Mind F*ck

by Dawn, Kimber S.

  Cursing my already rising ninety percenter.

  “You probably didn’t mention it because you were so flustered by your husband’s asshole behavior. How long have the two of you been married? Not long enough for you to lay down any ground rules, I know. Or at least I hope that’s the case.”

  She blinks several times. “Five, almost six years. Ground rules?” Her cute little nose wrinkles just as she tilts her head and furrows her brows.

  I can’t help but chuckle at her. She’s too cute.

  I shake my head and reach for the tea she’s been holding out. “I’ll explain ground rules later. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be painless. Your parents’ still in New Orleans? I thought Trav said you were from LA?” I try changing the subject before taking a sip from the glass she hands me.

  “No. Mom lives in Seattle now. We lived there with husband number two, hers. Not mine. I was eight,” she blabbers and I can see her frustration rising, so I curb my chuckle and go serious.

  She seems to respond better when I’m stern and serious, I’ve noticed. She gets rattled when I try to flirt or joke with her.

  Which sucks. Bad.

  And I plan on correcting that habit soon.

  But not yet, remember…I’m still living in the hell of practicing the patience of Job over here. She’s flighty. And from what I can tell when she doesn’t think anyone else is looking, she’s hurting too.

  Fuck. Ing patience.

  Of Job.

  This shit’s been testing me like nothing other, Bill Clements included.

  “Five years seems like a long time.” I test her by pushing her.

  I said I was patient, I didn’t say I wasn’t above making it as uncomfortable for her as it is for me, don’t get it twisted.

  I’m no saint.

  “It was. I mean it is. I—“ Her eyes cut into mine, and I smile at her increasing agitation. “Five years is five years,” she spits. As if it makes all the sense in the world, and I guess it sort of does.

  “I recently decided I’m good if I never live another long year. I want my years to be short, the short ones always seem to count the most.” I nod, liking the way my words sounded. But when I look down and see the look across her face, I bust out laughing.

  She was not expecting that dose of real talk, and that fact is clearly reflected in her expression. “What? Well that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” She scoffs, and verbally spews a pfft. A pfft! “Pfft, everyone wants more years, long or short.” She continues staring at me completely baffled.

  So I concede, and then I push a bit further. “Does a snack or a sandwich come with the sweet tea, or is that extra?”

  What? I’m not flirting. I’m looking for some lunch. A guy can get hungry in this heat. And besides, I’m sure my sugar is low. I haven’t eaten shit all day.

  Her mouth, with its sweet pouty pink lips, opens and closes a few times before she gets her ducks and her words in a row and finally speaks, “I made a salad. I can have some soup made or some sandwiches thrown together real quick though. It wouldn’t take Mary long at all. And it isn’t noon yet, so she isn’t napping. I didn’t even think to ask, Rhett!” Her hands come up and cover her mouth and I notice her nails are painted the same pale shade of pink as her lips. Huh.

  She uses pale and bleak like camouflage. Khaki and muted pink. Gray. I take her in from head to toe and feel my ninety shift into low gear before going rock hard somewhere after scanning past her tits.

  She can cloak herself in these damn drab colors all she wants, I still clocked her ass. I clocked and zeroed in, and I don’t know if she knows it or not yet, but she’s mine.

  I just gotta get her out from under her husband’s brainwashed rule and quick.

  I’m pretty sure I already have her on my side.

  And that’s a solid step in my favor.

  One I’m treading very lightly on…at least for the time being, anyway.

  “Do you not have any money? Do you not have any groceries?” Her face is pale as if she’s just realized the world suffers from real, true hunger. “Oh my god, you don’t.”

  I don’t string her along, as much as I’d like to, I’m more hungry.

  I do however, have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard when I’m finally able to catch my breath and speak again, “Jesus Christ, woman. You’re the fucking saint. Please, don’t be the death of me. It’d suck entirely too bad.” I chuckle.

