by Holly Rayner
it was not was Aaron’s kind of place.
“You want to go in there?” I asked him.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?” he asked.
I smiled, “I’m just shocked that it was your idea,” I said.
He took both of my hands in his and he said, “I’m learning to compromise. I want to do things that make you happy too.”
Damn! I could feel the stupid tears filling up my eyes again. Forcing a quick smile I said, “Thank you, that’s so sweet. Let’s go.”
The club was huge and loud and posh and packed with fun-loving, good-looking people. There were some at the bar and some at the tables and others bumping and grinding on the dance floor. I looked at Aaron’s face and I could see that this was likely his first time in a place like this. I was amused by it, and touched that he would do something like this just for me at the same time. He took my hand and led me through the crowd and I counted six different women who looked at him like they’d enjoy having him for their next meal. I wanted to stick out my tongue and say, “Ha Ha, he’s all mine.” Immature, I know. He found a high top table for us and as I climbed up on the stool and looked around I wondered if he had planned this. This was no run of the mill SoHo club. This was one of the newer ones and they specifically catered to the “upper class” party crowd. I guess it didn’t matter if he’d researched it; it was a sweet gesture either way.
The pulsating music filled my ears as Aaron went to the bar to get us a drink and I bobbed my leg up and down and rocked my head to the beat. I was again surprised when he came back, sat down the drinks and led me out to the dance floor. He pulled me into his arms just as that song ended and a slow song filled the room. The floor was so crowded that we could hardly do much more than sway, but with my body pressed tightly into his, I didn’t need to move. He had his hand resting on my lower back and as we danced, he slid it down to the curve of my hip and let it rest there. Making the evening even more surprising and extra sexy, he put his lips to my ear and sang as we danced. It was obvious that he didn’t know the song and he was making up the words as he went along but that made it all the better. He was having fun. Aaron Winters had learned to have fun and I like to think I at least helped him get there. Maybe after it came out that I was embezzling money from his company that would be something he could remember me by. Damn! I wasn’t going to think about that tonight. A second slow song came on as the first one ended and he didn’t miss a beat. The only thing that changed position was the hand that had been resting on my back. He slid it down slowly and let it land on my right cheek and every so often as we swayed to the music, he would give it a squeeze.
He used his other hand to brush the skin on my arm gently up and down. He let it land on the back of my neck underneath my hair and he had his mouth close to my ear as he whispered, “You feel so good.”
“Mm,” I said, “You feel me so good.” I had my hands on his arms and I squeezed his hard biceps as I said it. He let out a soft moan in my ear and then suddenly I felt his tongue there and my whole body did a little spasm thing. He had the uncanny ability to make me forget that the world outside of the walls we were in even existed. I think if I could spend every moment in his arms like this I would forget that Igor existed at all.
We danced and drank until the early hours of the morning. It was the single most “fun” night we’d ever had. We have a lot of “nice” ones and “entertaining” ones… but straight up “fun” was hard for Aaron, so the fact that he’d had so much of it made it that much greater for me. I can honestly say now too that I saw Aaron Winters in a state I’m sure not many others had witnessed… with a good buzz going on from the tequila shots he was doing with his beers and shaking his butt to modern pop music. He was so drunk in fact that he had to call and wake Jeffrey to pick us up. He passed out on the way home so after Jeffrey got him up to his apartment and I tucked him in nice and cozy I had Jeffrey take me home. As much as I loved going to sleep and waking up in his arms, I was scared to death to be there lately when the phone Igor gave me might ring at any time.
Aaron and I continued to see each other a few days a week and I continued to put on a happy front. It wasn’t hard when I was with Aaron; he had the ability to make me forget that anything or anyone else existed. The hard part was fighting the guilt when he looked at me with reverence and respect in his eyes, or those quiet times when my mind would wander back to my troubles and he would catch me staring off into space and ask what was wrong. I would try to smile and deny that there was anything out of the ordinary going on. I know that he didn’t believe me, but I told myself that soon it would all be over and things would be so normal he would forget about my couple weeks of moodiness.
By the end of the second week of my “embezzlement” I had managed to amass seventy-five thousand dollars. I went by the bank on Friday and withdrew the last of it from the account I had created for it. I left just enough in to keep the account open. An account that was opened and then closed in just a couple of weeks would really send up red flags. I sat in the dark in my apartment that night trying not to listen to the guilty whispers of the seven hundred and fifty, one hundred dollar bills in the bag underneath my bed. I never fell asleep that night. I sat wide awake alternately telling myself I was only doing what I had to do and cursing myself for what I was doing. I finally fell asleep around five a.m. When I woke up I knew it was time… it was time to call Igor and get this over with once and for all.
