Night Owl (The Complete Serial)

by M. C. Cerny

  “More, James. Please. My heart aches for more…”

  “Quivering, Casey. This is how I always want you…”

  Impossible is the only word that comes to mind. My jaw drops and I run out of my office to the elevator not hearing the rest. There is no way this can be happening. Some fucker just broadcasted our stolen moments to a crowd of possibly hundreds of thousands of radio listeners. I had to get to Casey. I had to make sure she was all right because when I found the bastard who did this, I was going to kill him…

  III

  Radio Silent

  Love can either silence you, or set you free…

  17

  Casey

  “More, James. Please. My heart aches for more…” My brain focuses on the panting and shuffling of bodies in those private shared moments meant for no one’s ears but mine and James.

  “Quivering, Casey. This is how I always want you…” The groans and whimpers between us are audible and real. Our voices echo through the headphones into my head.

  Sitting inside the sound booth, my heart drops to the floor. Dots swim in my vision, darkening the outer edges of my sight, as bile burns the back of my throat. Hot flashes of embarrassment overcome me. I try gripping the edges of the desk, looking blankly around the studio, but my fingers are met with a numbing resistance. My body feels that sickening free falling sensation of everything slipping away. I’m so far out of control, I can’t get it back. What I wouldn’t give for this to be a nightmare or an honest to goodness out-of-body experience.

  Is this really happening?

  Dazed, I slip my headphones off. I can’t hear Tucker, but I can see him calling out my name, frantically trying to plug in a different soundbite, some lame advertisement for laser hair removal, muting out the intimate sounds of James and me in the throes of passion. My own voice moaning in ecstasy in the background now sounds like nails on a chalkboard. What was once a private moment between lovers now seems crass and exposing, ten full seconds of a most private affair.

  I let the headphones clatter to the floor, startling me back to reality. One of the most intimate moments of my life has just been aired for all my listeners to hear. I’m confused, hurt, numb. I stagger out of the studio and run for the elevator, pressing the button. The doors open and I run in, hitting the back wall.

  “Casey! Shit! Casey, stop!”

  I push myself towards the panel of glowing buttons and press one, effectively shutting out my future. The doors begin to slide and James comes into view from the stairwell. I watch his eyes grow wide and sad, a frown crossing his handsome face. I screw my own face up to avoid the torrent of tears, using my arm to wipe my face off and cover my heated cheeks. The silver panels close in, hurtling me down twenty flights. Sobs fill me on the way down to the lobby. I don’t have a car, and James or Tucker would have been my planned ride home, but the shame within me wants to be alone to tend my wounds. Unfortunately, the next bus isn’t due to arrive for some time yet.

  “Whoa! Casey, what the hell was that?” one of the security guards… Brian, I think his name is… asks me the one question I don’t want to answer.

  “I need to go.” I tell him. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I push through the doors, ignoring him. I hurry outside and walk in a direction which I blindly guess is toward my apartment. Huddled in my jacket, the neighborhood begins to look worse and worse, each noise I hear making me shake in fear. Every car that passes looks like James’, but he’s the last person I want to see right now. Ducking into an alleyway, I find myself sliding down to the filthy concrete. The wind changes and lightning cuts across the night sky, rain beginning to fall in earnest. It slicks against my cheeks as I start to get up, heading towards a bus stop, anything that will get me within walking distance of my place.

  I check my pockets and find my keys, cellphone, ID, and a twenty dollar bill among my worldly possessions. At least it’s something, although I know it won’t go far. The instant I take the cellphone out, it buzzes with a series of missed text messages.

  BossMan: Casey, call me right now. I need to know you’re all right.

  I feel as though nothing will be alright again.

  BossMan: Where are you? Sweetheart, I’m worried. We can fix this.

  I don’t think anything can fix my humiliation.

  BossMan: I don’t know what the fuck happened, but I will find out.

  Denial has been a terrible friend to me. I don’t have the energy to find out but I knew getting involved with James would end badly. I just didn’t anticipate this.

  BossMan: Casey, please just call me and tell me you’re okay.

  My hand shaking, I accidentally drop the phone. “Damn it!” Scrambling to pick it up, my uncoordinated feet kick it into a puddle of water. So much for replying. Grabbing the soaked phone between slick fingers, I wipe the now cracked screen and watch the damn thing go dark. Everything in the last thirty minutes of my life seems to have gone to shit. I put the hopeless device back into my pocket and keep walking. How strange that what once was seemingly the beginning of something perfect is now a complete mangled wreck.

  A mile later and rain has soaked my ballet flats. Damp squishing covers my feet and a chill fills my body. A deep cough comes from my chest and I cover my mouth with my icy fingertips. It would be just my luck to get sick after the shit night I’ve had. Pneumonia and a case of laryngitis would be the perfect ending–not that I anticipate having a job much longer after this.

  I keep trudging along for lack of anything better to do. The area I’m walking through has few to no cabs in service, and buses often speed past bus stops in favor of safer neighborhoods. I’m an idiot for walking this way, but as distraught as I feel, getting robbed or worse hasn’t entered my mind. It should… but it hasn’t.

