Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 11:31:46 -0500 From: Karla Schulz Subject: Carrots and Celery Part two Chapter 19 I mock you with my monkey pants! And by that, I of course mean - yay me, I'm done high school, woo hoo, woo hoo, woo HAA! --- In the morning it takes me forever just to recover from the impact of how lucky I am just to get to wake up beside him. Once done with the recovering I roll onto Celery and start kissing his neck. "Good morning to you too," he gets out around kisses. I barely pay attention. I want to take my kisses further down but I keep getting foiled by my desire for his lips. Suddenly I'm hit with a totally different feeling and I break off the kiss. "How are things at school?" Slowly coming back from lust land, Celery's eyes blink at me uncomprehendingly. "What?" "How's school?" He props himself up a bit on bent elbows, as I shimmy him down a little. We're able to look each other in the eye. "You wake me up by sucking on my neck. You kiss me enough to make my knees go weak even though I'm lying down," large pregnant pause, "and then you ask me how school is," I smile sheepishly. "I forgot before." He shakes his head. "And you picked NOW to remember?" "I got distracted," he sighs. "Don't be mad," he smiles. "I'm not. Not really. It's just... I don't know. Few things would have been able to distract me by that point," I blush. "It's just like important to me, how you're doing." "I'm fine, wonderful," he says with a shrug. "But how's school? I mean, how's stuff when you're not here?" "That's fine too. You know all that. Grades are good, works good, we got so-so silver in provincials, I'll be starting basketball after the break, I've been lifting but always with a spotter, I've been hanging with Saul... Baby, wouldn't you rather do stuff we CAN'T over the phone?" I laugh. "You're a hound," he shrugs again. "Have I ever denied that you turn me on?" I roll my eyes. "How 'bout the first 10 years you knew me?" He sticks out his tongue. "Semantics." "Hardly!" Through a laughing grin. He starts stroking my back, looking at me imploringly. Who wouldn't give in? "School's really fine?" With the last shred of my resolve. He rolls his eyes in a very outrageous, long-suffering manner. "Yes, it's great. Everything's fine. Are you satisfied?" I grin, already leaning closer. "Not even close." And then again, in the shower. So you can imagine why I'm like, you know, walking a little funny. Celery's all confused, following behind me back to the room. "Are you okay?" I glance behind my shoulder at him and smile. "Sure, great." He still looks concerned. "You're sort of hobbling or whatever." "Well, yeah." "Why?" I wait until I've shut the door behind us to raise my eyebrows at him. "Why do you think?" His eyes widen and he blushes. "It was me?" I smile. He goes from surprised to upset. "I hurt you?" "NO! Not really. It doesn't hurt exactly, it's just like... different," not much easing of the guilty look. "I'm such a bastard! I didn't even think about it," he falls onto my bed, hands on his hair, lying on his back. "I just wanted to be with you so badly, make you to feel good - I didn't even think about afterwards," full of self-malice. "Don't feel bad, please? I told you, I'm not like hurt or anything. I wanted you to, every time. But, it's just that you know, three times basically in a row is kind of a lot, you can't expect not to feel anything after," I'm smiling, and trying get him to understand that I'm happy and fine, but the message isn't being received. "I'm a selfish bastard," I kneel beside him, hands on his back, pleading look in my eyes, if he'd only stop avoiding them and see. "Celery, please don't shut off like this. I really really don't want that. Please, don't let this ruin it. Everything's wonderful and good. I don't want you feeling guilty 'cause I'm definitely going to want you to do it again - just not right now, you know like tomorrow or something?" Followed by one of my best weak please-laugh smiles. "Please, sweet one, tell me you're not upset," I'm pulling his hair back with my fingers, trying to see his face from when he rolled over with his back to me. He sighs. "I just..." "It was amazing, don't twist an amazing set of experiences into something bad, don't. I'm not going to let you." Finally a smile and his looking at me again. I slide down so we're chest to chest and kiss him. "I love you." "I'm sorry I hurt you." "You didn't!" I glare all fierce and dramatic. I look so ridiculous he eventually has to smile. "Okay. Still, I should have realized what would happen. Like, it' s not exactly rocket science," I swear, he didn't mean it like that! I kiss him again. "Maybe you shouldn't do that," he reproaches. I roll my eyes playfully. I'm too happy to be upset about anything. "I can kiss you without it leading to sex," he shrugs. "I guess." "You guess?" He grins. "You're fairly irresistible," I tisk a little. "Try to maintain," he rolls his eyes back and puckers all mock seductive and I laugh, shaking my head. "You're such an idiot," he smiles and leans up to kiss me. But just once. "Let's talk, okay? Do you want to hear more about school?" I have to laugh at the