The Conception Deception Ch. 04

Friday afternoon, I was just getting home when I got a call from Claire.

"Hey. Sorry to call, but...I can't wait until next month. You need to come over," she said with a sense of frustration in her voice.

"Um, sure," I responded.

"Are you free tonight? I can order some food, if you want to come sooner."

"Yeah, I've got nothing else to do right now. Let me just take a quick shower."

"OK. Pizza or wings?"

"Whatever you're in the mood for," I said truthfully. "They both sound good."

"Alright. Just come down whenever you're ready."

"Will do," I said, then felt compelled to ask, "Claire...we're talking about watching TV, right?"

"Of course," she answered, without a hint of humor.

"Damn. OK, see you soon."

*******

We feasted on a bucket of wings and binge-watched four episodes that night, finally getting to one that didn't end on a cliff-hanger.

"OK, I think I'll be alright for a few weeks now," Claire said, getting off the bed and turning on the light.

Rubbing my eyes, I said, "I know what you mean. That resolved a lot, but still left the whole rest of the season wide open."

"Glad you gave it a second chance?"

"Yes. Thank you."

And that was it. Over the next week and a half, we just saw each other in passing. The weather was perfect- clear and mild- so I managed to get in a lot of extra work, finishing a few contracts early, which is always a good thing. Rusty and Mona bugged me about when we could meet again, and we figured out that the next Sunday afternoon would work for everyone.

On Sunday, Claire texted and asked me to show up a little early for the jam session. I assumed she wanted help setting up, but when I got there, it was clear she was upset.

"I guess you want to talk?" I said as I walked into her apartment, not sure how to invite myself into a conversation.

Claire waved her hand and said, "I'm fine." Her eyes were red from crying and she sniffled between sentences. "I'm crampy and moody and pretty sure I'm not pregnant. I think I'll know for sure by tonight. But assuming that's the case, I wanted to talk to you about the next time."

I started moving the chairs around and setting up instruments while she talked.

"So, long story short, the next time we're due, I'm supposed to be at a wedding out of town. We could skip a month, which is fine. Or...I wondered if you'd be up for a road trip. Not far, just 6 hours away. But it's too far to make it a day trip, and I'm supposed to be at the rehearsal dinner the night before, and the wedding is the next afternoon, so I'm looking at two nights right in the back half of our ideal time."

I stood up straight to try to read her. She seemed indifferent either way, but I knew that couldn't be the case. "So you're suggesting I tag along...just for a few minutes each evening?"

"That's the worst way to put it. You could come to the wedding as my guest, and we could be clear that you're just a friend. So you'd get a nice meal out of it, at least."

"But I wouldn't be allowed to try to pick up any desperate bridesmaids," I said, pretending to sound put off.

"The desperate bridesmaids are mostly my cousins, so double no," she said sternly. "You could spend time in the city, be a tourist, whatever. I'd pay for your hotel and I'd drive, and cover food...You'd be getting a free vacation, Russell."

"I know, I'm just teasing you a little. I'm not, like, jumping at the chance, but I'm not averse to it, either. Let me see what my work calendar is like that week. We'd need to leave Friday?"

"And would be back Sunday," she said confidently. "Barely 48 hours."

A knock at the door paused our conversation. I went to answer it, saying, "I need to check my schedule, but probably yes."

Rusty and Mona had arrived at the same time, and Rusty said, "Probably yes for me, too."

Mona shook her head as she stepped inside and said, "What do you even mean most of the time?"

Rusty shrugged and said, "Hell, I don't know what it is, but I tend to have a much better time saying yes to things than saying no. So I've developed a habit of preemptive yessing."

Mona paused while opening her case, looked at me and said quietly, "That explains so much." Then she turned her head to Rusty and said, "You are a strange man."

Rusty just grinned, held his hands out wide and said, "Thank you." It was then that I saw that he had brought an old duffel bag, a rolling suitcase, and his garbage bag from the last time. Noticing my gaze, he said, "No rain today means more drums."

"Considering how good you made one drum sound, I'm looking forward to hearing them all," Claire said.

Just then, another knock on the door startled me. Mona said, "Sorry, I forgot to tell you I invited someone else. A guy I work with."