  When I feel her muscles tense, I hurry to explain, “I have food. I have money. Which, I’m surprised you’d think different. Wait.” I stop her with my hand touching her wrist just before we walk under the trellis and onto the back porch. When I have her turned to me, I lean in a little closer than I originally meant to, but I don’t correct it.

  I stay where I stop, an inch from her face. “You don’t think I’m your husband’s bitch do you?” As soon as the first hints of blush creeps up from the modest neckline of her summer dress, water floods my mouth at her simple purity and the beauty of it. Of her.

  “Lexy, don’t be so appalled by what I say. I’ll never lie to you, but I also won’t dress it up in lies and candy coat it either. What you see is what you get with me. I’m not mysterious, but I’m not chock full of bullshit either. Don’t forget what this is based on, Lexy. What we are based on.”

  I glance between her eyes, and when my hand comes up to sweep the piece of hair that the wind blows across her face, it turns me into a hypocrite, because I stop it. I stop myself, and instead I tuck my own stubborn wind-blown hair behind my ear.

  “This, us…is based on truth.” I smirk before sliding around her in her own space and waltzing into the kitchen like it’s mine. “So, this where you made the salad?” I ask looking down at the evidence of vegetables recently being cut for a salad.

  I’m trying like hell—you know what, fuck it. From the evening I moved into that pool house, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to talk to her. Make her smile. Steal a snippet of information about herself or her thoughts, and not this damn house or the renovations I’m doing or what’s being shipped in for it and when.

  I see her nod, and this is when it dawns on me. This is when I realize I am in way over my fucking head.

  I’d give anything to keep her talking.

  Anything.

  And this…may be where one would find a chink in my patience armor: where my lack of knowledge about her and all things Lexy concerned, and my increasingly consuming need to find out more.

  I feel like I’m a fucking yo-yo with her. It’s been back and forth with us, give and take. Grab a step forward, lose fucking five back, since the beginning of Spring.

  “You learn any Cajun recipes when you were eight and living in New Orleans? Or did the fine LA cuisines make you forget? Where all have you lived before, by the way?”

  Jesus. Please stop it. Please stop the word vomit.

  “Wow. Will there be a test, or is this it? Why all the questions, Mr. Bennett?”

  My feet lay dead in their tracks.

  Right there in the middle of her kitchen, I am very effectively, and for the second, no third time, in her presence, I’m left speechless.

  Did she just talk shit to me?

  “Did you just talk shit?” I chuckle at her choice of words as they register. “And will there be a test? I dunno, probably. I’m interested. So, kill me.”

  After I get over the fact that finally, after three long weeks, she’s warmed up enough to me to joke, I make my way towards the refrigerator attempting to stay on track for food.

  I’m hungry, haven’t I mentioned that? Oh, and I’m an insulin dependent diabetic, so when my sugar gets low, I don’t just get grumpy, I go into a coma.

  Once the sub-zero air is hitting my face, I glance over my shoulder and raise my eyebrows. “Not again. Where’d she go? I like the feisty side of you, why do you keep it so hidden? You’re funny when you let go, you know it?” I laugh when I catch her trying to cover her smile up.

  “She knows
it,” I mutter, answering myself and look back into the fridge. Then I ask her over my shoulder, “What do you like to eat? Scratch that, Do you like to cook? And if so, what do you like to cook for yourself to eat? What do you like to cook for others? That’s several questions for one, and if I’m being accused of testing someone, I might as well do the job right.” I wink at her. “Right?”

  And finally, I earn a laugh.

  And it does something to me.

  The tinkling of her sweet little laugh—it fucks with shit that I’d thought died years ago.

  “I guess, I think I have to say I agree with you on that.” Once her laughing subsides, she quietly answers, “I actually love to cook. Not the types of food Liam likes, but I do love to cook. Umm…” Her words trail off and after a few moments, she picks up where she left off, “Salads, or a little Totino’s pizza, but doctored with extra cheese and sliced roma tomatoes, with salt and pepper. Only not just baked for the allotted time, but baked, then oven roasted with the broiler. Others? Like loved ones?” Her brow furrows until one of her eyes closes and it’s the cutest thing I’ve seen her do all day. “I loved the few times I made Thanksgiving dinner for Liam and his dad.” She must get lost in thought for a moment, and I leave her there for the time being.