table turnage, but I eventually nod, snuggling down more against him. "Sure." So we mostly just try to keep it to talking, but as it is, we don' t get out of bed for the second time until around noon. Once that major manoeuvre has been completed we do the downstairs, grabbing and engulfing some grub from the kitchen thing. Our next move is to head back upstairs and we then proceed to burst into Kyle's place. Big mistake. Jonas is shirtless, straddling Kyle on the couch, one hand in between Kyle's legs. "Oh dudes!" I exclaim, recoiling in horror. "What the fuck!" Kyle shouts, while laughing from surprise. Celery's all blank with the horror. Jonas is blushing like a madman. Covering my face, I try to apologize, "Sorry, dudes, I keep forgetting I have to knock for you now." "It's okay," Kyle says, with a sigh. Celery's got his back turned and I'm still with the hand over my eyes. "You can look now," Jonas informs me. Hesitantly I do, and he's got his shirt back on, Kyle's all, um, zipped up, and they're both sitting normally on the couch. Still, this couldn't be more awkward. "We're REALLY sorry," I say. Celery nods repeatedly. "REALLY," Jonas rolls his eyes, but with a smile. "Don't worry about it. It could have just as easily as happened the other way, not like Kyle's ever heard of knocking," Kyle elbows him, but affectionately. "It's cool?" They nod. "Be that as it may, from now on I'm gonna remember to lock my door," Kyle adds. "Good idea," I say with emphasis. They laugh. "It's not like you haven't seen that kind of stuff before," Kyle convicts me. "Or done it," I make a face. "Would you have wanted to see Celery doing something like that to ME, Kyle?" He gets the major grossed look. "I see what you mean," with a final shudder. Jonas and Celery look at each other. There's grin action and together, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes, they mutter. "Brothers." On Monday, we celebrate Festivus. No metal pole, no airing of grievances, and no feats of strength, but we do spend the whole day exclaiming "It's a Festivus Miracle!" every time something even remotely good happens. Celery and I go on a like, cough, date, to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and have an excellent time. We laugh about priceless moments such as the many bizarre out of nowhere sinister eyebrow raisings of the actor playing Malfoy, his line, "I didn't know you could read" and the look of grudging respect that followed, and all the hilarious fluctuations in the voice of Ron's character. When Harry and Ron are together in the dark forest and Harry says, "shush Ron" is another cause of great amusement. We find this funny for private and mostly insane reasons. The next night we introduce Jonas to our family's Christmas Eve tradition of gathering together in the living room to watch Christmas type movies, eat mandarin oranges and drink nog. We always watch The Christmas Story (you know, that's the one about the crazy kid who wants a Red Ryder gun for Christmas but everyone keeps telling him he'll shoot his eye out), The Grinch (NOT the Jim Carrey version - that's like a travesty), and of course Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown. Another weird tradition Celery and I have is peeling each other' s oranges. We don't like feed them to each other and shit after, but we've each peeled the other's orange since he started coming to this 11 years ago. It's like a competition or whatever to see who can do the best job, you know, getting rid of the most of that annoying white pulp stuff and everything. We'll literally take like half an hour to do it. There's never really a clear winner though. We both think that whole, letting the other one win thing is totally lame, and since we both take like way too long, it's not really possible to judge. I get my orange about the time Ralphie's friend Flip's getting his tongue stuck to the flag pole, about a minute after I handed Celery his. "You are like extremely weird, O my brothers," Jonas informs us, as if we didn't know. We shrug. "Being normal is for losers." "Pipe down!" Jon shouts cheerfully from the floor. It sucks to be little in a big family. You always get the shaft with the seating arrangements. Well, not Kara, she's still so freakishly small she can sit on my mom's lap. Personally, I prefer Celery's. I have to say, this is the most excited I've ever been for Christmas morning. Bar none. Not that it has anything to do with presents really. Nothing's going to beat just waking up to Celery, and I really mean that. It's enough that it's another day I get to spend with him, and that's what makes this the best Christmas ever. "Merry Christmas, baby," he whispers, leaning over to kiss my nose. "You too, sweet one," I whisper back, forgetting the nose and going for the lips. Quick and closed mouth 'cause of the whole morning breath thing, but still, I have needs. "Why do I feel so much like a little kid?" I smile. "It's 'cause you're feeling the Christmas type joy like you haven' t since you were really little and still innocent and pure or whatever," he curls his lip slightly dubiously. "The first real Christmas I ever had was when I was six, and I was