Claire opened the door and a tall, lean guy about my age walked in. He had a few bags slung over his shoulders. He stopped in the entryway and shook hands with Claire, staring a little too obviously at her face. "Hi, I'm Steve," he said, not breaking eye contact or his handshake until Mona shouted across the room, "Steve, this is Russel and Rusty. The woman you are making uncomfortable is Claire."

Steve blushed and walked into the room. I went to pull up another chair, but Steve stopped me and said, "No...it's OK. I usually stand when I play." Opening one of his cases, he pulled out a weathered violin. Setting it gently on the couch, he opened another case to retrieve a mandolin, which he set up on a small folding stand. Finally, he opened a square case to reveal a half dozen harmonicas of various sizes.

We all watched him set up, and Rusty whistled. "The musicality of this group just rose significantly," he commented. Steve didn't look up, but rosined his bow and said, "Different tools for different jobs, that's all."

Once everyone was set up, including Rusty, who now had quite an ensemble surrounding him, Claire sat down at the keyboard and started playing the chords to a song that had been popular on the radio a few months ago. But she altered the style a little to make it more bluesy, which got Steve reaching for his harmonicas. Mona jumped in with some fills, and Rusty and I kept the rhythm going.

Over the next few hours, we covered a dozen genres, even a country song and an old Irish drinking song. Turned out that Steve didn't call his instrument a violin. To him it was a fiddle, and he could work its sound into almost any style. As we wrapped up for the day, Claire said, "Steve, what are you doing working at a restaurant? You could do this for a living!"

Steve smiled wryly and said, "There are a lot of very talented, very unemployed musicians out there. Many of them are much better than I am. It takes a lot of talent and a lot of luck to make it professionally."

"Then I wish you all the luck in the world," said Claire, "because you certainly have the talent."

Steve seemed flustered, but Mona just tapped him playfully on the back of his head and said, "See? I told you." Then looking at the rest of us, she said, "He's OK in the kitchen, but you can tell it's not his passion."

"Well, until you find a better group, please join us any time, Steve," I said, swapping phone numbers with him.

I walked the group out to the parking lot, helping an appreciative Rusty carry his bags down the steps. When I was turning to leave, Mona said, "Russell, you and Claire should come by the restaurant sometime. Maybe not when Steve's cooking," she joked, smiling Steve's direction as he rolled his eyes, "but if I'm around, you can have a meal on the house."

I nodded in appreciation and said, "I don't know about Claire, but I'll stop by sometime."

Mona squinted and looked in my eyes. She leaned in and asked, "You and Claire aren't a thing?"

Feeling like Mona could read my mind, especially when she squinted like that, I chose my words carefully. "No...we're not dating or anything. We're neighbors, but she didn't even know it was me when she called about the ad."

Mona stared another few seconds, then her expression switched from suspicious to disinterested. "OK. Well, when you see her, let her know what I said." Then with a wink, she put her guitar in the trunk of her car and waved goodbye. I went upstairs to help move Claire's furniture back around. She was just coming out of the bathroom and gave me a big thumbs down. "Try, try again," she said with a sigh, slumping onto her couch. Not knowing how to react honestly and sympathetically, I picked up my gear, walked to the door, and said, "Just...let me know what I can do."

"Thanks Russ. Let me know about the wedding, OK?"

"Sure thing," I promised, opening the door.

"And Russ...Mona thinks you're cute."

"Mona scares me," I replied.

"She watches you while you play. I can tell she's got more than a musical interest in you."

"Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Steve might have a similar interest in you."

Claire blushed and said, "He seems sweet." Then she looked at me and said, "But I'm serious. Mona. I'd put money on it."

"Are you going to tell her she needs to back off, because my sperm belong you?" Claire just laughed and I said, "Let me know if you do, because I would pay handsomely to watch that conversation go down."

As I spoke, Claire lay down on the couch, curling her legs up towards her body. "Uuugh. Throw me that bottle of Tylenol next to you, OK?" she said in a voice muffled by the pillow pressing her cheek. I walked the bottle over to her and set it on the coffee table.

"Thanks," she muttered, closing her eyes. "I feel like poop."

"Sorry," I said gently.

"You should be. You're supposed to make this stop happening," she said, half-serious.

I saw myself out.

