AN: I don't know how many of the dedicated readers knew this, but there was supposed to be pictures at the beginning of each new story. These represented text messages and add A LOT to the story. It turns out they were not added correctly and were not view-able. I recently fixed them so if you haven't done so got back and read the first chapter and last chapter of each story to read these text conversations. Honestly I don't why anyone would stick with this story without being able to read these parts, because otherwise the overarching story is impossible to follow. Thanks for staying with it anyways and let me know what you think or hit that like button.746Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3qRKusl5m3
Everly could feel his thoughts as they seemed to tentatively reach out and touch her. She didn’t see him but she could sense him. Her skin prickled as his thoughts bounced across her skin; a static charge causing her hair to stand on end. Everly quickly ran her tongue over her bottom lip, wetting it and breathed in his presence trying to draw him into her. She wanted him to fill her up, because she felt empty without him. She didn’t remember having her eyes closed until she had opened them and he stood before her. There was a distance between them and yet strangely there seemed to be no space between them at all. She felt that her essence had turned to a liquid that seeped from her body and mingled with his, twisting and mixing until she didn’t know where she stopped and he began. The pleasure was a constant breath that flowed in and out of her. She let herself move uninhibited with it as she looked into his eyes; his hazel eyes that never changed.
Everly awoke in her warm comfortable bed with the realization that she had been dreaming of him yet again. She rubbed her legs together, unconsciously seeking relief from her uncomfortable arousal. Her heart beat strongly and she was keenly aware of her breath. She closed her eyes for a second, imagining the way it felt to breathe him in and she slid her hand down into her panties and, rolling onto her stomach, she slid her fingers in between her folds massaging herself where it felt best. Her skin tingled as she imagined his lips ghosting above her skin. Everly dreamed of him so often that she knew that he had to be real. He was out there somewhere waiting to find her, to touch her as she now touched herself. She massaged herself in circles with a firm pressure that quickly and efficiently brought her to a climax that only barely slated her thirst. She exhaled, disappointed.
Everly rolled back over tangling herself in her blankets as her breath returned to normal. She looked at her alarm and saw that it was set to go off in the next five minutes. After debating if she should wait for the alarm, she decided to get up and start her day. She sat up and her long straight black hair fell in front of her face as she leaned forward. With one hand she pushed her hip length hair back over her shoulder as she simultaneously stood, stretched, and wiggled her toes.
She stepped barefoot across her room to her record player, where her morning routine always began. She fingered through a crate of her records and chose David Bowie’s A Space Oddity. A scratchy sound emanated from the speakers as she placed the needle to the record surface. The song began its slow introductory crescendo as she walked into her adjoining bathroom and brushed her teeth. Everly breathed in and out, relishing the minty flavor of her toothpaste and turned back into her room.
A black and white picture of Paul McCartney looked back at her as she half-hazardly pulled her long hair over her shoulder, twisting it around her hand. She smiled at the two dimensional picture and walked to her closet, trying to decide what she would wear today. She had to abandon two outfits as she realized that the necessary articles of clothing to finish each ensemble were dirty. Ground Control was telling Major Tom that something was wrong by the time she stood dressed in front of her a mirror that stood on top of her dresser. She wore a simple brown sleeveless shift dress that came to her upper thigh, and a pair of psychedelic yellow, orange, and green geometric patterned tights. She picked up her brush and began singing along with the music, her voice easily taking the harmony, as she ran the brush through her hair.
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you…
Here, am I floating by my tin can
Far above the moon…
Planet Earth is blue
And there is nothing that I can do
The song finished while Everly brushed out the last remaining tangles, swaying dreamily to the last chords of the song as if she were floating in space. She closed her eyes and imagined the moon under her feet, the earth above, surrounded by a spiral of pin point stars just like the Apollo astronauts who had landed on the moon just last month. How groovy it would be to sway among the stars. Perhaps, if she changed her major, she could one day go to space, but she quickly dismissed the idea as it would have required working for The Man.
Finally finished with her hair, Everly looked to her alarm clock and saw that she still had plenty of time before she had to leave. It was Friday, and she only had one class today; Poetry 101. She skipped across her room and pulled her copy of Alice in Wonderland from her shelf piled high with many books. She turned to her second floor window and opened it as she sat down on her window sill. She flipped open the book to reveal a cut out space within the pages and pulled out her stash of grass. She quickly rolled herself a joint and lit it, inhaling the pungent woody smoke. As she exhaled, she fought the urge to cough and blew the smoke back onto the lit end of the joint making it glow a stronger orange color.
She looked out onto the suburban neighborhood that surrounded her childhood home, as she picked off a small speck of shake from her tongue that had come off of the end of the doobie. The grass had an immediate effect. Everly gripped the edge of the window sill and leaned against the wall not wanting to fall as she felt a foggy dizziness float down to settle on her head. The world slowed considerably and she sank comfortably into the new velocity.
