❝ PICKET FENCE! ❞ → GRAY ✓

→ ii.ix

Act Two, Scene Nine

→ ❝ oh, happy birthday! ❞

             "Oh, God! Henry!" Carol moaned, throwing her head back in pleasure as she bounced on top of him, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes shut, "Oh, God!"

             "Fuck, Carol!" Michael swore, holding onto her hips to guide her as the headboard banged against the wall. It had been several days since they had come back from London, and Michael was sure that a dent was now in the wall that hadn't been there when they left.

             Polly had left earlier that morning to buy the weekly groceries, and it was the maid's day off, leaving Michael and Carol alone in the house. Carol had only got out of bed to make the couple some tea, but came running back up the stairs as soon as she had prepared the tray, claiming it was much too cold to be spending too much time out of the thick duvet. In turn, Michael had taken it upon himself to warm the two of them up. Carol didn't mind one bit.

             Carol giggled as Michael tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled her closer, kissing her and began to match her rhythm, "Henry!"

             Michael was at a slightly lower angle than her, leaning slightly against the headboard, and Carol wondered what she looked like from his vantage point. She struggled to believe it was very attractive – fully naked, her sweaty hair against her back and forehead – and was worried that Michael would leave her for a prettier woman, only staying with her because (at the moment) she was relatively pure and completely infatuated by him. Her thoughts killed the mood a little, and she pulled away from Michael.

             "What's wrong?" he said as Carol began to go up and down less enthusiastically, her pleasured smile fading, "Do you want me to do something different?"

             Carol shook her head. There was the sound of a door opening downstairs, but the couple barely heard it over the rising banging of the headboard as Michael started to thrust into Carol again while the girl rolled her hips, "Keep going," she said in a combination between a laugh and a moan, "Keep-"

             "Carol Mary Goodwin!" Carol fell off of Michael as the bedroom door slammed open and the screech of her mother met her ears. "What on earth do you think you're doing?!"

             "Mama!" she gasped in shock, pulling the white sheets over her naked body. "What are you doing here?! Why are you in here?!"

             Janet angrily opened the curtains (which scraped against the curtain rail), shedding the raw sunlight over the young couple. It was an uncomfortable parallel to the first night that Carol spent at the Gray's house. Michael chuckled quietly, reliving the same memory as Carol, as he intertwined his fingers and held the duvet over his lap. With a bit of luck, Janet Goodwin wouldn't be as intelligent as he remembered her to be.

             "I was coming to see how you are," Janet scolded, clasping her hands together in front of her stomach and holding on to her handbag tightly, as if somebody was going to pounce out and steal it from her, "Since you aren't answering any of my letters! You-"

             "You can't just walk into Mrs Gray's house, mama!" Carol talked over her mother.

             "Nobody was answering and the door was unlocked!" Janet stopped her rant to retort, unable to believe how insolent her daughter was being. In her eyes, this was not the same girl that had left Sheffield. "It is my God-given, maternal right to check in on my daughter, especially on her eighteenth birthday!"