*******

Claire calculated that her next window would be from Wednesday through Saturday, with the wedding being on Saturday. I agreed to meet her at her hotel on Friday, but we planned not to drive up together. I had some college friends that lived out that direction, so I planned to meet up with them Thursday night. Claire and I would meet real quick on Thursday before I left, then we'd share a hotel room (with separate beds) for Friday and Saturday nights.

That Wednesday, we met in the evening for our first attempt. I wasn't surprised but was nonetheless disappointed when Claire answered the door wearing her "trap door" pants. She led us back to the bedroom, climbed on the bed and said, "You know the drill. Just give me a few seconds of warning." She pulled open the flap, and I could see her folds glistening a little from the lube she had already applied.

I sat on the chair, which was angled such that I could jerk off while looking at Claire. She was oblivious to my stare, working on a crossword puzzle as she lay back, her legs bent and crossed. She innocently bounced a foot in the air and chewed on the cap of her pen. She did crossword puzzles in pen- that was bold.

I started to stroke myself faster, remembering what Claire looked and felt like the last time we had done this. I remembered the heavenly vision of her body writhing on top of me while holding me deep inside her. It only took me a few minutes to feel my balls churning. "Claire..." I said softly, still stroking furiously. I stood up, waiting for her to get to the edge of the bed.

"Hmm?" she grunted, not looking up, then, "Oh...sorry!" She uncrossed her legs, but I was too close to wait for her to scoot to the edge. Climbing onto the bed, I pushed her legs open and guided myself in. I started cumming just as I entered.

I groaned as I came, and Claire held her crossword puzzle to the side, where she could still see it. I pulled out as soon as I was done pulsing inside her, then tossed her the pillow I had accidentally knocked off the bed. She propped it under her ass, closed her flap and casually asked, "You sticking around?"

I sat back in the chair and said, "I think I have another episode or two in me tonight." Claire smiled without looking away from her puzzle, wrote a few letters down, then tossed it aside.

"Hand me the remote..."

*******

Before I left that night, Claire and I got our story straight. She pointed out that people would probably assume, no matter what we said, that I was her boyfriend, despite the age difference. That was one funny moment in our conversation, when it became clear that neither of us knew how old the other one was.

"Guess," she told me, when I asked her age. A big, tight-lipped smile spread over her face and her eyes were playfully wide.

"Don't do that to me. That's just cruel," I begged her.

"Guess," she demanded, more seriously.

"Fine. I'd say 32."

Claire turned down the corners of her mouth and grunted while nodding her head. "I'm impressed. You went for honesty over obvious flattery or pandering."

"How'd I do?"

"Close. I turn 32 in a couple months."

I was relieved that I wasn't too far off. Then I asked her, "And me? What's your guess?"

"Well, you've got this boy-ish face, which makes me think you're probably older than you look. I'll say 29."

"Twenty-six," I said, watching her eyes go wide.

"Oh God," she said softly.

"It's OK...I'm really twenty-six and a half," I joked.

"We wouldn't have even been in high school at the same time," she mused. "You were 12 when I started college!"

"Claire," I said, trying to snap her out of a daze, "it's no big deal. We're not a couple or anything, right?"

She shook her head clear and said, "You're right. It's just...I'm thinking of this weekend and what to tell people."

"Easy," I said, having thought this through already on my own. "We're neighbors, we are in a music group that jams together, and I happened to mention a business trip this weekend that would be in the same city that you were going to be visiting. You invited me to the wedding as a friend."

"Sounds plausible, except for the business trip part. What will you do when people ask about your business? Tell them you have a lawn to mow?"

I narrowed my eyes at that comment. Claire obviously didn't understand what I did. I took a breath to calm myself down and said, "I just landed a contract with a conference center outside of town here. They don't know what they want me to do yet, so I'm researching similar sites before I make a proposal."

Claire looked at me and said, "OK...I'm very impressed. Did you just make that up?"

I laughed and said, "No no no no. It's all true- everything I just said is one of my current projects. The only stretching of the truth is that I'm not traveling 6 hours away to do research. There's enough stuff nearby and enough pictures online that I don't need to do that. But I doubt anyone would press that issue. Usually at occasions like that, people's eyes glaze over once the words, 'contract,' 'proposal,' and 'research' make their way into a sentence."

