Playing House

by Willsin Rowe

  A sharp chill rolled down my spine. Him having me on auto-dial was creepy enough, but it wasn’t the worst part. The scariest part was wondering just how the hell he even got hold of my number.

  “Yeah, hello. Who’s this? Mark? But that’s Lucy’s phone. What are you doing—” His face gradually swerved from angry indignation to cold disappointment. “Well, where are you? Oh…”

  He turned around and looked out through the front window of my store. I followed his gaze and to my immense relief and surprise, I saw Mark crossing the street toward us, my phone pressed up to his ear. He even gave us both a goofy wave.

  Patrick disconnected the call and folded his arms, standing in the doorway and partially blocking it. He was more rangy than solid, but he seemed determined to look as large as possible.

  Mark pushed the door open and shot his gorgeous, winning smile at the creepy mailman.“Hey there, big fella. Wanna let me through?”

  Patrick stepped back only barely enough to let Mark’s tall frame pass by. “Name’s Patrick,” he muttered, sounding for all the world like a sulking toddler.

  Mark didn’t seem to hear, simply pushing past the other man, holding my phone out toward me. He gifted me another of his gorgeous playful smiles. “Delivery for Miss Featherstone.”

  “Thank you, Mark. You really didn’t have to do that. I would have been fine without it.”

  “It’s already rung twice this morning.”

  “That was just me looking for it. Oh, and Patrick, but you answered that one.”

  “I was still driving the first time it rang. But actually I’m kind of glad you forgot it. After hearing you talk about your store, I really wanted to see it. At least this way I have an excuse and don’t look so much like a stalker.”

  A fresh burst of nervous giggles erupted from my throat. To hear Mark say ‘stalker’ like that when he was standing right beside Patrick just tickled my funny-bone.

  I walked over to Mark, and he pressed my cell phone into my hand. The skin on skin contact both reassured and excited me. Just as I took my phone, his own one rang. I blurted my thanks as quickly as I could, while he glanced at his phone’s screen, frowning as he did so.

  “I’ll, um, take this outside.”

  Dammit. As he left the shop it dawned on me that once again I was alone with Patrick. Now, though, I was within man-handling reach, standing right next to him. Just before the door closed, I heard Mark answer his phone.

  “Yes, Gabs? What can I do…”

  Whatever else he said was lost to me as the door swung shut behind him. I could feel the frown deepening on my forehead.

  “What’s wrong, Lucy?”

  “Hmm? Oh… nothing really.”

  “Huh. You said that before, stupid. And you’d forgot your phone.”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  “What?”

  “Um, stupid.”

  “Ah, I was just teasing.”

  He genuinely didn’t seem to think he’d insulted me, but it still made me feel cold to be called names. There were guys out there who thought it was cool to slip shit into girls’ drinks, and call it teasing.

  “Come on, Lucy. What’s wrong?”

  He shifted his weight to one foot, and it reminded me how close he was. And how large, in comparison to me. He really seemed insistent on having this conversation and though I’d much rather be cowering beneath my desk in a duck-and-cover moment, it didn’t seem he’d be put off by another all-purpose nothing.

  “I just, uh, I think it’s just strange that she’d call him.”

  “She?”

  “Gabrielle. His girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend, I thought.”

  Patrick seemed to take a moment to process the information. “Wait, so he has a girlfriend, but he’s fucking you on the side?”

  “Patrick! Please don’t speak to me like that!”

  “What kind of sleazy double life are you keeping secret from me, Lucy? I thought you were a nice girl.”

  I felt like slapping him, for no other reason than he was creeping me out. But at that moment it wasn’t clear if I was only angry at him, or if it was Mark’s apparently not-as-single-as-he-claimed status that had my blood boiling. I mean, he’d gone within a hair of kissing me last night. And I’d nearly let him. Not to mention all the other wonderfully dirty things we would have done straight afterward.

  Damn him for lying. Damn him for bending me to his will. And… and fuck him for being just like all the others.

