Page 31 of Cascade

I nod, clinging to Oscar, huddled against the fridge door as far from the back door as I can be still in the kitchen. Archer opens the door and shouts, “Hey!” Into the cold night. The noises stop. And then I smell the foul stench of sulfur, just as Archer starts cursing. “Son of a bitch!”

“Skunks,” I whisper into Oscar’s fur. He jumps out of my arms and runs upstairs as Archer staggers back into the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Archer

WHEN I SAID I wanted to get back into Opal’s life, I sure as hell didn’t mean like this.

But even as I gag at my own stench from the pair of skunks who sprayed me in her back yard, I feel warm all over when I see her hiding a laugh and a smile. I helped put that look on her face, so I’ll take it.

We very quickly determine that Opal and Oscar can not stay in her house. I got sprayed with her back door open, and the stench permeates her small space.

“You gather Oscar’s things together,” I tell her as she gags and coughs. “You can stay with me.” She nods, reaching for cans of cat food. I send a flurry of panicked texts to my dad, who calls but can’t talk because he’s laughing.

“Hoo, son,” he says. “You thought you were going over there to get LAID and instead you got SPRAYED!”

“Very funny, dad.” I have washed my hands a thousand times in Opal’s sink and it hasn’t made a lick of difference. “Am I fucked forever or is there a cure for this?”

“Do you have any peroxide at your house?”

“Of course I don’t have peroxide,” I snarl, but Opal shouts from the bedroom that she’ll toss some in her bag. Of course the midwife has that.

“Why in the hell would you go out there if you knew it was skunks fighting,” he asks, still laughing.

“Opal thought it was a kid crying or a ghost or some shit.” I give up on washing my hands and try not to touch my face. “You about ready, Opal?” My dad is still laughing hysterically, but I manage to take note that he wants me to mix the peroxide and baking soda with dish soap and take a bath in it, so I hang up on him. “I need to start walking home, babe.”

“I’m here,” she says, clicking a leash in place around the cat’s neck. I raise a brow at her, expecting her to have some sort of carrying box for the cat, but Oscar starts walking regally down the sidewalk and I just roll with it.

I expect her to walk behind me or on the opposite side of the street from my reek, but she surprises me by squeezing my hand. At least she appreciates that I burned off all the hairs in my nose shooing away some fighting rodents.

“Tomorrow, my dad says you should boil vinegar and open the windows and run some fans,” I tell her. She pulls her shirt collar up over her nose. “Hey,” I say, catching her eye in the street light. “I’m glad you called me.” I can’t help but grin at her, because it’s true. Even covered in skunk spray, I’m happy to be with her, happy that she looked to me when she was distraught. “Thank you for trusting me,” I tell her, squeezing her hand. Oscar looks over his shoulder, and seems to approve.

When we get to my house, I start to think the smell has subsided a bit until we get inside the door. It’s just more concentrated in the confined space. Oscar and Opal both wrinkle their noses at me and I sigh. “Can you get going with the mixture my dad suggested? I’m going to throw away everything on my body.”

“You’re going to be naked outside?” Opal’s eyes widen. I shrug. It won’t be the worst thing the neighbors have seen, and I won’t be out there long.

“Beats having any of this stuff inside my house,” I tell her, shedding clothes as I head toward my trash cans at the top of the driveway. Once I shove everything in the trash, I rush back inside, past Oscar, and into the bathroom, where Opal sits on the edge of the tub, swirling the concoction with one arm.

Her long hair is a mess, sticking up from all angles from a slouchy bun and I’m distracted from my own situation by the sight of her there. “You are so beautiful,” I whisper, and she smiles at me over her shoulder.

“You better start scrubbing yourself, mister.” Opal stands up as I sink into the solution in the tub, splashing it up and over my head, rubbing it into my arms. “Do you have a washcloth?” Opal starts rummaging through my linen closet.

“Just give me the first thing you grab,” I say, dragging my nails through my scalp trying to get the stench out of my hair. I yelp when I feel Opal behind me, scrubbing my back.

“Are you in the tub with me?” I look over my shoulder, and find her there. Naked and perched behind me in the bath, sitting with me in the skunk cleaner. “This is insane,” I breathe, but she just smiles.

“It’s not really that much weirder than catching a baby in someone’s bathtub when they can’t get out in time,” she says, dripping more of the cleaner on my shoulders. I sit with her in the tub, feeling my cock harden despite the cold air and the foul smell. Somehow, getting scrubbed clean by this woman feels sexy to me. Or maybe it’s just the high of having her trust me. I was getting worried after she opened up to me on our date, then ghosted me.

“I thought maybe you were done with me,” I admit, leaning my head back against her chest as she reaches over my shoulders, washing my arms.

“You need a haircut,” she murmurs, and I nod, closing my eyes. “I can do that for you…if you want.”

I open my eyes and lock into her gaze. “That sounds amazing,” I tell her. “I bet you’re really good at that,” though I’m not sure why. Cutting hair just seems like the careful, precise sort of activity Opal excels at along with intuitively asking her patients the right questions and tracking the right health data to find the right things that might be lurking beneath the surface of their answers.

She smiles, a slight upturn of her pink lips. “I’m ok,” she says. She tosses the washcloth aside. “I think we might have gotten you stench-free.”

I shrug, settling back against her, even though I’m getting cold and we’re both sitting in an inch of stench liquid. “Should you maybe shower now?”

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