  Nearly an hour later, I’ve weaved my way home through blocks of shit and pouring rain. Reaching my landing, I slip on the stairs, falling hard, catching my shin on the edge of stone. It hurts like the devil and I cry, huddling under the eve of the doorway.

  “Casey?” Looking up into the dark, I see my neighbor, Devin, standing there with some gamer shirt covering his thin chest, jeans riding low enough to make him less a hipster and more a punk. He flicks his cigarette to the ground letting it burn out in a puddle.

  I try to croak out a greeting, but it’s useless. “Come on. Get inside.” Reaching down, he grabs my arm, seemingly irritated with my helplessness, and roughly pulls me up, dragging me inside the building. The rain must have washed off his unkempt smell. A part of me wants to fight his help based on our less than neighborly history, but I don’t. He helps me get up the two flights of stairs to our floor, his door still open and TV blasting. I drag my own key out, hands shaking as I insert it into the doorknob.

  “Did you do it?” he asks me. I look back at him, an accusing glance slicing through me.

  “Do w-what?” I whisper, holding myself up against the doorframe.

  “Did you fuck your boss?” he snarls at me and shame floods me once more.

  “Go fuck yourself, Devin, and your video gaming whores.” I roll inside my apartment, slamming the door shut before falling to the floor in a pathetic heap of tears...

  18

  James

  I run from my office, scrambling to get to the studio. I can’t imagine what Casey must be thinking or the shock she must be in. I’m in complete shock myself as I get to the elevator. The panel indicates its heading down already, likely to Casey’s floor. “Fuck!” Slamming my hand against the wall stings and does nothing to ease the frustration.

  “James? What’s going on?” Michelle is standing in the center of the hallway, blocking me. I don’t have time to deal with her.

  “Not now, Michelle.” Clutching her by the shoulders, I move her out of the way before I barrel past, dashing towards the emergency stairs and throwing the door wide, the back of it slamming hard against the concrete and metal. The few employees left in the building at this late hour look at me oddly. I jump several steps
at once to get down them quickly, almost tripping. Slamming through the next door, I race to get there, my leg muscles bursting.

  I can see the elevator within my reach, Casey slipping inside. I’m yelling like a psychotic mental patient trying to get to her. “Casey! Shit! Casey, stop!” I push harder, trying to get to her, and the devastation on her face breaks me. Eyes wide, she is shaking and pale, tears streaming down her cheeks as the doors close. I’m cut off from her. She may as well have cut off my arm. I feel lost, a helpless pain stabbing my chest.

  “Dude, what the hell was that about?” Tucker, out of breath, stands behind me.

  “Where did that fucking soundbite come from?” Growling, I knock him up against the wall, his head slamming back. Red-faced, he tries to claw my arms off him. He’s worked here for eight years, but I’ll fire him in a heartbeat if it was him. The woman I care about has run off, and the world has heard our… Fuck. I don’t even know what to call it. Interlude? Passionate encounter? No fucking words can describe the feelings I had at the moment and trying to makes it sound trite.

  “Dude, I don’t fucking know.” Tucker is gasping for breath. “I played the requested song and it was already in there, swapped out from the tracks.” Tucker pushes me back adjusting his shirt, gesticulating angrily. “Was it you?”

  “What?” Tucker looks at me like I had something to do with this. Oh, fuck no. I find it incredulous he’s accusing me of something so disgusting.

  “Come on, man. I know you get around. Did you do it? It’s a pretty shitty move.” Tucker thinks he can talk to me like that? I sign his fucking paycheck. I could care less what the shareholders and board members think of me even though this has the potential to damage the company on a wide scale.

  “If you want to keep your job, you’ll find out who fucking switched the tracks and you won’t talk to anyone about this. Are we fucking clear?” Each word is enunciated and Tucker nods.

  “Crystal.”

  He walks off, just as pissed as I am, and I take out my phone, calling the desk downstairs.

  “Hey, boss,” Brian, one of my night guards, answers.

  “Hey, Brian. Listen, did you see Casey leave the building?”

  “Yeah. She bolted out of here like the devil was chasing her.” No shit, the devil… That stalker who sends her shit each week probably had something to do with this and I need to find that piece of garbage. How the hell did this person infiltrate my building and company? The questions buzz in my mind with zero answers.

  The headache, along with worry, begins. How could I not have anticipated something like this? Why did I not hire that security firm when I had the chance? All of this is my fault.

  “Which way did she go?”

  “She headed right. Definitely right.”

  “Thanks. If you see her again, detain her and call me right away.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  I hang up and try reaching Casey. I doubt she’ll come back to the building, so I have to find her on my own. She doesn’t pick up her phone, so I leave her several texts, each more pleading than the last. I’m feeling desperate. Knowing she didn’t head directly toward her apartment worries me because I don’t know who’s out there doing this… and I feel like it’s my fault for not protecting her…

  19

  Casey

  Lying on the floor is only a tad more productive than lying in my bed… or that’s the lie I continue to tell myself anyway. Hot shame fills me, along with the questions I dare to ask myself.

  How?

  Who?

  Why?