  But before I could head outside and knee Mark in a tender spot, I had to deal with an ever more freaky mailman stalker. One who had not only grown eerily possessive of me, but suddenly judgmental as well. All my subtle hints and overt reticence had amounted to nothing. Maybe what Mark told me before was right, and I should try the rolled up newspaper approach.

  “Listen, Patrick. I have no double life. I’m simply trying to keep all of me secret from you. Whatever it is you think we have going on between us, it just isn’t there. Please try to understand, I don’t like you in that way, and I never will. You and I will never be a– a couple.”

  As I’d spoken, his face had grown darker and darker. Just as I’d finished he’d bristled and stepped toward me, causing me to stumble over my words. He shot a hooked thumb at the front door. “Well, he has some other dirty whore and obviously doesn’t want you. So why not me?”

  I backed away slowly, glancing outside to see Mark still focused entirely on his phone call. I couldn’t rely on him coming to help me, and besides, I was a grown woman and should be able to take care of myself. I’d been allowing men to set my agenda since I was born. It stopped here. “Really? Is that the way it works in your little fantasy world? If I don’t get to be with Mark then by default I have to be with you?”

  “I don’t care about the rest of it, but yeah. You’re supposed to be with me.”

  “I don’t want to be with you, Patrick. I don’t even like you!”

  I’d retreated so far the backs of my thighs hit the edge of my desk. Patrick kept advancing, and my breath faltered. All the bravado I’d conjured up evaporated with the knowledge I’d trapped myself with an off-kilter man who seemed to feel some kind of ownership of me. From the moment I’d met Patrick he’d exuded a quiet peculiarity. There had been hints of a darker side, but this was the first I’d truly seen of it.

  “Sounds like you’re being a dirty little slut, Lucy.” His voice grew higher and more manic. Whenever Mark raised his voice, it brought to mind the regality of a lion. Patrick seemed to embody a starved hyena. “You’ve been putting your bits all around the place, like bait. Just to see what you can catch.”

  He clamped his hand around my throat, cutting off the air and filling my head with numb pressure. Without any sign of effort he simply pushed me until I was leaning backward precariously over my desk. All with just the one hand. Then with the other he clawed at my leg and hoisted me up, slamming my ass down heavily on the hard wooden surface.

  I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even breathe. He shoved his knee right against the front of my thighs and forced them far enough apart that he could move between them. As he stared down at my crotch he curled his top lip up in something that looked like anger mixed with disdain.“I suppose I should worry about what you’ve already caught.”

  Slapping and pulling at his hand had no effect. The lack of blood to my brain and air to my lungs made it difficult to see or hear. It felt as though I was losing consciousness, and all I could see was Patrick’s face, twisted with loathing. He bared his teeth in some mockery of a smile, and looked as if he was about to spit in my face.

  Suddenly, Patrick’s smile fell away and he released his grip on me. The first sound I heard was the grunt as my mailman stalker landed square on his ass. And in the space which had been filled by the darkness of Patrick, there was nothing but the glory of Mark. The morning
sunlight reflecting off Marjorie’s shop window gave my beautiful housemate a heavenly glow. Right at that moment I could have sworn he was an angel.

  “Lucy, are you okay? Can you breathe?”

  Speech was impossible for the moment so I nodded as I rubbed my throat. I followed that with a thick cough as I savored the sweetness of fresh air in my lungs.

  Seemingly satisfied I was out of danger for the moment, Mark spun on his heel and placed his body directly in front of me as Patrick scrambled back to his feet.

  “Patrick, is it?” I’d never heard such livid anger in Mark’s voice. “Listen, asshole, I don’t know what’s wrong with you, and frankly, I don’t care. You think it’s cool to go around choking women? Make you feel like a big man?”

  “Fuck off, pretty-boy.”

