“Tomorrow.” I planned to call her, but I already knew it wouldn’t be the next day. I’d make her sweat first. It would plant more seeds of doubt. “Goodnight.” I kissed her seductively, letting her know what she was missing out on.
After, I put her on the elevator. I kept her gaze locked with mine until the doors closed.
Then I went back to my apartment to deal with Celia.
She was lounging on the couch when I returned, sipping a bottle of Diet Coke. She was dressed now, or more accurately, no longer in a towel but in my bathrobe. Her hair was also no longer wrapped up, and I saw it wasn’t even wet. I suspected she had underwear on under the robe as well.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Considering that I’m hard as stone, I’d say not very well.” I adjusted myself as I walked to the bar to make myself a drink.
“But she still wants to see you again?”
My back was to her, but I could tell she was eager for a progress report. It was understandable, though I imagined she’d listened to a good portion of it from the bedroom and already knew what had happened. Plus, it was fun to taunt her, so I delayed answering.
“You don’t seem to care that you cock-blocked me,” I said instead as I poured myself two fingers of Scotch, a recent discovery of mine.
“I don’t. I care about whether she’ll see you again.”
I turned toward her and took a sip of my drink. “She’ll see me again.”
Her entire face lit up, and she clenched her fists in a sign of victory.
While I was also feeling triumphant, there was a bone to pick. “But what the fuck, Celia? It wasn’t in the plan for you to be here tonight.”
Celia had shaped into being a great component of the experiments I conducted. She made variety possible, and I’d studied many new emotions and situations since she’d joined me nearly three years before. But as long as we’d played together, I’d always been the driver. I dictated the parameters of our research. I wrote the script. Of course, there was always a fair amount of ad-lib required, but as much as could be controlled was. And it was controlled by me.
This had been the first time Celia had surprised me in our ploy. It had been a good move, but I wasn’t ready to tell her that. Wasn’t ready to concede any of my authority.
“It was awesome improv though, wasn’t it?” She already knew she’d played well, whether I was ready to say so or not. My reprimand did nothing to shake her confident grin.
“I’ll admit no such thing.” I played smug as I joined her on the couch.
She swatted at my shoulder with the back of her hand. “Come on, it was perfect. I’m supposed to make her jealous and suspicious, and trust me, old friend naked in boyfriend’s apartment is the perfect way to do that.”
I rested an arm on the back of the sofa and studied her. “You’re extremely happy about this.”
“And you’re not?”
“Do I need to remind you of the cock-block?”
She threw her head back in frustration. “Oh, my God. You and your dick. Go whack off in the shower. You’ll be fine.” Then she curled her legs up underneath her and leaned toward me, her eyes sweet yet demanding. “Now admit that I did good.”
I hesitated. Finally, reluctantly, I conceded. “You did good.” I took another sip from my drink, letting the burn of it relax me and melt away the desire to hold onto the reins. “Actually, you did really good, Celia. Nice job.”
She wrinkled up her nose in glee as she soaked up my approval. Her pure joy somehow made it easier to continue the acknowledgment.
“You’re a lot more flexible with the experiments than you used to be,” I said. “You’ve come a long way.” There’d been quite a few in the early days that we’d barely survived. I’d never realized how naturally that scheming came to me. How hard it was to teach someone else. Yet, even with the difficulties, Celia had been born for it.
“I’d hope I’m better. We’ve been doing this now for…what? Three years?” She rolled her soda bottle in between her hands as she spoke, like a stick she was trying to rub into fire. “It’s about time I finally got a Hudson compliment.”
She was nervous, and I suddenly realized how much my acclaim meant to her. Was this the first time she’d received it?
I finished my Scotch and set the glass down on the coffee table, then peered at her with narrowed eyes. “I’ve complimented you before. Haven’t I?”
She shook her head. “I’m not complaining. I haven’t deserved it.”
I shrugged half-heartedly. She’d made mistakes, but overall I’d been pleased with her as a partner. More than pleased. I’d also been glad for her company.
She pursed her lips now, as if thinking. “Remember that couple in your building? The newlyweds?”
I nodded. How could I forget? They’d been our first experiment together.
Celia dropped her bottle into her lap and propped her elbow on the back of the couch, leaning her face onto her hand. “I’d been so nervous when I first approached him. Tim was his name. I was supposed to drop that bag of groceries, remember? And see if he’d help me with it. That was all there was to the first contact. You’d coached me and coached me. I swear I stood in that alcove of the lobby watching him flick through his mail for, I don’t know, an eternity before I had the guts to go out there. Then dropping my bag was easy because I was shaking so hard.”
“But he noticed you. He helped you with the groceries.”
“He brushed my hand even. On purpose, I think. And it was only our first meeting.” Her eyes narrowed as she lost herself in the memory. “He kept staring at my cleavage, and I remember how amazing it felt to have his attention, but at the same time, I thought he was a bit of a smarmy asshole.” She laughed. “Obviously, I got over the smarmy asshole part.”
I chuckled. “Obviously.”
