by Kiki Leach
“That isn’t the only time I’ve ever been outside of the city, Nathan. And if you ever bothered to ask me questions about what I do during the day while you’re at work, you’d know that.”
“I’d ask you questions if you bothered to have something interesting to tell me.”
“You can be such an asshole sometimes, you know that? For your information, I lead a very interesting life when you’re not around and that includes knowing plenty of people in other places outside of this city that I have never told you or anyone else about, simply because you do not ask--”
“Well you got your wish,” he snapped. “Because I’m asking now.” For once, that wasn’t a response she wanted to hear. “So why don’t you tell me what it is that I need to know.”
“There is absolutely nothing for you to know,” she said, “and there is nothing to tell.” She turned back to the bathroom and placed her hand on the frame. “I need to go and dry off, then we can talk about what we did tonight – or better yet, we can just go to bed and--”
“No--”
“Nathan!” She spun around. “I am tired, alright? I had a long night and have to meet with our wedding planner in just a few hours. I’d like to get some sleep before the sun comes up, so why don’t we just forget any of this even happened, including everything that happened before you left and just go. to. bed--”
“No,” he repeated in a more serene voice. He stood back and crossed his arms over his chest, still holding onto that piece of paper. “You’re acting the same way you did when you were keeping secrets about him.”
She furrowed her brows in confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“The guy back in California.”
“Wha – Nick? The man that I volunteered with once, really?”
“The one you were always on the phone with,” he said. “The one who always made you smile in a way that I never could.”
“That’s because he was always nice to me when you were being an asshole – like right now. And that was if you weren’t bitching about your parent’s or Vanessa hating you, but even then…” Her aggravation increased and she shut her eyes while balling her fists and pounding them against the air. “Nothing. Ever. Happened.”
“I don’t know that.”
“I’m telling you that it didn’t.”
“You’re not telling me about this.” He waved the paper again.
“Like you didn’t tell me about going to see Vanessa earlier today before you did it? That’s why I called him!”
“What?”
“Don’t play stupid now, I know that you went through my phone.” She tightened the towel around her, then walked over and snatched the paper from his hand, opening it wide and shoving it close to his face. “This man is a former professor at NYU. Joan gave me his number when I called her asking for some advice. I told her what I wanted to do at the magazine, and she told me that he could help me to improve my writing. But that deal was shot to hell after you decided to take it upon yourself to interfere after I specifically asked you to stay out of it. So I called him tonight, yes, and I told him that his services were no longer needed.” She smashed the paper back down into his hand. He stared as the numbers and words blended together from the water still on her hands. “That’s all!”
He looked back into her deceptive brown eyes. “And you couldn’t do this during the day?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“What does it matter now? I won’t be seeing him or talking to him again, so really, what does it matter?” She breathed out and then gulped, hoping like hell she had covered her tracks well enough with the web of lies she had created. She knew if she showed enough anger toward him in her answers, not too much but just the right amount, he would back off.
He glanced at the paper again, his brows furrowed now, and crumbled it between his fingers. “Who did you go out with tonight?”
“Now you suddenly give a damn about who I spent my time with?” she retorted. “Who did you go out with tonight?”
“Eddie,” he said. “And some of the other guys from work.”
“I went out with Melanie.”
“Who?”
“The guy who owns The Bean, it was his wife. I met her today at the spa, which is where I also ran into Nikki, but that’s another story for another time.” She walked back a little and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You plan to interrogate me anymore tonight, or what?”
He felt foolish in his accusations against her and slowly shook his head. “No. I was only thinking that if you were calling this ‘professor’ tonight about your writing, you couldn’t have had that good of a time with this Melanie person.” He casually sat down beside her on the bed, his knee grazing against hers.
“To be honest, I actually had a great time, we had fun. I don’t think I’ve laughed like that in years. And she seems like a cool person. She knows about my situation with Vanessa and she hasn’t judged me about it – the first person I’ve ever met who has yet to do so. But she’s got kids on top of her own problems to deal with, so I don’t know how often she’s going to want to ‘hang out’.”
“What kind of problems are we talking here?”
“Like Nikki having sex with her husband kind of problems.”
“Wait a second, Nik? Damn.” He laughed due to pure shock of the situation and pitched the paper across the room; it landed back on top of the dresser and Sheila let out a shallow breath of relief. “I didn’t think she had it in her to do something like that, not with the way she treated us after--”
“That girl has had a lot of things in her over the years, including him,” she said. Nathan chuckled. “I told Melanie what a hypocrite she is. That ever since we were kids, she’s been a judgmental bitch who can do a bad thing but it’s wrong for anyone else if they do it too. I don’t know how she and Vanessa managed to stay friends all these years, but we didn’t. I know why, but, still…”
“How did Melanie come to tell you about all of this?”
“You get a few drinks in somebody and they can start to sing like a canary at will. For once I wasn’t fishing for anything, she just more or less blurted it out.”