  I go through the cupboards and fridge, grabbing stuff as I go. And after I have everything I need I start cutting up oregano, garlic, basil, and onion, then move on to making the base for my spaghetti sauce, and once that’s done and simmering I start on the noodles. Dash of olive oil, salt and pepper, and some Italian seasoning in the boiling water, and voilà—not bad for an ex-convict.

  And at some point between eating our salads while sharing chicken parmesan from the same plate, using the same fork, a bottle of wine turned into two.

  She’s the most fascinating woman I’ve ever met.

  And that thought scares the living hell out of me.

  She already consumes my every waking thought, what is next? What else does she want to possess? My dreams too? Done. My soul?

  It won’t fucking be long, I promise you that.

  It won’t fucking be long.

  My husband’s been MIA since the week before last. No word, no calls, no texts. Nothing.

  I’d like to tell you that after he stormed out the night Rhett moved in, he came back home and we talked everything out and made up. I wish I could to tell you that, then I’d tell you he explained the note and whoever the fuck doll was on the 44th floor was a joke, and after he explained, I got it.

  But none of that happened, instead…radio silence on his end.

  And the first few nights were pretty rough on me, like really rough. I’m still reeling from the pathetic voice messages and texts I sent.

  So humiliating.

  And for what? Why?

  For nothing. No reason at all. And that’s the hardest pill of all to swallow.

  I don’t even know if he’s okay…well, as far as he knows, I don’t. Unless of course Rhett’s told him I’ve asked about him, and he’s told him he’s informed me that he’s okay. That he’s safe and alive and still showing up to work every day.

  From the monitoring and surveillance cameras and audio equipment Rhett’s found while taking apart my side of the house board by board, I now know he’s been monitoring me. I now know I’ve lived like a gullible gold fish in an aquarium. I now know I’ve had absolutely no privacy from the moment we moved into this mirage prison.

  God, do I think out loud often?

  “Shit, I hope not,” I mutter before blowing my bangs out of my face and then changing direction of my blow to my coffee to cool it for a sip.

  My eyes are just settling on the sun rising when I hear running feet crunching up the drive. But before I can react, or stand up and tuck my robe closed, since I’m wearing next to nothing for a top and a pair of booty shorts, booty shorts!

  “You hope not, what, little miss Lexy.” I hear him before I see him, so by the time he’s circled past my peripheral and straight into my field of vision, front and center, I’m half way standing, and I’ve not gotten my damn robe closed yet.

  Humiliation. Again.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, woman. If you get any damn sexier, Sexy Lexy, I won’t be held responsible for my actions. Mark my words. I’m warning you…When I squared the fact that you’re still legally married, as unhappily as it may be, with myself, a fuck ton of other morals were left at the wayside with that one cardinal sin. Am I making myself clear?”

  His shirtless body…

  Basketball shorts riding low on his narrow hips, strongly and proudly professing it’s anatomically perfected V just above his hip bones, sweat soaked, plane after plane of rock hard abdomen. I swear I counted like eighteen rivets and divots or whatever the hell the Latin medical term for them is.

  I’m trying to collect my thoughts, I’m trying to gather my words and spit them out. But I’m stuck, opening and closing my mouth like a freaking idiot fish. The light dusting of dark blond hair across his chest and his prominent happy trail…I lick my lips—because my mouth’s gone bone dry.

  He’s so long.

  That’s the only, ridiculous thought circling my head as I watch the beads of sweat drip and roll their way down, sometimes seemingly following the lines previously inked into the dermis of his skin. Like a follow the line…

  Or a follow the leader.

  “Lexy? Lexy?” His chuckling pulls me from the trance his flesh and sweat and the mosaic of, has created and pulled me in with, then a few seconds after his words register. “Lexy? Did I lose you again, sweetie?”

