in night classes at the community college, taking a tentative first step towards earning a nursing certificate.

The medical center's estimated construction price was printed at the bottom of the page; she had never seen so many zeroes in her life. Other guests gathered around,oohing andahhing at the grand scope of it all.

"You're a receptionist? Like with telephones and a rolodex and everything?" Jeff asked. He angled his chair to face her while everyone glimpsed at the building's floor plan. "What about the night classes?"

"They're mostly nursing classes. I'm trying to get my certificate."

"A nurse, huh?" He touched his nose, unintentionally drawing her attention to the knot where it had been broken. "Nurses are great, especially naughty nurses."

She laughed, fighting off a sudden compulsion to rest her fingers on his long leg.

He looked down, focusing his attention on her trembling fingers. "I've seen your grades. You should be a doctor."

She scoffed in response and tucked her nervous hands under her thighs. "I'm not so smart." As she shifted in the seat, her little black dress rode up over her knees, exposing a healthy portion of her thighs.

A touch on her shoulder diverted Dawn's attention from Jeff. Jenny leaned over, showing Dawn her cell phone for a brief moment. "Mark called. He's having a rough time from the bee sting. I guess he needs me to take care of him."

Dawn nodded. "Of course, totally." She got up and hugged her best friend. Jenny offered a goodbye to Jeff then took Dawn's hand and dragged her from the table.

Jenny's tiny eyes shrunk as she squinted at Dawn. She had something to say, in private. "Would you help me find the car? I'm not sure where I parked."

Once outside in the privacy of the street, Jenny voiced what she'd been reluctant to say indoors, around so many people. "Watching the two of you is killing me. He wants to ruin your life, and you're going to let him."

Jenny was no fan of Dawn's sudden engagement, yet she had never talked poorly of Roger before.

Dawn prepared to defend Roger for the umpteenth time that day. "When you and Mark eloped, I held your hand at the wedding chapel. I kept hoping you would come to your senses and call it off, or at least postpone it. I thought Mark was all wrong; I thought he was pressuring you. I was wrong. Mark's a good guy and so is Roger."

"Dawn, I'm not..."

She didn't want to argue. Daddy, Jeff, Tara, even Jesse, had tried to talk her away from Roger at one time or another.

Jenny's eyes narrowed. "When I called you this afternoon, your dad answered. He told me you were out with Jeff."

Dawn took a deep breath to preempt a nervous hiccup. She sucked in her bottom lip and shook her head yes. "We went to our diner, downtown. He bought lunch."

"Were you like this at lunch?" Dawn pretended like she didn't know what Jenny meant. "I have eyes, you know. I could see you laughing at all his dumb jokes, hanging on his every word. When he got up to find the bathroom, you stared at his butt the entire time."

Dawn looked at her pumps. She was standing in the middle of a filmy grease stain. "Damn it!" She tried to clean her shoe by scraping it against the blacktop. Her small foot slipped out of the shoe; she snagged the toe of her pantyhose trying to catch her balance.

"He always could fluster you." Jenny crouched down to help Dawn back into the pump. "He flusters a lot of people." Dawn had confessed the true nature of her relationship with Jeff to Jenny long ago. Of course, Jenny had figured it out beforehand. "You know you can't, right? You're engaged to Roger."

"I would never hurt Roger." At least, she wouldn't hurt him intentionally.

"Yes you would. For Jeff, you would. You ripped that asshole Jase Riley's face open with your bare hands. Sweet, gentle, little Dawn shredded him to pieces to stop him from hurting Jeff."

Dawn didn't want to think about Jase Riley. He was where he belonged, rotting in jail on federal drug charges thanks to the statements of Dawn and countless other young women.

"If it's any consolation, I understand what you're feeling. When I saw Jeff for the first time tonight, I couldn't even remember what Mark looked like." She giggled like a little girl; it sounded odd because of her deep, smoky voice. "He certainly has changed."

Dawn's skinny big brother had finally grown up. He was still a charmer, and flirtier than anyone she had ever known, but there was something else there now. Beyond the handsome face and the boyish charm was something new, substance and character, both hard earned.

"I know what I have to do," Dawn said.

They found Jenny's van tucked between Roger's Hummer and an enormous pickup.

"We both know what you have to do," Jenny said. She hugged Dawn tight, squishing her large breasts against Dawn. "The question is: Will you do it?"

***

Jenny bowed out early, and Dawn had too much on her mind; Roger remained, as did Dad and any number of guests, yet Jeff was the one who volunteered to see Tara home. The poor kid could hardly sit upright in the cab on the way.

