"Does that mean you're on board with my doing the movie and the play?"
Gabby twisted her lips into a wry, skeptical smile. "Hold up, Mister. Don't try to pull a fast one on me. Let's take things a step at a time. I think we should see how you do on the movie. Why don't you tell Harry you're going to take the part subject to how you feel about how things went with the movie shoot. He knows what you've been through, he'll understand. Hell, he's an alkie himself. He surely can't cast the first stone."
Micky laughed. "Nope, that's true. Just don't say that to his face, okay, Gabby? He thinks no one has noticed it. It's pretty unbelievable the denial addicts can get into. But let's just let him come around when he's ready. Maybe I can get him to come to a meeting with me when I'm over there."
"Okay, I'll zip it. So when does the movie start to shoot and when does the play begin rehearsals?"
Micky was all business now. "The movie goes on location right after Labor Day and if it stays on budget and schedule, it should wrap by the first week of October. I'm going to insist that they don't make me linger around the set for weeks on end like the last movie. That was another big mistake I made with the last one. They were so disorganized and fucked up. There was no excuse for me having to be on a movie location for that long when I had so little screen time. I should have insisted they just shoot my scenes and let me go. But they wanted to keep me around because they didn't know their asses from their elbows. I almost ended up directing the damn picture! I swear, Gabby, I think that's where I want my career to head ultimately. I think I've got a knack for it."
Gabby smiled lasciviously and agreed "That you do, Micky. You've been directing our sex life with the most delicious fantasies, role plays and setups for years."
He broke into a goofy grin and said "Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it's been good training."
Gabby snapped back to practical mode. "Okay, and then when does the play start rehearsals?"
"They start in the new year. In England, the big thing for the Christmas theater season is what they call Pantomimes, so Harry doesn't want to compete with that. His play is geared towards younger viewers."
"Alright, Micky, as long as your sponsor is on board with all of this, then I'm okay with it. I can't keep you captive in California in a little protective bubble. I realize that. You need to spread your wings. You used to travel all over the world and entertain folks in all corners of the globe. I can understand why you'd yearn to do that again. And I admire your ambition to set yourself on a new career path. I'm proud of you and excited for you. It's exciting and it feels like we've come such a long way from that awful New Year's Day confrontation when I found your bottle of pills and we talked about what you wanted to do with your life and you said you'd like to pursue the theater."
They stood up from the table and embraced. Micky pulled Gabby into him as close as he could, trying to fuse their bodies as one. It was something he tended to do when he felt insecure about his standing with her or when he felt there was an emotional distance between them that needed closing. Gabby sensed Micky's insecurity and responded to it verbally:
"It's going to be okay, Micky. You have my trust and confidence. You came up with a plan and it's a good one. The difference between this time and last time is you had no plan last time. Remember the program slogan: those who fail to plan, plan to fail. You're going to be fine. I have faith in you and your recovery. I know you won't jeopardize what we have this time."
Micky squeezed Gabby tighter and murmured into her ear "No, I won't, babe. This time, I'm doing it for us. This movie, this play. I'm building a future for both of us. I'm not flailing around anymore. I have a plan, I have a path forward. I'm going to lift us up, not tear us down. I'm going to make you proud. I swear it."
She petted his back and let her fingernails graze his skin. "I know, Micky. I'm going to turn over the reins and just let you do it. I'm not going to try to control you or hold you back. I'm not your Higher Power. You've already got one and so do I. I'm here to support you and to enjoy the benefits of your hard work. How about you give me some of that enjoyment now, hmmm?"
She squeezed his butt cheeks and started to maneuver him out of the kitchen.
"Where?" he asked. This question nearly always preceded their lovemaking sessions. They were not a vanilla, boring couple when it came to sex. They lived in a large house and they liked to make use of the many choices it offered in terms of the setting for their trysts.
Gabby looked out toward the backyard. Their new one had a small shed that Micky had spiffed up and Gabby had decorated, converting it into a little hideaway, complete with a daybed. "Should we christen our new shed?"
Micky raised his eyebrow and looked towards it. "I think we need to give it a name. Shed sounds so primitive. How about we call it the 'Shag Shack?'"
Gabby burst out laughing and said "Well, that's not the main reason why I had you fix it up, but I admit the thought definitely did cross my mind when I was decorating it and picked out a daybed instead of a couch or chairs. That name reminds me of the Nooky Nook you guys had on the beach in Malibu." They paused to remember fondly some of the sexual hijinks they and the other Monkees got up to at that secluded cove. "Okay, we'll call it the Shag Shack. So is that the answer to where?"