  “Why, thank you for noticing.” He took a step forward, his arms held out slightly from his hips, like a gunfighter ready to draw. Even with his shoes on he moved in complete silence, and it seemed to freak Patrick out almost as much as it did me. The guy glanced at Mark and at me, then at the front door. Mark circled to the left, cutting off that exit as he continued. “Patrick, Lucy would be well within her rights to press charges against you, sunshine.”

  “What? I didn’t fuckin’ do anything. Anyway, she wouldn’t do that. She’s too much of a frightened little—”

  “I urge you not to finish that sentence, fuck-face.” Mark spoke as if Patrick was a toddler. Apart from the harshness of the language, of course. “That will, of course, be her decision to make. Not mine, and absolutely not yours. But let’s put that to one side for a moment because there’s another matter you need to consider.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “Me. Because let me assure you, Patrick, if you ever bother Lucy again—if you so much as frown in her direction—I will hear about it. And I will make it my life’s work to bother you back. You think you’re bad-ass? You’re not even a half-ass.” He grabbed Patrick’s jacket lapels and pulled the man into a nose-to-nose confrontation. “Do we understand each other?”

  Patrick flailed his hands and pulled loose from Mark’s grip, stumbling backward. “What fucking business is it of yours, lover-boy? How many sluts are you stringing along?”

  “Do not push me on this, Patrick.” Mark’s voice came straight from the Antarctic winter. “I assure you, it won’t end well. Not for you, at least.”

  Even Patrick seemed to register the threat, backing toward the door. “Yeah, well, fuck you both. You deserve each other.”

  He slammed the door behind him, so hard I thought the glass would break. Luckily it held, unlike my nerve. The moment Patrick moved out of sight all the anguish and panic I’d been suppressing simply burst to the surface, and I collapsed to my knees on the floor, great fists of air sobbing up from deep inside me.

  Mark knelt before me and curled his arms around my shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Luce. When I walked in it looked like he must have been a friend of yours. By the time I realized what was happening he was already on you.”

  Though my breath was close to being back under control, I still couldn’t speak. My body was taut with the effects of terror, but with Mark’s voice and tenderness, my muscles began to turn languid. Almost liquid. The man’s presence alone was like a half-hour massage. For long minutes we stayed there, on our knees, me wrapped up like a present in Mark’s arms. Gradually the rest of my fear evaporated against the heat of his body and I managed to get my tears under control.

  13

  Mark’s lovely male aroma filled my senses and I became acutely aware of not just how he felt against me, but how he made me feel. Any time I saw him I grew butterflies in my belly. Holding him so close had turned them into hawks. Not to mention the insistent tingling in my pussy that had almost become an entity.

  I took a long breath as if awakening, and suddenly considered how this would look if anybody came in to my store. Not that anyone was likely to, given my track record so far, but it would still be embarrassing. I struggled loose from his embrace and rose falteringly to my feet, leaning back against my desk for support, and finally found the voice to reply to him.

  “I–I thought I knew him, too. He was never a friend, but he’d always seemed harmless enough. We all knew he was a little bit off center, but… oh, if you hadn’t been here, Mark—”

  “If I hadn’t been here, maybe nothing would have happened. You see the way he puffed up as soon as I arrived? He clearly had the world mapped out a certain way and apparently we didn’t read that script. Doesn’t matter you and I are not together. All he saw in me was a rival.”

  I closed my eyes and covered my mouth for a moment. When I felt a little more steady I glanced into Mark’s eyes. “I just did what you said I should.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You said girls always dance around the point. You said we make you boys try to guess what we mean.” I could hear the manic tone in my own voice. “So I just told him straight out that I didn’t like him and… and that’s what he did.” I started crying again, full-throated sobs, and I slapped Mark in the chest. “Why did you tell me that?”

  “Oh, Luce. I’m so sorry. Why would you listen to me? I’m an idiot. And y’know, the usual rules don’t apply when you’re dealing with a psycho.”

  I fell back against his solid chest and he curled those wonderful arms around me again. “Didn’t realize… psycho.”

  “Luce, you have to press charges.”

  “I don’t want to make a fuss. Everyone around here depends on him.”