  My mind races, wondering if the station will get in trouble. Will James get in trouble? I already know I’m in trouble. I know I need to talk to him, but the humiliation keeps me from reaching out… plus, my phone is obliterated at the moment. I take it out of my pocket, my fingernail tracing over the shattered cracks in the screen. It’s amazing how quickly life can turn.

  Banging on my door startles me and I push away from the wall, scooting across the floor until my back hits the couch. “Casey! Open the door, sweetheart. I need to know you’re okay.” More banging on the door rattles it from the paper thin jam.

  “I’m here. I’m coming.” The words are barely audible so I know he hasn’t heard me. He continues attacking my door, and I know it’s only a matter of time before James will be able to break it open. Sniffling, I try to compose myself, standing up on unsteady legs. I feel more like eighty than in my mid-twenties.

  “Casey. Please. Just open the door.”

  I take a step forward when I hear more commotion coming from the hallway. It can only mean Devin has emerged from his lair to give James a problem, although I doubt he’d need a reason to lay him out right now.

  “Stop!” I yell when I hear them physically going at each other bodies thumping against the hallway walls. I grab the door and fumble to open it, my fingers still cold and numb. Pulling it back, I see James and Devin pushing and swinging at each other in the narrow hallway. I try to get between them, but get pushed out of the way. I’m not sure by who, but it saves me from getting a swing to the face.

  “You piece of shit!”

  “Pretty boy garbage!” They trade insults like children and look about as roughed up, banging into the wall and pushing each other around.

  “Both of you stop it!” They turn, giving me their undivided attention. One is contrite; the other, still harboring disgust. I point to James, then my apartment. “Get in or get out.” I’m seething with anger. Devin spits in the hallway, then walks away, slamming his door. James hangs his head low and turns toward me. Emotional overload keeps me teetering on the edge of numb and ready to snap. James places his hands on my hips, guiding me forward, protective. The heat from his grip permeates my damp clothes and his strength is what I need most now. I try to get myself under control before I start screaming incoherently. Deep breaths follow and I clutch my chest, thinking how none of this would have happened if I had left well enough alone and hadn’t fucked my boss… or myself out of a job.

  “W-What the hell were you t-thinking?” I try scolding him as he shuts my door, securely placing the chain.

  “He started it.” James doesn’t look at me. Anger heats me up and I’m no longer cold from the rain. He raises his arms up, taking a moment to lean against the door before he pushes away, turning towards me. His look is intense and unreadable forcing me to take a step back.

  Stuttering, I hoarsely say, “I-I don’t care w-who goaded whom first.” He has the good sense to not reply, leaving me feeling uncertain. I feel like he should be doing something, just not beating the shit out of my douche-canoe neighbor.

  “What were you thinking, leaving the station like that?” James looks tired and a host of other emotions I can’t identify, causing me to shiver again.

  “I couldn’t s-stay there.” The words slip from me, along with fresh tears.

  “Casey, I never wanted anything to hurt you.” James tugs on my shoulders and pulls me into his arms, forcing my cheek to his chest. His heart beats fast as he runs his hands over me, sharing his heat. He holds me quietly until our hearts start beating in sync. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you cleaned up and warm.” James ushers me to my bathroom, his size making the already small galley-sized room shrink with both of us inside.

  I listen to James shut the door, locking it and securing us inside the seventies throwback. Teal blue and black tile checkers everything, except the blue chipped tub and toilet. My sink was replaced a few months ago and gleams white with new fixtures. It’s absolutely hideous; it matches nothing and probably every single woman’s city living experience. I never understood why apartment bathrooms had to be so ugly especially when we spend such a substantial amount of time in them.

  Turning, I look in the mirror. Fog begins to distort our faces, a mask shielding us from recent events. James has put the shower on full blast. Steam fills the room, making the air humid and thick. “Let’s get these clothes off of you, baby.” He slowly peels my
jacket off, dropping it to the floor.

  Turning, I cup his face in my hands. “Thank you.” It seems an inadequate thing to say. I don’t even know what I’m really thanking him for, but it feels like I should say something. He turns his face and kisses my palm.

  “I will always come running for you. I want you to expect that from me because anything else is unacceptable.” Another kiss to my temple and James kneels down, pulling down my leggings that feel suctioned to my legs. “Oh, baby, what’s this?” James has his head pretty much in my crotch, but he’s got his eyes fixed on my shin, which now stings.

  “I fell coming inside.” I hop out of my pants with a little help and James touches the spot, making me wince.

  “It doesn’t look too bad or deep, but I still don’t like it.” He carefully maneuvers around me and helps me into the shower.

  “Ahh, that feels so good.” Hot water beats on me and even the sting of my knee feels better.

  “It’s about to get even nicer.” James removes his clothes and stands in the shower behind me. He doesn’t get much of the water, but he seems content to just stand there.

  “This is nice.” I reach for the body wash and my loofah, only to have James remove them from my hands. “What?”

  “Allow me. I’ve kind of always wondered what it would be like to wash my girlfriend.” I hand over my stuff. Girlfriend. It’s got a nice ring to it and I feel spacey and happy all at once. I want so desperately to forget about everything before this moment.