Chapter Twenty-Four

All I want is to see you smile,
If it takes just a little while,
I know you dont believe that its true,
I never meant any harm to you.
Don’t Stop
Fleetwood Mac

Back in his home Nick racked his brain as he worked late into the evening on his projected plan for his Mother’s physical therapy.  It had been a long time since he’d had to do one of these and with the mood Annie was in he knew it had to be perfect. After much debate and research he came up with what he thought was an appropriate plan of action and presented it to Annie later in the night as she sat at the dining table going over past applicants for Sven’s old job.  “Of course it’s all subject to your approval,” he said easily, “and I’ll need to see her medical records to be sure about everything but….”

“I’ll have to get Dad to sign a release,” Annie sighed, “and then you can see them.” She glossed over the plan he’d come up with then chucked it aside on the table in favor of looking over the previously rejected applications.

“Sign a….what the hell?” Nick asked.  “Look, Annie,” he tried to control his temper and his frustration as he knelt down next to the chair she was sitting in. “I know you’re pissed at me and we’re having a rough patch don’t take it out on my Mother.”

Was that what she was doing?  If it was it wasn’t she meant and it was the last thing she wanted.  Annie picked up the three page plan and looked at it again this time with a keener eye.   She hated to admit it because she didn’t want to give him so much as a single inch any longer. “It’s good Nick.” She looked down at him and into those warm brown eyes she loved so much.  “All I want you to do is tell me who she is, that’s all.”

It took Nick a few second to catch on to what she’d said then his eyes grew wide and he stood up.  “Who who is? You think I’m cheatin’ on you?” 

“What am I supposed to think?” She asked grateful the kids were out for the night.  “I wake up in the middle of the night to an empty bed and an empty house. You come home all sweaty and breathless telling me that you went out for a late night run…”

“I did. Honestly, Annie, that’s why I’m sweaty and breathless; I’ve been running.”  Nick was shocked to hear that his pretty little Annie thought he was sneaking off to be with another woman in the night.  That he would just leave her alone in their bed like that, the idea was unfathomable to him. Had he been that much of an asshole over the last few months?  “There’s no other woman, just you.” Nick went for those late night runs because he had horrible nightmares that woke him up in cold sweat and he couldn’t remember them later but the sensations stayed behind well into the next day. It was dark and cold. It was ugly.  He just didn’t know what ‘it’ was.  Dad said maybe it had something to do with the injections Nick took and for so long but that wasn’t it. Every time he got a boner lately all he wanted to do was stick it in a shredder and not in his wife.

“Oh come on, Nick,” she groaned. Annie wanted so desperately to believe him but she just couldn’t. Nick had always been very active with her in bed and if he wasn’t getting it from her then he had to be getting it somewhere else. “I was there, I saw those women on that planet. They’re all supermodels and I saw the way they looked at you.” Annie pushed the papers on the table away from her as she felt the tears in her eyes. “Look at you.”

“Yeah, I’m some big prize.” Nick snorted.

“You are to me.” Annie said softly as she turned to look at him. “You belong on the cover of a magazine, you always have.”  She so hard to stop from crying her bottom lip quivered and she bit down on it to keep it still.  Nick reached out for her and Annie let him pull her close. She breathed deep of his masculine scent and nuzzled her face into his chest.  “You know, I could never believe my luck with you,” she mumbled still trying not to cry. “The first time you asked me out I thought someone put you up to it.”

It took him months to get up the nerve to ask her on a date. Back in school he was every girl’s big brother. Oh, they all let on like they wanted more than that but when it got right down to it, because of his massive size in every department, they were all too afraid of him to be involved.   Not Annie she always treated him like an equal and had a habit of putting him down which was something most of the other kids wouldn’t dare do on their best day.  She had a sparkle in those beautiful blue eyes and every time she turned them his way his heart beat faster and his breath froze in his chest. “What?”

“Oh come on, Nicky,” Annie protested, “When we were dating every time you looked at me I thought I just had to be the luckiest girl in the whole wide world.  It was so hard for me to believe that you were really interested in me and it wasn’t some comic joke. Even now I can hardly believe it. You’re here with me, little Annie Wilkes, poor ugly mis-fit waif from the wrong side of the tracks. The one with the hair that would never stay down and the slutty mother. Everyone was sure I’d turn out to be just like her.”

The kids in school had been very cruel to poor little Annabelle Wilkes and Nick stood up for her on more than one occasion and told them to leave her alone.  Kids, it’s their nature to mock whatever is different so they can feel better about their own inadequacies. “You’re nothing like your mother and don’t you talk like that again. I never once thought of you like that.” Nick said softly as he held her a little closer.

Annie went on as though she hadn’t heard him at all. “Now look at me, I’m 35, I’ve gained a little weight and I’ve got these lines around my eyes and my hair is starting to get some grays and…I’m getting older and you’re not. You’re always going to be young and handsome. How can I compete with that?”