pretty un-innocent by then," I hold him tight, hoping that will make the bad memory go away. "Okay, then it's just 'cause you're so damn happy to be with me," he grins. "That sounds more like it." Even with my whole not caring about the presents thing, I'm still as eager as anyone else to rush down the tree. What can I tell you? I'm totally into Christmas trees. I love the way they smell, the way they look. The annoying needles that fall on the carpet that Kyle always has to vacuum up because vacuuming makes me sneeze. There's no downside. Okay, there is one. Jonas isn't here. But, I guess, he does have his own family, and I guess they like to have him around sometimes. That's understandable. He's a pretty cool guy. I imagine if I were his parents I'd also want him around on Christmas morning. It's a natural thing. Kyle's handling it well, so all in all, it's not the biggest deal. We'll get him back tomorrow. Oh, yeah. I forgot about the other downside. You should already be familiar with this one, since I introduced it to you during Thanksgiving. The food. I swear, there are DANGEROUS levels of food floating around right now. Like, you've got all the turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, weird salads stuff for the big meal, but then there's also the million dishes of chocolates everywhere, the heaping basket of mandarins, the candy canes (but who likes those anyway?) and all the like baked type goods. Shortbread and fruitcake and all that good Christmassy type stuff. I know it sounds impossible, but my dad actually makes a GOOD fruitcake - not an oxymoron any longer! I'm full just thinking about it, just wait until I've consumed half of it. I won't bore you with my long list of presents. As I believe I've already mentioned, the only one that truly matters to me is Celery, and his tickets were a present from both my parents to us. Still, I got some good shit. The one present I will tell you about is what Celery gives me when we're alone in my room taking a small private break from all the festivity and family bonding. "Turn around for a second," he requests. Happy to go along with whatever he wants, I promptly do. I hear him rustling around in his bag, and then he lets me know it's safe. "What is it?" I ask eagerly, taking a step forward. He smiles, handing it to me. "Check it out and see," I carefully unwrap his gift, and a killer lump immediately forms in my throat. It's us. Arms slung over shoulders, big crazy 7-year-old grins on our faces. Our matching ninja turtle backpacks on the ground by our feet. We also have matching bad mushroom cuts. Oh well. Celery looks incredibly cute in his. "When was this taken?" He smiles fondly. "It was the first day of school, grade two if I recall correctly. Our first anniversary," he teases with a glimmer in his eye. I smile with a mix of emotion and amusement. "I found it in a box of pictures I have, copies your dad's given me over the years. It seemed so perfect, and I couldn't remember another one like it in any of the photo albums you guys have here. Do you like it?" I want to be sarcastically snotty but I'm working too hard trying not to cry. "Yeah," I whisper. "Good," I give him a hug. "Like, a LOT, Celery. It's perfect," he grins. "I'm glad." Then he frowns. "So where's mine?" I laugh. "Give me a minute," he sighs comically, but slips out of the room. As soon as he shuts the door I start a mad scramble, going through everything in my room. No I'm not looking around my room for something to give him 'cause I forgot! What do you think I am? Some kind of a monster? What I'm doing is looking around trying to FIND what I got him. Don't you hate it when you put something in a `safe place' and then totally forget where that place is? Oh good, there it is. My gift's not really as cool as his, but I' m pretty sure Celery will still like it. "You can come back in now," I inform him. He returns, grinning. "Forgot where it was?" I glare at him. "Shut up. Do you want your present or not?" He nods quickly. "Okay. So, here," I say, thrusting it into his hand, suddenly nervous. He takes his time, reading the comics I wrapped it up in. "Come onnnn," I whine. He grins evilly, but then quickly finishes the job. His eyes bug out. "BABY! Where did you find this?" I laugh. "I have my ways," he's shaking his head, seriously blown. "No seriously. They don't even like make new copies of this any more." "Does that mean you like it?" He gives me the look I tried to give him before. "You're like, the best best-friend slash husband slash boyfriend in the entire world," I smile proudly. "I am pretty great, aren't I?" He gives me a long kiss, pretty much letting me know his answer. Then he goes back to lovingly fingering the tape. I'll fill you in now. I got him Baker 2G. For those of you who don't skate, it' s this really legendary skate video, which, like Celery said, is like almost impossible to get. He's been trying since it came out, but never with any success. I had a hell of a time, but it was worth it. And all the money I had to pay for shipping. What a bitch shipping costs are. Man. "Thank-you," he says, kissing me again. I smile. "You're welcome." --- Edited by Ed