"Guilty," she said, raising her hand to confess.

"So I think we'll have no problems avoiding any nosy aunts and well-meaning cousins."

"Yeah..." she said, her mind clearly working on something. "About that...I guess Friday night would be the best time to give you the run down on some things to expect. That way you'll remember it better on Saturday."

"OK," I said, "just make sure you don't get too drunk at the rehearsal dinner to remember to talk to me about it."

Claire surprised me by simply sighing and saying in a sad voice, "We'll see."

*******

Thursday was the same thing as Wednesday, only it was at noon, instead of at night. Claire took a half day off work that day, and I had put my assistant in charge from Thursday through Saturday. We met at her place, and Claire sat on her bed eating a salad while I rubbed myself, sitting in the chair next to her bed.

Once again, I let my memories of last month and my anticipation of Saturday fuel my fantasies, and in a few minutes I was warning Claire to get ready. This time, she made it to the edge of the bed just as I stood up. I sank into her and needed a few hard thrusts to finish. It was at the same time satisfying and disappointing. I tried to remember that at least we would be having sex that weekend...and once a month for as long as...well, for until one of us called it off.

As I pulled out, Claire asked me, "So you're sure you have the address and directions and everything?"

"All set," I said, taking a deep breath and feeling not quite ready to talk. I was still just beginning to soften and would have liked to still be inside her when I did.

"And you've packed your fancy clothes...and nice shoes...and..."

"I'm a big boy, Claire. I can take care of myself."

"I used to babysit kids who are now the same age as you," she couldn't resist pointing out. "I feel some level of responsibility for you. Plus, I don't want you forgetting something and making Saturday any more stressful than it needs to be."

"I promise, I'm all set. Trust me."

She closed her eyes and sighed, then said, "I know. Really, I do, and I know I can trust you...more so than most guys I've gotten to know."

"Well," I said, not wanting to think about the extent to which I was violating her trust, "I'm going to change my pants and hit the road. I'll see you tomorrow at the hotel."

"You'll be there by seven, right? I don't want to lose the room."

"I'll be there by four, most likely. I'll hit the pool, probably, but I should be back in the room by the time you get back from the rehearsal dinner."

"OK. I'm just nervous that something's going to go wrong."

"It'll be fine- it's not that complicated," I said, zipping my jeans and heading to the bathroom to wash my hands. I considered that she was probably nervous about something else, and odds were it had a lot to do with facing her family. But it was easier to channel those fears towards something concrete, like the logistics of the weekend.

I shook my hands dry and walked towards the door.

"Can you keep me posted, so I know everything's working out?" she asked nervously.

"I'll text you when I check in tomorrow," I said, trying to veil my impatience.

"I guess that's good enough," she said, biting her fingernail.

I opened my mouth to share some words of encouragement or assurance, but not knowing what the deal was with her family, I thought better of it, and left with a simple, "See you tomorrow."

*******

I drove for four hours, listening to a few new albums I had bought for the trip. Jamming with Claire and the others had renewed my passion for music, and I was trying to expand my horizons. I had asked each of my fellow jammers to recommend one album, then bought all four of their recommendations. Not everything was my style, but there's something uniquely enjoyable about listening to something you normally wouldn't. And knowing that I could go talk to Rusty or Mona or Steve or Claire about the album they liked was reason enough to give them a few listens.

That evening, I met up with a few college friends for dinner- some guys I had known from playing baseball. None of them had gone pro- I was the only one at our school who had seemed to be headed down that path- and the three of them had coincidentally ended up in the same city, all working very different jobs. We hadn't seen each other in 5 years, and it was nice to catch up and swap old stories. Two of the four of us were still single, and I was the only one who was technically 'unattached.' I tuned out a lot of the talk about kids. I could smile and nod and make appropriate responses, but I really didn't want to think about it.

Most of them knew I had been engaged, but not all of them had known that Morgan had left me. That led to a lot of conversation about women and the trouble they bring. I never feel totally comfortable when men start complaining about their wives like that, but as I listened, I couldn't help but think about how Claire measured up. I didn't think of her as my girlfriend- not even close. But she was my friend, and we did occasionally have something resembling sex. And to be honest, Claire measured up pretty favorably.