“Com-compete?” Nick pushed her away to look at her. “You will always be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.  I couldn’t believe my luck when you said you’d let me take you out. Whatever’s wrong here Annie, it’s not you it’s me.  I wish I knew what was wrong so I could fix it but I don’t.”  Feeling the warm weight of her in his arms made him so conflicted. Half of him wanted to throw her down and make mad passionate love to her until the sun came up and the other half cringed at the thought and wanted to hide in a corner some where. “I’m sorry I’ve made you feel unwanted or un—“ he stopped because it was so damn difficult to get the word out of his mouth when she was so beautiful, “unattractive, aw baby, nothing could be further from the truth.  You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, Annie. I’d die without you.” Nick pulled her in close again and wiped the tears welling in his eyes.

Annie wanted nothing more than to relish the warmth and comfort of him but she couldn’t.  “I know,” she whispered with her face still buried in his broad chest. “Dad told Mom and me about,” she stopped and swallowed hard before she went on, “about the private strip club and the little sample you gave them. He told us about the two women he had.” She shook her head and sniffed back her tears.  “They’re gorgeous Nick how could you possibly not touch them?”

Nick felt both ashamed and relieved.  He wanted to tell Annie about the sample he’d left and just how it was obtained but he didn’t want to hurt. Since nothing happened Nick thought it best to keep that tid-bit to himself but it seemed the cat was out of the bag and so he told her all about it as gently as he could. Yes, they were beautiful. Yes, they wanted him. They danced for him and enticed him but he swore up and down he’d never even touched them. Not once. And why?  “They’re not you, baby.  They’ll never love me like you do and I could never love them. Don’t you know no other woman will ever replace you in my life? I love you, Annie.” 

“I love you too, Nicky.  If you don’t want me anymore I understand.” She whispered wanting with all her heart to believe him but unable to do so. “I’m not going to get any younger.”

As a man, Nicholas wanted nothing more than to scoop up his wife in his arms, carry her up the stairs but the thought of putting his hardening dick into a shredder and the idea that it was more preferable than putting it inside Annie just wouldn’t let go.  “I love your gray hairs,” he whispered. He’d noticed them the last time he was home for a few days before they all went to the planet and thought she was going to be a super-sexy grandma in a few years.  As for the ten pounds or so she’d gained since they got married almost twenty years ago; who cared?  She was always on the skinny side anyway. “I can’t make you younger but I can make it so you stop aging.” Nick laid a long soft kiss on the top of her head.  “Do you want that, Annie?  You could be Immortal like me. We could spend forever together or, you know, at least a longer than most people get.”

Over the years Annie had thought about it often but never broached the subject with Nick. “Why did you ever ask me before?”  Seemed a little pointless now that she was nearing middle age and he still looked like he was twenty.

“You never seemed interested.  I didn’t think it was something you wanted and I didn’t want to push it on you.” That was true but what ever truer was the fact that Nick never really thought about it. They were both young and strong.  He never thought that she’d grow old without him one day or that he would lose her to Death. That all seemed so far away and well, it just seemed like it would never happen.  Now that he saw what his Mother was going through Nick knew differently.    He would lose Annie one day and he never wanted that to happen but it was her choice. “I don’t want you to change for me, I love you the way you are, and I’ll love you even when you’re an old old lady.  I’ll love you, Annie, no matter what.”  He held on to her a little tighter.  “If you want, I’ll ask Umpa to give you the Red Ambrosia. You know he will.  He really likes you, he admires you, he always has.”

“Why?”

“For putting up with me.” Nick cracked and let out a little chuckle.  “I’d like nothing more than to spend forever with you.” Well that was what he wanted but maybe she didn’t.  “Something to think about, ok?  I mean I’ll understand if you don’t want to spend forever with me.”

Annie loved him with all her heart but if things didn’t start changing she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stick around.  “Is there anything you want to talk about?”  She wasn’t ignoring him but, as Daniel thought earlier, perhaps Calla was right and Nick didn’t remember not only because of the extreme amount of Xerinium he’d ingested but because what happened afterwards was so horrible his brain wasn’t letting him.

“No,” Nick said and tried to smile not liking the concerned look in her eyes.  “I’m just in a mood, a rut, whatever.  If I can work with Mom then that’ll change,” he promised as he smoothed the palm of his hand through her hair.  “Just sitting around here doing nothing puts me on edge.” That was a lame excuse but he hoped it would suffice.  “Why don’t you come upstairs with me and I’ll give you a massage?”  Touching her sounded good to him, Nick always loved to touch her and run his hands all over her body. She looked like she could use the massage but anything beyond that he couldn’t promise and he hoped he wasn’t leading her on.  “I’ll rub you until you fall asleep.”

To Annie that sounded like a small slice of Heaven coming from a man who hadn’t done so much as cuddle with her the last two weeks.  “Ok.”  She let him lead her up to their bedroom for the night.

End of Chapter Twenty-Four of
Golden Years
by Moon Mistress
a/k/a Lisa Beth Darling
Go to
Chapter Twenty-Five