I called him on Saturday morning and he answered on the first ring.
“Hello baby! I was expecting your call.”
“I have the money,” I told him.
“I knew you could do this. You make me so happy.”
“I’m not concerned about making you happy,” I told him. “Tell me where to meet you and I will be there. All I’m interested in is making this and you, go away. Bring the marriage certificate, Igor, the original.”
He laughed and said, “My sexy girl has grown up into a feisty young woman, I’m so proud.”
“Shut up! You don’t get to be proud. You don’t even know me and I am not “yours” in any way. Stop making your lewd sexual comments too. You make me nauseous. Tell me where to meet you or I will hang up and go to the police.” That was the other option I had considered. I knew that reporters would be standing by for that kind of information though and again, it would reflect poorly on Aaron who was completely innocent of any wrong-doing here. In other words, it was an empty threat.
Igor knew that as well as I did and he laughed again, I hated the sound of it. It was strange that the sound of a laugh can make you so angry. He let the silence hang between us for several seconds.
“There is a diner on fifty-Seventh Street called, “Mauve’s”. I see you there at two o’clock. I bring what you want, you bring what I need.” Then he hung up. I looked at the time, it was ten o’clock now. I had four hours to wait. I realized after one hour passed that it was going to be a really long day. There was one more anxiety attack on the horizon and it hit hard. I fought through it and managed to be ready and get to the restaurant ten minutes early. Igor was already there, seated in a booth at the far end of the diner next to a window. I swallowed hard and had to force my legs to move and walk towards him. The bag on my shoulder was really big and really heavy and as I walked towards him I let myself imagine that suddenly undercover officers would jump out of their seats with their guns drawn and order me down on the floor. They would find me red-handed with all of the money and Igor would slip out the back door. Aaron would be so angry that he would never visit me in jail and by the time I got out of jail he would have that beautiful wife who wasn’t me and two point five kids. My imagination was beginning to get out of hand.
“Hello beautiful,” Igor said when I got next to the table. I dropped down onto the seat across from him and hoped that the look on my face was relaying my distaste for him and his terms of endearment. Before either of us could speak further, the waitress was there with the coffee po
t. Igor had a half empty breakfast plate in front of him. The rude thug ate without me. It wasn’t like I was going to join him for a meal, but it was bad manners for him to not ask. It was one more point against him.
“Can I get you anything, hon?” the waitress asked me.
“No, coffee is fine,” I told her. Once she was gone I said, “This isn’t a social meet. I want to finish our business and get out of here. I don’t ever want to see you again. Did you bring it?”
He grinned a nasty grin and laid a manila folder on the table. I reached for it.
Igor’s gaze pierced me as he asked, “What about you? Did you bring what you were supposed to, or did you only come here to insult me?”
With a sigh, I flipped open the top of the bag so he could see the cash inside. I closed it quickly and said, “I want to see the document first.” He opened the folder and inside of it was a State of New York official marriage license with our names on it. I reached over and felt the seal with my fingertips. It felt real, all I could do was say a silent prayer that he wasn’t scamming me. While I was doing that, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold ring. It was the ring that he’d used as a wedding ring when we got married. He laid it on top of the folder. I picked up the bag and handed it over by passing it under the table to him. Then, I put the cellphone down in front of him and picked up the folder and the ring and without saying another word to him I left the restaurant. Once I was outside, not arrested and with the original marriage certificate in hand I felt a wave of relief wash over my body. I let out the breath I’d been holding for two weeks. It was over…
I went home right after that and opened all of the windows in the apartment. I happily breathed in the fresh, almost spring air while I cleaned and dusted, mopped and vacuumed. I hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything other than Igor and the money for the past two weeks, not even housework and laundry. I was on my last clean pair of underwear. I turned up the music and danced as I cleaned. I felt like my soul was finally at peace.
My phone rang around four, it was Aaron. I still had some residual anxiety so for a few seconds, I held my breath to see what he was calling to say. My imagination was working overtime again and I was imagining now that Igor had called him as soon as I’d walked out of that restaurant. My life was becoming consumed by guilt and paranoia. I was going to start hearing the pounding of my guilty heart in my ears soon.
“Hi baby,” he said when I picked up the phone. God that sounded like heaven compared to the creepy sound of when Igor calls me that.
“Hi there, handsome, how are you?”
“I am great. I just finished my last meeting of the day and I wondered if you would be free for a date on the town tonight.”