“You think you two will become friends after this?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, followed up by deep sigh. “But it’d be nice to have someone to hang around with. Vanessa’s not coming around anytime soon and I hate Nik just as much as she hates me, so it’s not like I have very many options to choose from.” He looked down at her hands and saw her tapping her fingers against one another. He took her hand in his and clamped his fingers around it. She eyed him with genuine surprise, and suspicion. “What are you doing?”
“I’m sorry,” he told her.
She snatched her hand back. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it for me right now. If you were really sorry like you always claim, you wouldn’t keep doing these things and saying these things to me on such a regular basis--”
“I know that. But you have to understand where I’m coming from--”
“That’s just it, I don’t understand it and never have! I’ve only ever wanted to be with you from the very beginning. That hasn’t been the case for you from the moment we first slept together and still isn’t.”
“I know that too, and that’s why I said I’m sorry.” He attempted honesty, but Sheila remained uncertain. “I shouldn’t have let whatever that was get to me like it did. And I shouldn’t have gone to see Vanessa today because it didn’t make a difference like I thought it would. I should’ve stayed out of it like you asked.”
She saw the sincerity developing in his eyes and felt bad for her own deceptions, prompting her to let go of the anger she felt toward him. “She was never going to put me in it anyway, but I still wanted a chance to prove to her and to myself and everyone else that I’m not an idiot.”
“Maybe if you go and see her yourself you could--”
“I already tried that and found Maurice instead.”
“I went to her house, drunk off my ass. She wasn’t there, which was probably for the best. But that doesn’t matter now since I pretty much deleted my source.”
He clinched his teeth. “If you really need this guy, maybe you can get him back--”
“No,” she insisted, wishing to drop the subject altogether. She knew now that attempting to see Adrian again at any point was probably not the best idea, though she remained tempted. “What’s done is done, there’s no need in going back to it.” She looked down at herself, remembering she was still in a towel. “I need to go and dry off.” She got up from the bed but Nathan grabbed at her hand again.
“Hold on.” He looked down at her legs as the water dripped from between them and ran a tongue over his lips. “Come here.” He spun her around in front of him and began removing her towel.
She laughed. “You wanna have sex now? Why is it that you only get turned onto it after we fight?”
“That’s the best sex to have, right? Come on.” He dropped her towel to the floor and leaned in to kiss and lick the water from her stomach. He whirled his tongue around her belly button and she suckled her bottom lip. He slid his hands up and down between her thighs and brought her closer to him. “Are you too tired,” he asked, “for this?”
“No,” she responded almost immediately. He picked her up from the floor and swung her around to the other side of the bed. She cackled in excitement as he placed her down and lay on top of her. She pulled at his pants and yanked his shirt open as buttons went flying everywhere.
Once she removed his briefs and felt him inside of her, all brain function collapsed right on cue. He took his time easing in and out of her in the way he knew she liked. It seemed like an eternity of stroking, but had only taken less than an hour before they climaxed together. She wanted to go for another round or two and he obliged, if only she promised to do what he liked this time.
She moved down between his legs and wrapped her hands around his shaft, then bent down and extended her lips around the head, swirling it between them as she moved her hands up and down against the bulging veins of his rod, giving him the full satisfaction he desired from her. He curled his fingers inside his hands and slammed them into the bed as that feeling overtook his entire body. He shut his eyes and became taut from head to toe, and when he felt himself about to explode, the flash of Adrian’s smile when he looked at her crossed Sheila’s mind and she removed her mouth from the head, only to replace it with her body.
Nathan’s eyes popped open as soon as he felt her back on top of him and he leaned forward. “What the hell are you doing?” His voice was panicked.
“Just let me…” She pressed her hands against his chest, forcing him back down to the bed.
Nathan was infuriated as she grinded against him as hard and swift as she could, her hair flying over her shoulders and smacking her against the face. “Damn,” he said to himself. Even the sight of her rock solid nipples and perfectly round breasts bouncing against her couldn’t entice him to continue participating in making love to her. But he wasn’t going to force her to stop either – because despite his anger, she still felt good as hell in the way she shifted her body against and around his dick. Once he came inside of her – the warmth trickling throughout her body – she collapsed on his chest, a smile so wide crossing her face that Nathan thought it might get stuck.
Normally, he would’ve comforted her and said something sweet about how she worked it, at least to keep up appearances. But he was too pissed to put his hands around her now. And she was too high from the feeling of having made him come inside of her again and again to even care. She rolled over to the other side of the bed and pulled the blankets up around her body. Within minutes, she was out cold, but Nathan remained wide awake and glaring across the room, feeling only partially satisfied.
When Sheila’s phone started rattling against the dresser, he looked over at her, then got up to turn it off. But then he picked it up and saw Adrian’s name and number flashing across. He thought about pushing the red button to send him straight to her voicemail, but decided to push the green one instead and answered.
“Hello?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Adrian stopped as soon as he reached the door to his apartment, startled that he had heard another man’s voice instead of Sheila’s. “Did I call the right number? I meant to reach a Sheila Harris.”
“This is her number. You’re Adrian Samuels, the professor at NYU, right?”