  I snap my mouth closed for half a second before slamming my eyes into his dark brown ones.

  Wow. Eye’s aren’t like Liam’s. Body and body hair, is obviously not like Liam’s. Liam’s shaved everything since high school.

  He’s nothing like Liam.

  Nothing.

  “No. You didn’t lose me. Sorry.” Embarrassment wins out half way through my brave statement, and I feel myself retreat just before finishing quieter than I began. I shrink in on myself. Both physically and mentally.

  I watch the sun highlight his tanned and tattooed flesh, casting the darker shades and demons into light while shadows cover the angels and praying hands. His muscles, each and every one, flex differently as he jogs up the stairs to the second floor balcony and heads towards where I’m sitting.

  The same balcony I last felt my husband’s loving hands on my flesh.

  Shit.

  I sit up, trying to shake off bad, negative thoughts.

  And when he’s near enough to the chaise lounge I’m still semi-curled up on, he smiles down at me before sitting on the foot end. Once he’s sat, he pulls the sweat shirt that was hooked around his waist, over his head and when it’s adjusted he turns back to face me and smiles before speaking, “Good. I hate it when that happens.” His shoulder nudges my knee. “Sorry, I didn’t know you woke up this early. I would’ve started bugging you days ago.” He laughs, “I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Am I bothering you? If so, just say the word and I’m gone.” He raises his hands in surrender, the same way he did the morning he snuck into my room and I woke up and found him. “Scout’s honor,” he quips with a smirk.

  “Oh?” I joke. I joke because he’s joking, and yes, I mean NO, I don’t know how to joke. No, I don’t know how to flirt. I suck.

  Have you been reading this story? Have you been following it?

  My social interactions have been so horribly neglected, that I’m surprised I’ve been able to maintain a functioning progressive friendship with Mary. And she’s pregnant.

  So it hasn’t even been solidified in the usual wine and deepest, darkest secrets ritual yet.

  And I’m explaining all of this to you so that you’ll understand the second part of my return quip, when I say: “I didn’t know scouts grew up to be convicts.”

  The look that flashes across his face instantly tells me my words cut. Deep.

  And immediately I want to ta
ke them back. As soon as I see the hurt, though it’s covered with another nonchalant smirk and that same devious gleam in his eye, I still saw it. And I still regret saying it.

  “You’d be surprised, I guess.”

  I’m so stupid.

  “Rhett.” I sit up, and without even thinking, I place my hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know your story, I have no business—“

  But whatever guilt that’d started creeping in, for actually initiating physical contact with this person that I’ve been living side by side with for the last three and a half weeks, whatever ugly thing that was about to lift it’s big head and turn this sweet, kind moment into something it isn’t, Rhett’s hand settles on mine and it instantly slays it. Keeping this moment what it is.

  His dark brown eyes pierce into mine, and it feels like he’s digging out pieces of my soul and showing them to me for the first time. Then he speaks, “Hey, Lexy, I already told you, I’m not a saint. I like that your expectations of me are low. That’s good. Believe it or not.” He chuckles. “I mean, you do have an asshole, a cheating asshole as a husband. And I could’ve fucked with you about that.” His eyebrows shoot up, but the joking smile stays on his face. “Then I did. There? Now are we even?” he asks.

  “Yeah, we’re even.” I tell him.

  He turns completely towards me, spreading his thighs on the chaise lounge until there’s one long strong leg on either side, then he just looks at me, expectantly.

  I sputter around my coffee, asking, “What? Stop looking at me like that. What?”

  “Nuh uh.” He shakes his head and twitches his pointer finger from side to side at me. “No, ma’am. I sit like an idiot, you sit like an idiot. I’m about to say something a little important. And you’re gonna be apart of it. You’re in this as much as I am, sweet tits.” His mouth drops open like he’s astonished his words fell out of it. Like he’s offended the room.

  I belly laugh, for the first time in as long as I can remember. I literally laugh my ass off! I lmao!