It had been a great study. Celia had seduced Tim, the husband, while I’d worked my charm on the wife. My subject had resisted me, deeply devoted to her marriage, but Celia had succeeded in getting her subject in bed. Repeatedly. They’d had an all-out affair. Even when the wife had found out, she still refused to sleep with me, though she’d shown more than once that she was attracted. It had not been what I’d hypothesized. More surprising was that she forgave him for his infidelity.
I’d filed the entire experience as another attestation to the detriment of love. Why the fuck would any sane person forgive a spouse for that kind of gross unfaithfulness? It was weakness. Devotion made people stupid. There was no doubt in my mind.
“I still get nervous the first time we start any new game.” She leaned back into the corner of the couch and bent her legs up in front of her, her bare feet perching on the edge of my thigh. “And this is the first time I’ve felt comfortable changing things up without talking to you first.”
“Well, we don’t need to make that a habit now.” I pulled one of her feet into my hands and started rubbing it.
“We’ll see how it goes, I guess.”
I tried not to let that bother me. Things would morph just fine, I told myself. Whether I was in control or not.
We settled into silence. I continued my massage as I thought about how we’d both changed in the last years. Through our games, we’d become comfortable with more than just improvising. We’d found an ease in our relationship as well. We frequently staged kisses and embraces without any residual sexual tension. The undercurrent of emotional pull that had once existed between us had dissolved into something less fraught, less physical, yet intimate. We shared a rapport with each other that we had with no one else. We were…close. Friends. Partners.
I dropped her foot in my lap, ready to move to the other. The first brushed against my crotch. Celia’s forehead rose. “Is that your dick?”
“I told you I was hard.” It was actually a semi now, but certainly not flaccid, and the reminder of my pent-up lust for Monica had me stiffening again.
“Still?” She poked at my bulge with her toe and waggl
ed her brows. “I can do something about that if you want.”
“Are you serious?” The idea alone already had me softening. We’d become close, but the idea of taking things to a physical level still seemed wrong.
“Why not?” She flicked her tongue along her lower lip. It was meant to be sexy, and any other man would probably have taken it as such. Not me.
I had to look away. “Uh, thank you, but no.” I pushed her feet off my lap to further enunciate my lack of interest in what she was proposing.
“You’re such an asshole.” Her scowl was present in her voice. “You’re a total man-whore, but you won’t let me suck you off?”
“It would ruin our relationship.”
“Whatever.”
I studied her, trying to determine if she was pulling my leg. A side effect of knowing how well a person can pretend is that you don’t know when to question their sincerity. “Are you really serious about this?”
She shrugged. “I’m excited about how tonight went. It made me horny.”
“I get the excitement.” But I wasn’t having sex with Celia. “I’ll buy you a vibrator.”
“Fine.” She folded her arms over her chest. “I’m not really interested in sucking your hairy little prick anyway.”
I couldn’t decide if she was really fine with my refusal or if now she was pretending. Either way, I was happy for the lighter turn in the conversation. I kept going in that direction. “Little? Did you just call my dick little? Maybe you need to put your foot back here again.”
“No, no, no!” She screamed as I grabbed her foot, pretending to want to pull it back to my crotch.
I held her foot in my hands while she scrambled to get away. “Just a minute ago, you were willing to put your mouth on me, and now you can’t even touch me with your foot?”
She put her hands up in surrender. “I was joking. I wouldn’t suck you, Hudson. Or fuck you. Ever. It would be…weird.”
“Very weird.” I let go of her foot, and she casually pulled her legs up under her again. “And it would mess up this.” I gestured back and forth from her to me.
She smiled. “Agreed. And this is nice.”
“I do like this.” We didn’t talk about this often. Or at all actually. We’d let our relationship evolve without commentary, but this felt like it needed to be said. Especially after her strange sexual innuendo. I had no intention of going there with her, but this—what we did have—it meant something to me. And that was interesting in itself—that any relationship I had meant something to me was unusual.
Still, if things got strange, if Celia tried to be something more than what we had, I’d be able to walk away. And I would walk away. Without looking back. Funny, then, how the idea bothered me.
It was more than I wanted to contemplate at the time. I stood and stretched, feigning a yawn. “Are you staying?”
Celia often stayed over at the loft with me, sharing my king-size bed like two school kids having a sleepover. It was never an issue, but this night I hoped she would say no. Some distance after our conversation might be needed.
But she didn’t seem to agree. “I’m staying,” she said. “Do I have any clothes still here? I couldn’t find any in the closet, and I usually have some items.”
“I hid all your things in case Monica stayed over. They’re not that hard to find. Back of the armoire, in the closet. If she snooped, she would have found them.”
“Smart.”
Celia found some of her yoga pants and a tank and went into the bathroom to change. I wondered at that as I stripped from my clothes. She usually dressed and undressed in front of me. Perhaps she also noted a lingering strangeness from our discussion. I certainly did. Normally, I’d be sleeping in boxers. Tonight I’d chosen sweats and a T-shirt.
I was already in bed when she slipped in on the other side. Without speaking, I leaned over and clicked off the lamp. I stayed on my side, facing away from her, and waited for sleep to take me over.