The wind blew by as Everly inhaled on her doobie again. Her record came to a scratchy end and the sounds of the placid neighborhood rose to take its place. Children were yelling over the handlebars of their bikes as they rode to school. Cars were starting and driving away from waving house wives in faded house coats. Dogs barked at cats and birds chirped at them from the trees. It was the soundtrack to her childhood. How boring.
It wasn’t really a fair assessment, she knew. Disconnected from the horrors of the Second World War, she couldn’t possible truly grasp the need of her parents’ generation to make such a pristine setting for their children. It had been a very comfortable childhood; full of ignorant hope and white washed values. Her parents could never have guessed that their hope to lift their children above the adversity of their generation left their children unprepared for the reality that life wasn’t squeaky clean. It was a beautiful lie, but a lie none the less, and the street that she looked down on was an artifact, time-locked in its dream of peace and prosperity, while the world around it had violently and chaotically fought for what the dream promised but had never truly delivered.
Everly sucked the smoke through the joint again simultaneously drawing the scratchy smoke into her lungs and immediately coughed, unable to subdue the tickle in her lungs any longer. She bent over, coughing loudly in an attempt to scratch the itch.
“Everly, are you getting sick?” she heard her mother say from the hallway outside of her room.
“I’m ok.” She said, punctuating it with one forceful cough.
“Are you sure? That cough sounds bad.” Her mother responded, her voice growing louder from the other side of the door.
Everly quickly took one more draw on the doobie and began to put it out. As she spoke, the smoke drifted out of her mouth, “I’m fine mom, I promise. Give me a second, I’m changing.” Everly put everything back into Wonderland, closed the window and sprayed some perfume while she carried on her conversation with her mother through the door.
“Ok, if you say so. Breakfast is ready. I made pancakes and bacon. You better hurry and get down there before your father and brother eat it all.” Her mother said cheerfully.
Everly’s moth salivated involuntarily and spared a glance at the clock. While pancakes did sound exceedingly delicious at the moment, she didn’t really have time for such a large meal not to mention, she usually didn’t like eating so heavily first thing in the morning. “Oh… umm… thanks mom, but I over slept. I don’t have time for breakfast and I’m not really hungry.”
Her mother’s voice rose in pitch predictably, “But honey, you have to eat breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day!”
Everly started filling her backpack with clothes and hey copy of Alice in Wonderland, “I’ll grab something on campus. You can come in now.”
Her mother opened the door and stepped into her room as she said, “Honey, it will be a while before you’re on campus. Have a home cooked… What on earth are you wearing?”
Everly looked up surprised by her mother’s sudden change in her train of thought, “What? You don’t like it?”
“Everly your dress… it’s just so short.” Her mother said softly as she walked up and pulled down on the hem of her dress trying in vain to make it longer.
Everly scrunched her eyes and gently pushed her mother’s bleach withered hands away from her dress. “Come on mom. Get with the times.” She moved gently past her mother who chewed on the skin around her thumbnail. She stared at Everly’s dress as if the sheer weight of her concentration would make Everly’s hem magically lengthen. Everly grabbed a large floppy hat from her closet and a pair of round oversized glasses and turned back to her mother; a shrine of domesticity. Everly inherited her beauty from her mother, but while she was still in the blush of youth, her mother had faded like a dress that had been washed one too many times.
“I’ll see you on Sunday, mom. I’m staying with Lucy. We have a project we need to work on.” Everly stated matter of factly, as she threw her pack over her shoulder and turned to leave the room.
“Honey, you can’t leave without eating something. At least have some toast and tang. It’s what the astronauts drink!” Her mother said following her into the hall.
Everly paused at the top of the stairs and decided she was hungry. The munchies were not to be taken lightly. “Ok mom. If you insist.”
“I do.” Her mother responded simply as she drifted down the staircase past her, her obvious pleasure crinkling the crow’s feet around her eyes.
Everly entered the kitchen slightly behind her mother who was already busy pouring her a glass of tang and making her some toast. She let her pack drop besides the breakfast table and began leafing through the sections of the newspaper discarded by her father, who currently had his head buried in the economic section shuvling suryp covered pancakes into his mouth. Her brother, Chuck, was focused squarely on his own plate, his cheeks puffed out with food like a chipmunk.
“God Chuck. Don’t you know how to chew?” Everly asked as she pulled the front page section and began looking over the headlines.
“We don’t take the Lord’s name in vain in this house Everly.” Her father said softly from behind his newspaper.
“Sorry” Everly responded automatically as she sat down and looked over the headlines. She heard her brother snort through the soggy pancake mash that filled his mouth. Her mother sat down a plate of buttered toast with raspberry jam and a glass of tang. She looked up at her mother and said, “Thanks mom”
Her mother squeezed Everly’s shoulder and smiled warmly at her. Everly turned back to the newspaper as she chewed on the fresh toast. A headline caught her attention. “Hey have you seen this story about the Tate murders?”