“That’s right. I take it she told you about me?”
“She mentioned that you were helping her out with writing an article for Vanessa’s magazine but that it wasn’t going to work out.”
Adrian opened the door to his apartment and grinned. “Is that what she said?”
“Yeah, that’s what she said,” Nathan responded in a more belligerent tone. “What are you calling her back for now if she’s done with you?”
“No reason,” he said, though it was a lie. He had realized in his cab ride on the way back to Queens that he was missing his pocketbook, and thought he might have left it there by mistake, but there was no way he was mentioning a word of that to Nathan after hearing what he had learned from Sheila. “I just thought I’d check on her, to see if she might have changed her mind about it, that’s all.”
“Thanks, but she’s fine and she hasn’t.” He stood straight and tilted his head a little. “You know about me, right? The fiancé?”
He chuckled and bobbed his head. “I’ve known about you for years.” His reply was curt, standoffish; Nathan flinched. “Listen, you tell Sheila if she’s ever in need of my ‘services’ again, I’m just a phone call away.”
He hung up before Nathan could even manage to form a response. As he held the phone in his hand, he turned to look back at Sheila, who shifted in bed and mumbled something in her sleep while sliding her hand between her thighs and bending her knees. He tightened his jaw and looked down at her phone again, and wondered why the hell Adrian thought it was necessary to call her back so late. He had questions, but knew that Sheila wouldn’t provide the answers he was looking for, so he pushed a few buttons to reach her address book and scrolled until he found Joan’s number. He sent her a text while pretending to be Sheila and asked her to meet for lunch later that day at Isabella’s so that they could ‘catch up’.
He was surprised to see her answer back so quickly and agreeing, though she asked if it would be alright to bring her baby as she wouldn’t have time to call up a sitter. Nathan groaned and almost reconsidered, but too anxious for answers, he told her that it would be fine. When Joan didn’t immediately reply that time, he worried he had somehow taken a misstep in the conversation. She came back and explained something about a pie she attempted to bake that was nearly burning in the oven. As he found himself becoming annoyed with the conversation, he replied that ‘Nathan’ was on his way back to the room after a long night out with friends and needed sleep, but that ‘she’ would see her at 2pm sharp. After Joan agreed, Nathan quickly erased all traces of the messages and blocked any incoming calls or texts she would try to make beforehand, and slipped the phone back into Sheila’s purse. He grabbed the balled up paper with Adrian’s name on it, found his wallet in the corner and stuck it inside.
After climbing back into bed, he looked over at Sheila again. She continued mumbling something while moving her hand back and forth against herself. Nathan leaned in closer to try and get a better listen as to what she was saying, but once she felt a shift in the bed, she stopped and removed her hand, curling it underneath herself. Nathan crossed his arms and lay back against the headboard, thinking, wondering. A lot seemed to be riding on this conversation with Joan. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t know just how much until it was too late.
Part Eighteen
“GOOD MORNING!” Vanessa walked into her building the next morning practically singing the words as they escaped from between her lips and floating on could nine. Though not eve
ryone had the same enthusiasm upon approaching her, if only because they couldn’t bring themselves to understand why or how her sudden ‘glee at even the thought of being alive’ managed to happen without warning. As she approached the front desk, she leaned over to the two women sitting behind it and winked. “Morning, Benita! Jackie! It is such an exquisite day outside--”
Jackie looked over at Benita. “Exquisite?”
“Don’t you think so?” Vanessa continued. “My God, the absolute beauty of this city astounds me sometimes. I hate that we have to work inside this dreary building all day, otherwise, we could be out there enjoying every part of it! Maybe I could actually convince my mother to have a few meetings in the park today. Wouldn’t that be something?” She waved at them before heading off down the hall.
“Yeah,” Benita and Jackie replied in unison. They got up from their chairs and leaned over the desk, watching in awe as she landed on the elevator and greeted everyone she came across in the same cheerful manner. They looked at each other again, unsure if she was really the same ill-tempered woman who worked in the building or was just a nicer, more exuberant looking clone.
“Girl, who the fuck was that?” asked Jackie.
“I don’t know,” Benita replied, tickled at what she had just seen. “And I’m afraid to question it because she might go away soon.”
She extended her index finger and nodded. “I heard that.”
Vanessa continued her happy greetings throughout the building until she reached her own floor. People heard her voice from outside the doors, but mistakenly thought it belonged to someone else and continued working.
“Morning, morning!” she continued while pushing her way inside. It wasn’t until her employees saw her face and lips moving with the words coming out that they realized it was actually her. They looked around at each other and began to wonder if the end was truly nigh. “How is everyone today?” she questioned as she moved throughout the room. “Good, good, good.” She breezed past, answering before they could even respond. No one could remember the last time if ever that she had told them morning, let alone started off with it being ‘good’ or asking how they were. When she finally reached Samantha’s desk, she was all but ready to burst into flames of passion. “MORNING!” She admired her assistant’s wardrobe and stood back. “Yellow is such a beautiful color for your skin – you should wear it more often.”