We lay like that for several minutes in the dark. I could tell from her breathing that she was also still awake, so it didn’t completely surprise me when she spoke.
“Do you think you’ll ever stop playing?” Her voice was smaller than usual. Thin and unsure.
Or it was just the dark messing with my senses.
I lifted my head so I could talk over my shoulder. “The game?” There was nothing else she could mean, though. “No. I’ll always play.” It wasn’t a question I’d ever even considered asking. The experiments were part of me. Even when I didn’t try, I was constantly manipulating the wills of those around me and gauging their reactions. “I don’t have a choice.”
“Of course you have a choice.”
Though I didn’t know if she could see it in the dark, I shrugged, not agreeing but not wanting to debate it further. “What about you?”
“It’s good for now.” She cleared her throat. “But I could see myself quitting one day.”
Her answer bothered me. I didn’t like that she’d thought about quitting. I didn’t like that she believed it was a possibility for her.
I rolled to my back so I could look at her and found her also laying on her back. “You’re fooling yourself. You could never quit. You love it too much.” Perhaps I was speaking for myself. But I wanted those words to be true for her. Needed them to be true for her.
She turned her head to face me. “I do love it. Parts of it, anyway.”
Parts of it. Yes, there were parts that were better than others. My favorite part was correctly guessing how a person would react to a situation. I’d gotten so good at reading people that I rarely failed to predict the outcome of the schemes we created. But even as I could anticipate results, each experiment taught me something new about human emotion—about the things I didn’t feel. I grew more and more interested in studying further. And more and more alienated from the world around me.
Except not from Celia.
The experiments had brought me closer to her. We were friends now in the way we’d always been meant to be. It occurred to me, though, that I didn’t know what it was that Celia liked about the game. I’d always assumed she’d liked it all, and I’d never thought to ask her.
So I asked her now. “Which parts?”
“Hmm,” she pretended to think about it, though I was sure she already had an answer. “The pain,” she said finally. “I like seeing people in pain.”
Her answer baffled me. I liked seeing an outcome of an experiment, and very often it was pain, but when it wasn’t, I was just as satisfied. This desire of hers intrigued me as much as any other person’s desires.
I turned toward her, propping my head up with my hand. “Why?”
“I don’t know, really. I can’t explain it.”
“Try.”
She was quiet for a while, but eventually she spoke. “It makes my own pain feel diminished somehow.”
I laughed. “What pain can you possibly have?”
“Hey, even spoiled little rich girls can have things that hurt them.” She paused again, but I waited. I knew how the dark could draw things out that hid in the light. Wasn’t that where Celia and I always met? In dark rooms? In dark situations?
Seconds ticked by in silence, but eventually she did give more. “Don’t ask me what my pain is specifically, though. I haven’t felt anything in so long that I don’t remember. But it’s there somewhere—I know it. Waiting for me. And every time someone else cries and falls apart, it gets smaller. I keep thinking if I just hurt enough people, break enough hearts, then eventually it will all go away. And I won’t have to play anymore. I can go back to feeling.”
Her monologue was slow and burdened. As though it was hard to say, or like it was the first time she’d ever thought the words. I wasn’t even sure if she was finished speaking or not, but her last statement begged for response. “Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I remember what it’s like to be in love.” She pulled the covers up to her chin, tucking herself away.
Hiding.
But she exposed herself once more. “I’d like to feel that again, I think. Someday.”
“Again, I ask, why the fuck would you want to do that?”
“You’ve never been in love, Hudson. You couldn’t understand.” She turned to her side, her back to me. “Goodnight.”
It was clear the conversation was over, so I didn’t push her. Besides, I didn’t want to continue it, not really. Though I was very much interested in whatever it was that kept that hope of love burning inside of her. Even now, after all the time she’d spent with me—how could she possibly still feel that pull? I was dying to understand.
But there were other thoughts that were swimming through my head that I didn’t want to explore. Like, why now? Where did this come from? Was it connected to our playful banter earlier on the couch? Was Celia still carrying a torch that I had effectively ignored?
If I had to make a guess, I’d say that she wasn’t so much still enamored with me but with the emotion in general. Both ideas were perplexing, but I couldn’t believe that I’d missed signs of her affection for so long.
There was something else that kept me awake long after Celia had slipped into rhythmic breathing at my side. If she really did stop playing the game eventually, where would that leave me? Alone again. It had never bothered me before, but now…
Now, I’d grown accustomed to Celia’s companionship. The experiment had evolved with her help, and I’d found considerably more joy in it since she’d joined. If she didn’t continue to play, we’d have no bond between us anymore. Our friendship would fall away. And for reasons I couldn’t explain, that wasn’t something I could live with.
So I wouldn’t let it happen. We’d keep playing, and she’d see how ridiculous it was to want a happy ending. There weren’t happy endings. Not really. There were only those who got that and the fools who didn’t. Celia and I would not be the fools.
Chapter Eighteen
AFter
We’re quiet as we drive to the restaurant for my mother’s birthday. Alayna’s nervous—I’m sure that’s the reason for her silence. Mothers in general are intimidating, I hear. My mother beats them all.
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