Old springs moaned a protest as Jeff flopped on the motel bed. His stupidity, it seemed, had no limits. Water from the hotel's low-flow showerhead trickled in the bathroom, as did the tiny voice struggling to recite the lyrics of the pop hit du jour.

Had Jesse not left the rehearsal dinner so early and Jenny not been so happily married, he probably wouldn't have ended up inviting Tara up to his motel room. Not that Tara was so bad. The college soccer standout had a pretty-enough face, framed by short, natural blond hair. Though puny in stature, she had an athlete's powerful thighs and a nicely rounded butt.

She came out of the bathroom dressed in a worn, white motel towel. Smiling seductively, she climbed on the bed beside him. "You don't know how long I've wanted this."

He had some idea. Tiny Tara had been an unashamed flirt since she was ten years old.

Opening the towel, her extremely fit little body went on full display. Underdeveloped breasts were capped by nipples that stood out from her chest proudly erect, looking for all the world like fleshy pencil erasers surrounded by puffy, somewhat-asymmetrical areoles.

She sat on the bed between his out-stretched legs. "Touch me," she begged. Her own legs spread, lasciviously displaying her pussy. Tara's pubic hairs were blonde and wispy, longer than he would have imagined. She spread the lips apart, revealing the luxurious pink inside. He smelled her arousal; it was pungent and powerful, a decade's worth of stewing lust. "Please, touch me."

Jeff struggled to his knees and inched toward her. Her body jackknifed at the first tentative probe of his erect penis. She was extremely hot, as if her insides were melting. Plump, glossy lips kissed his mouth when he probed deeper, harder. As Jeff's eyes closed tight, he pictured Dawn engaging in the very same type of sexual experimentation with ugly, old Roger. Jeff's penis, which was very hard up to that point, wilted.

Tara reached for his penis; finding it soft, she whined. "What's the matter, Jeff? Can't get it up for me?" She stroked the slack shaft to no avail. "Just close your eyes and pretend I'm someone else." The strong, athletic legs that made her a soccer star at Iowa State wrapped Jeff's waist like twin boa constrictors. She kissed his mouth, then his cheek, then sucked his right earlobe between her plump lips. He grew just a bit firmer, nothing significant.

"Come on, Jeff; you got it up for Jenny's fat ass. She told me all about it." She whispered the next part: "If you call me Dawn, I won't get upset."

Jeff's eyes sprung open. He pitched her tiny body aside. The mattress springs made almost no sound as her naked body bounced. Had Dawn betrayed his trust? Had she told her tiny blond friend about their affair? Jeff glared at Tara, studying her baby-blue eyes.

Tara fiddled with the cluster of silver rings dangling from her ear. "Jenny told me...Jenny told me that the two of you had sex. She said you called Dawn's name when you came."

Lies with which to deny the accusations bobbed up and down in Jeff's head. The ill-fated date with Jenny seemed destined to haunt him forever. Jeff had blocked Jenny's image in favor of his sister's the night they had made love in the backseat of the Thunderbird. In the final moment of passion, while his semen filled the latex condom buried deep within Jenny's tunnel, he lapsed and cried out Dawn's name.

"I never told anyone." The words 'Tara' and 'discretion' were not synonymous. If she truly had kept the secret so long, it was no minor miracle. "Please..." She grabbed his shoulder as he rolled on his side; her fingernails sank into the flesh. "Please, Jeff, don't make me stop. I'm so wet for you." She put her fingers to his nose. Her arousal was pungent but not unappealing.

In a fit of desperation, she raked at his back, leaving long pink streaks with her fingernails. "I can be Dawn. I can be anyone you want me to be." As she leaned over his body, her wet tears dribbled against his shoulder. She mounted his pelvis, grinding herself against his hip. Copious amounts of her moisture pooled on his skin. "I want you, Big Brother." Jeff turned his head, watching curiously, as she took pleasure from his body the only way she could.

The nub of her erect clit rubbed his hipbone. She climaxed, making a sound that was somewhere between anM and a baby bird's peep. Her upper body leaned forward, until her mouth rested against his long neck.

"Have fun?" he asked. A bit of a smirk lifted the corner of his mouth. She responded with a cute, yet dimpleless, smile. After Jeff rolled on his back, she adjusted her position, maneuvering her crotch over his lazy penis.

Tara coyly glanced from side to side, offering a wicked smirk of her own. "Daddy is asleep." He started to respond, but she touched his lips to shush him. "Maybe he won't wake up if we're extra quiet."

"Tara, stop---"

"I said be quiet. Do you want to get your baby sis in trouble?"

His penis stirred a bit.

"I love you; you know?" She tried to lower her voice a touch to sound more like Dawn. Tara's eyebrows arched as she touched his face. "Tara always teased me about it, but she was right. Only an idiot couldn't see that she was right."