Micky didn't answer, but just took Gabby's hand and silently led her out the French doors leading to the back yard. He stopped before entering the structure to admire the carpentry and painting work he had done. The little shed had white siding, with Victorian trim detailing painted pink and lavender, as per Gabby's unusually girly request. She admitted at the time that she was envious of the similarly hued princess play land structure that Micky had built Peter and Dawn's young daughter Charlotte in their backyard, the site of Micky and Gabby's reconciliation, and she had requested her own grownup version of it.
Gabby gazed appreciatively at the shack as well and threaded her hands around Micky's waist from behind. "You did a lovely job fixing her up, Micky. My very own princess castle. We've played at being royalty before, but we never had a palace to accommodate our activities, though I suppose the Ritz in Boston was rather palatial." She was referring back to past sexual fantasies they had constructed together.
Micky turned to her and said "I'm glad to have been able to make this fantasy real for you, my princess. I know what you wanted most was a time machine, so that none of the bad things we went through had never happened, but alas, that was beyond my humble abilities . . ." he trailed off.
Gabby grabbed hold of Micky tighter and said "No. Micky, no. I don't want a time machine anymore. What we went through, what happened, it was meant to be. We've walked through the fire and come out stronger, knowing ourselves and each other better, loving each other even more, valuing and cherishing what we have together far more because of the challenges we've faced. Life can't be a fantasy, a fairytale. That's why we make them up for ourselves when we make love. They're pleasant little diversions, little trips for our minds to take, to enjoy together. But real life, that's rough and it jostles us and it tests our strength and our character, and that's when we hold tighter to each other and we come out stronger for it. That's what I believe, having gone through all our travails over the last couple of years."
Micky nodded, then turned around to kiss Gabby gently and give her another of his all-enveloping hugs. They parted and Micky led her into the shack silently, knowing that now, they were entering a space where real life couldn't touch them, where none of the rules applied – not gravity, nor physics, nor logic. Only emotion, communication and trust mattered.
Micky led Gabby to the daybed and sat her down, but stayed standing in front of her. He gently ran his fingers over her facial features, still counting his blessings that he had reclaimed what he had lost – access to that lovely façade that fronted such a beautiful soul.
He trailed a fingertip around the edge of her bobbed haircut and her jawline, then to her lips, a habit of his that went all the way back to the first days of her allowing him to touch her at all. Fashions had come and gone, but Gabby's style was her own and timeless. She still wore her hair in a sharp-cut bob, similar to the one flapper movie star icon Louise Brooks sported in the roaring twenties. He admired Gabby's deep sense of self and disregard for trends and fads. She was his rock in a sea of confused lemmings chasing after the hottest, newest, trendiest styles and sensations. She knew who she was and what she stood for. In the maelstrom of life and a generation that by anyone's standards had been wild and tumultuous – the swinging sixties – Gabby stood apart from others as a leader, not a follower, committed to certain values and possessor of a vision that depended on her own tastes, interests and convictions, not the whims, caprice or excesses of others. Micky had immediately sensed this the night he approached Gabby and tried to hit on her at the nightclub where the Monkees had a long term gig, and she was still that rock-solid, stable force in his life that beguiled and bewitched him.
"What are you thinking, my Micky?" Gabby inquired. She sensed his mind was on a journey but had gone far away into the past, not off into the future or a fantasy. "You seem to be recalling something, not cooking up something for us now. I want to step into your thoughts. Let me in."
Micky smiled and said "Thank God we found our way back to each other and are able to communicate so deeply again. We're almost back to where I don't even have to speak. You're right. I was thinking about the past, not thinking of a future. I was thinking about the qualities you possess that made me fall for you instantly and that you still have now. Your hairstyle made me think of it." He ran all his fingers through it now.
"What about my hairstyle?" Gabby cocked her head.
"It's so you and nobody else, except for an echo of Louise Brooks. But I mean, it's like no one else from the sixties, when I met you, or the decade we live in now. You are yourself and nobody else. You don't roll with the traffic. You haven't been trying to keep up with the trends and fads. You never did go all hippie flower child. Even when we went to the Monterey Pop Festival. You wore the clothes that were very Gabby. All vintage, beaded sweaters and that cute little porkpie hat."
"Well, you wore a full-on Indian buckskin suit and headdress! I'd say we're both very iconoclastic and eccentric. We are who we are and we're true to that. We don't bother to try to conform. I mean, sometimes the shirts you wear could honestly end up in my closet, with all those ruffles and splotches and flowers! But you're not bothered by what anyone thinks. You just dress to please yourself."
Micky giggled. "That's true. I probably do have a bit of a crossdresser in me. I think it's down to me being a showman. I like flamboyant things and I like to dress to express."
Gabby ran her hands down Micky's chest and fingered the buttons on his shirt. "Like this lil' number. Whoever thought it was a good idea to wear harlequin diamonds with striped trousers, I'll never know, but somehow, you make it work. Let me see how it looks when it's lying on the ground." She started to unbutton his shirt, placing small kisses where each button popped open. When she made it down to Micky's belly button, she inserted her tongue inside it and wiggled it around, making him jump with both pleasure and sensitivity to the tickling sensation.