“I’m always free for you,” I told him. I couldn’t wait for a night out with him now, completely stress free at last. I wondered if he wanted to go dancing again.
“Okay then,” he said. “I have tickets for Wicked at seven-thirty. Dinner before or after?”
“Wicked! Really?” I was so excited I was beside myself. I was glad I was alone in the apartment because I was actually dancing a little jig. I’d always wanted to see that play on Broadway. I think I’d mentioned it once to Aaron in passing. He remembered. He was amazing.
He laughed, “Really. Orchestra A seats too.” With Aaron, I had come to expect nothing less.
I looked at the clock and down at myself. I looked like Cinderella way before the ball. “How about we wait and do dinner after. I’d like time before to get really pretty for you.”
“I’d be willing to bet you look gorgeous right now,” he said. “But okay, we’ll have dinner afterwards.”
“You’re sweet, but you’d lose that bet. What time shall I expect you?”
“Jeffrey and I will be there by six.”
“Okay, I’ll hurry,” I said. “Thank you for this, I’m so excited.”
“Good, I want your life to be filled with that feeling. I love you, Robyn.”
“I love you so much!”
I hung up and squealed out loud. I was so excited I felt like a little girl on her way to Disney World. I went in and looked in my closet first to see what I would wear. I had an Anne Klein dress I’d bought on clearance a while back and I had yet to wear; I thought it would be perfect for tonight. I took it out and held it up to me.
It was a sleek sheath design, red with black piping and a round, notched neckline. The sleeves were elbow-length and it zipped up the back. There was a little vent in the center of the back and I had a pair of black pumps that would go great with it. I ran myself a bubble bath to soak in and when I got out, I carefully applied my make-up and put my hair up in a loose bun with curls hanging down along the side of my face. I put on the necklace Aaron bought me for Valentine’s Day. I touched it, remembering what Igor had said about me selling it. I shuddered at the memory. Fortunately, the doorbell rang, pulling my mind out of that particular gutter, Aaron to the rescue once again. I put all thoughts of Igor behind me and resolved to go out and have the best night of my life with my love tonight.
The play was amazing, I sat enraptured by it while Aaron held my hand and occasionally whispered in my ear. During the intermission, I was still exploding from so many different emotions. I wasn’t sure which ones were from the knowledge that I was free of Igor and which were from the literally incredible show. I mean who doesn’t love a dancing monkey? Who wouldn’t be spellbound by the love between a green girl who everyone is frightened of and a handsome young man that all the girls want? I certainly was and it felt like I finally had all of those questions I had as a kid when I watched the Wizard of Oz at least a hundred times finally answered. While we had a glass of wine and Aaron and I posed for pictures for the press, all I really wanted was for the intermission to be over so that we could go back in and watch some more. As we sipped our wine and I tried not to act too anxious, he introduced me to one of his business associates that we ran into, a man named Boris and his wife Felicia. I felt the sick knot of anxiety twist its ugly fist in pit of my stomach once again when Boris opened his mouth. He was Russian and he spoke with a very deep accent. Fighting the nausea I was feeling just at the sound of the man’s voice I put out my hand and shook his and said, “So nice to meet you.”
Then, I began imagining that he was someone Igor sent here to watch me. I realized that paranoia was becoming a part of my every day and it was becoming ridiculous. Hopefully after a few days without that monkey on my back my thoughts would return to normal. At last the intermission was over and we got to go back to our seats. I asked Aaron on the way in how he was enjoying it.
A deep smile crept across his face. “The score is fantastic.”
“You’ve never seen the Wizard of Oz, have you?”
“No, I never have.” He at least had the decency to look embarrassed about it. I just shook my head at him and told him that we would have to put it on the top of our list the next time we had a movie night at home. He smiled, but I wasn’t sure he was as enthusiastic about it as I was.
After the show was over we went to a really nice little French bistro in Manhattan for dinner.
The neighborhood around the restaurant was loud with eclectic music drifting out from the apartment building down the street and heavy traffic passing by on the main Avenue out front. It was a little stone store front with tiny little wrought iron fences along the front and potted sego palms on either side of the door. When we walked inside it felt like we’d been transported to Paris, or at least the way I imagined Paris to be. The restaurant was quiet with soft lighting that gave it a warm glow and charming atmosphere. It smelled of rich pastry and fresh bread and soft, French music piped through the speakers. We were greeted warmly by the hostess who knew Aaron on sight. Aaron introduced me to her and she said, “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mr. Winters told me all about