"Stop it right Goddamned now!" Jeff took Tara by the hips and rolled them both over until he was on top, in control. Tara smirked as his steel hard penis sawed the lips of her wispy, wet slit. Her hips lurched, forcing their crotches to grind against one another.

Stroking his chest and his back, she explored the body she'd coveted for so long. The head of his penis kissed the opening to her vagina.

"I just want to fuck you. No strings, no anything," she said.

He was almost ready to surrender, to give Tara exactly what she wanted. His cell phone lit up and vibrated on the pressboard dresser. "Ignore it," Tara said. She grabbed his chin and forced their lips together. Jeff broke the kiss long enough to grab the phone. The caller ID flashed his old home phone number. "Ignore it!" She finagled the phone from his grip and tossed it against the wall. The battery separated from the rest of the phone, forcing it into silence.

"What if it was Dawn?" he asked.

Tara squeezed his midsection between her thighs. She dug her fingernails into his cheeks and forced him to look her in the eyes. "Dawn is right here!"

Jeff escaped Tara's strong thighs and rolled her tiny body off the bed. She squeaked as she smacked against the floor. He suspected that her pride was the only thing injured, yet she opened up a torrent of tears.

"Jesus! Tara, I'm sorry." He was on the floor crouching beside her naked body. She accepted his offered hug and cried against his bare chest for a moment. She reached for his penis, but he reprimanded her one final time.

"You love her, don't you?" Tara must not have expected an answer as she immediately smacked his chest with the back of her tiny hand. "Are you some kind of wimp or something? What the hell are you doing sitting here with me?" Again, she expected no answer. "The way I see it, you have two days, Kramer. You have two days to keep the girl you love from marrying Uncle Fester."

Had she forgotten the fact that the girl he loved was his kid sister? "How drunk are you?" he asked.

She tried to sit up but fell into his lap. "Really, really drunk," she confessed. "But coherent enough to remember that my best friend in the whole world has been miserable for the past year, and that the only guy who has ever made her happy is sitting naked with me on a motel floor."

She made it all sound so simple. "You seem to have forgotten the fact that I'm her brother."

"And you seem to have forgotten the fact that you're Jeff Kramer. So get up, get dressed, and go get her, champ." She kissed Jeff's cheek and slumped back to the bed.

"Do you want to share a cab?" he asked, reassembling his cell phone.

"I'll find my way home, eventually. Right now I just want the room to quit spinning before I puke up a pound of ham."

Jeff slipped back into his banquet clothes, sans the jacket. He folded a twenty-dollar bill on the dresser for Tara's cab ride home.

"Where do you keep your underwear?" she asked. She quit rubbing her temples long enough to notice his reaction to her question. "Oh don't be gross! I just want to borrow an undershirt to take a nap in."

He reached in the dresser drawer and tossed her a v-neck undershirt. It was extra-tall. The undersized blond looked ridiculous in it.

"You're going to be alright?" He stood in the doorway, dodging as one of the bed pillows flew at his head.

"Just get out of here, you wimp."

***

After the rehearsal dinner, Dawn rode home with Daddy. Skipping the shower, she undressed for bed. Her dreams were not pleasant. She tossed and turned for hours, tormented by the same dreams that had haunted her the past year, dreams of the night Jeff left for Calgary:

The airport terminal was anything but busy that night. The boarding call for Northern Air flight 722 to Buffalo echoed from the speakers. Jeff couldn't hide his excitement as he waited for the boarding call of his own flight, the flight that would take him to Detroit Metro Airport. From there it was a short hop to Calgary and his new career as a professional football player.

Jenny's sobering words replayed in Dawn's head as she snuggled into his side. "You have to let him go, for your own good." No, that wasn't it. She would let Jeff wrap his arms around her and drag her into the darkest abyss as long as he never let go.

"Do it for his own good." That rotten Jenny, she had convinced Dawn of what was right, had convinced Dawn that a future with Jeff was impossible.

"He's going to be important and famous." The notion had swelled Dawn's freckled head. Her big brother, the star quarterback who had nearly tossed his career away, deserved a second chance.

After vanquishing Jase Riley, he had been expelled from Choteau University. A punishment that had come about because Jase Riley was heir to the Riley Pharmaceuticals fortune, and Riley money had transformed Choteau University from a second-rate junior college to a well-regarded, well-equipped University.

Jase Riley had gone down, the police had seen to that, but the University had appeased their sole benefactors by expelling Jeff.

Going from promising athlete to part-time auto mechanic, his future appeared bleak. Then the call from Calgary came. Jeff had been drafted into the Canadian Football League, earning a chance to play quarterback for the Calgary Stampeders.