She slid the shirt from his shoulders, which had filled out over the years. They were no longer slim and ropy, but more muscular and solid, leading up to a neck that had also filled in and sat more stable upon his shoulders. Her fingers ran up to his neck and gripped it, bringing his face down to hers to meet her lips for a passionate kiss.
"Gabby..." Micky whispered. It was a complete sentence, packed with meaning. It suggested love, devotion, want, need, craving and anticipation. His fingers strayed to her belly, feeling for the bottom of her t-shirt, then lifted it up slowly to reveal her pale torso and lacy bra. All of Gabby's lingerie was surprisingly fancy, particularly for a woman who placed very little value on luxuries and material comfort. But there had been a time when she and Micky had been trying to conceive a baby, and he had insisted on gifting her with an entire wardrobe full of beautiful, sexy, expensive lingerie as an enticement to add spice and motivation to the baby making process. As it turned out, after Micky's relapse in addiction and recovery they agreed that it was a misguided decision to try to conceive a child, and they had decided that they were not going to pursue that goal, or at least not unless Gabby changed her mind and Micky was satisfied it was the right move for both of them. But still the lingerie remained in her wardrobe, and she allowed it to stay in concession to Micky as one of the few positive consequences of their reproductive folly – it had brought them closer together sexually and given them both tremendous pleasure, for which neither of them felt any remorse.
Micky stripped off Gabby's shirt and ran his hands over her shoulders, nudging her bra straps down. In their place, he supplied small kisses and followed them down her arms, pushing them further and further down, until Gabby allowed him to feed her limbs through them and out of the loops. He palmed her breasts, still held up by the bra cups, which had stiff boning to elevate them and feature them proudly beneath her clothes.
"God your tits still drive me mad, Gabby. I spend more time thinking about them during AA meetings than anything else. They are a huge motivator to keeping me clean and sober. I know if I pick up a drink or a pill, I can't have these." He ran his hands over the lace encased orbs, feeling their heft and shape. Bending down, he rubbed his cheeks over the rough lace fabric and contrasted the feeling with her smooth, silky skin. As he indulged his senses, Gabby's respiration picked up and she began to breathe erratically, threading her hands through his curls and pressing his head further into her chest, seeking more contact and to advance his incursion into her boundaries.
"Mmmm, for me, it's these curls. Well, that plus your irresistible little nipples." She reached for him and tweaked them, causing him to jerk back.
"No, no, not yet. This is about your nipples right now, not mine. I'm claiming my princess's favors for building her this magnificent palace. You are grateful, are you not, my princess?"
Gabby knew that the game was afoot now, and snapped into her role enthusiastically. "Oh yes, my royal architect of humble origins and sexy, virile appearance. I absolutely adore my palace and want to express my utmost gratitude. How can I show you how much I appreciate your efforts?"
"Well, aside from granting my architectural firm a royal warrant and vowing to hire me for all future royal jobs so that we may continue to come into contact as much as possible, I would request that you allow me to partake of your most intimate and secret places and that you avail yourself of mine. You do find me attractive, do you not, my princess?"
"I do find you uncommonly attractive, I do confess. I admit, I love a man who has a tool and knows what to do with it." She winked saucily at Micky.
Micky busted up laughing at Gabby's bawdy play on words. She joined him, finding it irresistible not to giggle.
"Let me show you what I can do with my tool, my princess, but first let me show you how good I am with my hands." He reached behind her and unfastened her bra and peeled it off her, letting her size D breasts fall into his hands. He gripped and squeezed them, eliciting moans and purrs from Gabby. He ran his thumbs gently over her pale pink nipples, raising bumps on them as they responded to his touch, drawing more moans and shivers from Gabby as she pressed forward to make more contact with Micky's hands. He teased her, pulling her nipples taut and then releasing them entirely, leaving her bereft and seeking further contact.
Now Micky knelt in front of her and nuzzled her breasts with his mouth and lips closed, merely running them over the surface and softly stimulating them. Gabby could feel his morning whiskers still present, as he hadn't shaved for the day, and she encouraged him to rub them over the surface of her skin. After a couple of minutes of this rough treatment, she ventured "I feel like my skin is aflame, my architect of pleasure. I need some soothing down. What do you have for that?"
"My tongue will serve the purpose well, my princess. Let me show you." Micky took one nipple at a time into his mouth, suckling and lapping at each one.
"Mmmm, that feels good, I feel ready for something more challenging again. Have at me, my architect of pleasure."
Micky asked coyly "Shall I inflict just the tiniest bit of pain to see how you like it, my princess? You can't have pleasure without pain, even in a fantasy. Not in a good one at any rate."