  “The post office will replace him. What about the next girl he turns his obsession to?”

  “I can’t be held responsible…”

  Suddenly, delayed shock seemed to pound me from behind, and my senses dulled. My balance slid out of one ear as my body leaned sideways. Thankfully, Mark had the strength to not only keep me from falling, but to swing me up into his arms as if I were a child.

  “Come on, Luce. I’m taking you home.”

  “I can’t just leave.”

  “You can’t stay. Not in this condition. If you won’t let me take you home, then what about the hospital?”

  “It’s not that bad, Mark.”

  “Lucy, I won’t take any argument from you on this.” He carried me to the door and placed me back on my feet. “Are you fine to stand, now?”

  “Uh-huh. But seriously, I can’t abandon my store.”

  He put his hands gently to the sides of my neck. “Any pain?”

  “No.”

  He studied my eyes closely, maybe looking for a sign I’d collapse again. “Fine then. At least let me get you a cup of coffee. Sorry, tea.”

  Mark locked up the front door for me and put his arm through mine. For all of four seconds while we walked to Mario’s café. He opened the door for me and allowed me to enter first. Again, I was struck by how his old-fashioned manners—almost chivalry—seemed at odds with nearly all other guys I’d known.

  Mario glanced up from his newspaper as we entered, his face erupting into an even bigger smile than usual. “Bella! How wonderful to see you again today. And who is this fine young man?”

  I sat at the counter and introduced Mark to Mario, making sure to point out we were housemates and nothing more. I might as well have been speaking Swahili.

  “You are good boy, yes? You are look after my bella? No hanky-panky?”

  “We’re just friends, sir.”

  The way Mark called him sir seemed to impress Mario as much as it did me. Resting my hand on the old man’s arm, I gave him a fresh smile. “But he is looking after me at the moment.”

  “Oh, what is wrong, bella?”

  I wasn’t prepared to speak about the whole incident. Nor did I want to spread ugly truths about Patrick to the other people on his route. So I shrugged and made out I’d just had a spell of light-headedness.

 
“You are not eating enough, bella. You wasting away.”

  “Oh, that’s hardly true, Mario, but thank you so much for saying it.”

  As he rested his hand on top of mine I noticed how shaky it seemed to be. “Sí, it is true. Young women today, they have the bodies of little boys. But you, sweet Lucy, you have the wide hips for the bambinos, yes? You are fertile. Luscious. You will have all the boys chasing you if this one is too slow.” He indicated Mark with a flourish which was far more sprightly than I would have thought for someone his age.

  True to form, I couldn’t stop myself blushing. Mario always told me how beautiful he thought I was, but this was the first time he’d been so specific about it. Well, I suppose he’d zeroed in on my hair plenty of times, but that was hardly as personal as my hips. Especially for the reason he’d given.

  For his part, Mark simply smiled back and ruffled my hair. “I couldn’t have said it better myself, sir.”

  Mario turned his attention to Mark. “You are Italiano?”

  “No, just a regular old white boy for the most part. I think one of my grandmothers had a little Spanish blood, but that’s about all.”

  “You are very handsome boy. This is why I think you look Italiano. But I suppose nobody is perfect.” Mario guffawed loudly at his joke and it was impossible not to laugh along. Already the tension had lifted dramatically, through the comfort of a comrade and the protection of a friend.

  Mario was right, of course. Nobody’s perfect. At that moment, though, Mark seemed about as close to it as a man could be.

  “Lucy, I will make you tea.” Mario turned to my savior. “And tea for you, Mark?”

  “I would just about kill for a really strong espresso please, Mario.”

  “Ah! You are little closer to perfect now. Bellissimo!”

  Mario turned to his kettle and picked it up, taking it over to the sink to fill it. He worked at the faucet, which was one of the old-style twisting ones, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t get it to run. He began to mutter under his breath in Italian. I didn’t know the words, but the intent was clear. And then the kettle slipped from his hand and bounced in the sink.