Her mother slipped into the last vacant chair at the table with a cup of coffee. “I have, isn’t it just awful? Only a monster could be capable of something so awful. Do they have any leads?”
“It doesn’t look like it. There is a theory that it was a drug deal gone wrong or something.” Everly said before sipping her tang. She would have preferred real orange juice but her mom was on this austronaut kick.
“It’s just so awful that someone could kill someone so young, so beautiful, on the eve of their first child. It makes me wonder what the world has come to.” She said, her eyes staring blankly at nothing in particular. She sighed before looking back up at Everly. “It fills me with worry every time you and Chuck leave the house.”
“Don’t worry Mom, that was in Los Angalos. What could possibly happen to us here in this suburban tranquility.” Everly said without looking up; sarcasm lacing subtly through her words.
“Don’t give your mother attitude” her father said from behind his newspaper.
“Sorry” Everly responded lazily before taking another bite of toast. She chewed and continued to read the article when her mother’s hand on her own caught her attention.
“Everly, I’m serious.” Her mother said softly drawing Everly’s attention. She looked up to see her mother’s eyes, strong, fierce, and absolutely captivating, staring into her with a lifetime of hidden experience and wisdom.
“I know you think I’m old fashioned.” Her mother began. “Perhaps I am, but that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant of the way things are. I know you feel wrapped up in this flashy, forward-thinking world. This peace and love and equality, it all sounds very lovely. And I’m happy that you feel a part of something special. I just want you to be careful. Evil people don’t advertise that they’re evil, and destructive behaviors start off as innocent fun. Just like a frog in a pot; the temperature increases gradually. You’re on the precipice of adulthood full of unforeseen dangers and pitfalls.” She paused, her eyes slightly sad as she rubbed her thumb along Everly’s hand. “You think you’ve out grown me, but I can’t help but remember the little girl I held and comforted with her skinned knees. It was always my job to protect you, but now it’s time for you to protect yourself. Don’t let my hard work go to waste.”
Everly chuckled and squeezed her mother’s hand. “Don’t worry mom. I won’t” She didn’t understand what had brought on her mother’s sudden sentimentality but Everly realized that she had mistakenly painted a simplification of her mother in her mind. The women in front of her had hidden depths of understanding, intuition, and empathy that traversed the generation gap, coupled with the wisdom of experience. Everly had underestimated her mother. She thoughtfully finished her toast and tang, and as she wiped her ace she stood and turned to her mother. Everly gave her mother a long hug, lingering in the homely smell of her mother. “Thanks for breakfast mom. I love you.”
Her mother simply nodded after the hug ended and said, “I love you too.”
Everly picked up her bag and said to everyone. “I’ll be back Sunday. Bye Chuck, Bye Dad.”
They both said their farewells in unison without looking up from the table after which Everly turned and walked out of the door. She walked the ten minutes to Lucy’s house in thoughtful silence. Her feet knew the way allowing her mind to add in the colorful paint strokes to her mother’s more accurate portrait within her mind.
“Hey Everly, come back! What are you doing?” The sound of Lucy’s voice interrupted Everly’s ponderings and she looked up to see that she was walking right past Lucy’s driveway.
“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking deep thoughts and forgot where I was for a second.” Everly said, looking up the driveway. Beside Lucy’s car there stood a couple of long lean men with chin length hair.
“Sounds like some far out meditation. Come on. Meet Larry and Carl.” Lucy said grabbing Everly’s hand and taking her up the driveway. “Everly, Larry, Carl.” Lucy quickly introduced them.
“Hey” they both said in subdued unison.
Lucy turned back to Everly with an excited expectant air. She was shorter than Everly. Today she had flowers in her wavy dirty blonde hair. “They were just telling me about this music festival happening up state. They have tickets but they need a ride. They asked me, and I wanna go. They have an extra ticket with your name all over it, but we have to leave now.”
“Now? But we have class.” Everly responded.
“Come on Everly, class will be there when we get back. This festival is supposed to be out of sight.” Lucy pleaded.
“I was supposed to present a poem today.”
One of the guys spoke up at this point, his voice pulled out long like taffy. “Gonna be a groovy scene; Zeplin, Hendrix, and Joplin are all gonna be there. You’d really be missin’ out”
“Joplin?” That got Everly’s attention. She loved Janis Joplin. In a way, she wanted to be Janis Joplin or at least live like Janis Joplin. She bit her lip and with a small smile at the corner of her lips she nodded at Lucy. “Ok, I’m in.”
Lucy jumped up and down hugging Everly. “Yes! This is gonna be so much fun Everly. You can’t even imagine. Come on let’s get going. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
“Shotgun!” cried one of the guys and got in the front seat of the car dropping his back pack between his legs.
Lucy continued to talk about how great it was all going to be as everyone got into the car. As the car began to descend the driveway, the guy sitting next to her began to roll a doobie, and she looked out of the window. “So where exactly are we going?”
Lucy responded, “Some no-place town called Woodstock.”
ns 15.158.61.16da2