Gabby nodded. "Yes, I agree. Please give me both pleasure and pain, heaven and hell, but make sure I end up on the right side of the ledger in the end."
Micky began to nibble at Gabby's nipples, then to bite down on them. She hissed with pleasure and then cried out when the pressure had reached its maximum that she could stand. He pulled back a bit and soothed her down with his tongue, then began the process all over again. After a while, he changed approaches. While his mouth was busy with one breast, his fingers pinched and squeezed the other nipple, inflicting a different variation of AC/DC in terms of negative and positive feedback, and Gabby loved it all. Sometimes he'd alternate between the two. One nipple would be receiving tender licking while the other nipple would be twisted mercilessly, and then he'd soothe with his fingers while biting down and sucking hard. Gabby's senses reeled and knew not which to register first.
Now that Micky had Gabby in a frenzy, he allowed his mouth to stray to other parts of her body, while he let his hands remain on her nipples, tweaking and pinching in an erratic, unpredictable fashion that kept her guessing and on the boil. He planted kisses down her belly and above the waistband of her pants. She didn't wait for him to ask to disrobe her. She took her princessly privilege and quickly discarded the rest of her garments. She was losing control and losing the thread of the fantasy Micky had constructed. She needed a good fucking and was impatient to have Micky give it to her.
Micky laughed as he watched her hastily remove her clothes. "My, my, princess. In a hurry, are we?"
Gabby panted "Yes, yes we are, architect. And if you value that royal warrant, you'll make it your business to satisfy my royal appetite at the pace at which I'm moving."
"It will be my humble pleasure to satisfy your every whim, princess." Micky let Gabby sit up and start tearing the rest of his clothes off. She was now utterly wild and feral, kissing him and devouring him with her lips, running her hands all over his body as if she were surveying the boundaries of her kingdom.
"Make love to me, please, give it all to me, make me shake and shiver and howl and moan," Gabby implored him.
"And fly?" Micky inquired, referring to Gabby's preference to be on top of him when they made love, an experience she likened to flying.
"And fly and soar to the heavens, my architect of pleasure. But keep making me hurt a bit. I liked that. Just a bit."
Micky adjusted the pillows on the daybed so they could get comfortable and get down to business. In a way, it reminded him of the days when they used to make love when he lived at the Pad, because it was really just a single sized bed fashioned into a couch. "Your highness, these accommodations are too primitive. They're about the same as the Pad. We need to get you something fancier, roomier, more worthy of your commodious figure and my long, skinny legs."
Gabby giggled. "Yeah, that's true, but there was no room for a canopy bed. Maybe you need to build me an extension with some turrets and dig me a moat to stave off invaders. Schmooshy can't navigate a moat, could he?" she asked, referring to their fat little pug.
Between smothering kisses as he maneuvered himself down on the bed, Micky responded "Well, he did jump in the bath with us at the Beverly Hills Hotel, so don't underestimate him when he gets determined."
Gabby took hold of Micky's hands and placed them firmly back on her breasts as she hovered above him. Then she lowered herself down on Micky's tool (she giggled and commented on it, unable to resist making her pun again), while he massaged her breasts.
"More, Micky, please, harder..." she begged.
"I love to hear you ask for what you want, Gabriella. Especially when I didn't even need to prompt you. It makes my scalp tingle and I feel so proud to be your lover." He increased the pressure and honed in on her nipples, feeding one into his mouth and sucking it as she began to move up and down on him, creating friction between their lower halves. With his fingers, he attended to the other breast.
"More, more of everything, please," she pleaded as she was soon in a frenzy. Micky felt like he was watching a hurricane gather its strength. He decided to push back and try to change the center of power.
"You're going to get everything you want and more, princess," he growled, as he began to chew and pinch her nipples and rut and bounce her up and down on his pelvis. She was like a storm-tossed craft and now she needed to brace herself against the bed to hold on. Their bodies found a rhythm and began to undulate together, then a moment of crisis hit Gabby as she felt herself overtop the waves and she plunged into the sea of pleasure. She cried out and only could say one word: "Ohhhhh."
Micky didn't relent, however. He kept moving inside her, wrapping his arms around her back and holding on to her butt, pressing her onto him and continuing the stimulation for her and then for himself. He had nowhere else to go but over the edge. Watching her spin out of control into her frenzy, knowing he had brought her to that place, had turned him on to such an extent that he was beyond control himself. His own climax was only seconds behind hers and he joined her vocalization with his own shouty, jubilant chorus.
As they rode out their climaxes together, Gabby sought Micky's lips and fancied she could fuse their pleasure via their lips. Their kisses were just as frenzied – sloppy, big, toothy, nibbling and biting and sucking each other, consuming each other.