The Poison Morality

by Stacey Kathleen

  Mona caught Adam’s glance, her eyebrows shot up and eyes wide, they both understood what had just happened. Trouble in paradise could mean getting lucky for the both of them. Adam poured the wine for all.

  Sophie cleared her throat, breaking the tension by attempting small talk, “Do you two work with Oliver at the hospital?”

  “Yes,” Mona droned, “we’re doctors too,” not asking Sophie anything about herself. “But Oliver and I have been more than colleagues.” Mona’s thigh rubbed against Oliver’s as her foot slid seductively up and down Adam’s leg.

  Oliver didn’t stop her. Sophie’s proclamation had dashed his hopes for them and there was something comforting in the idea of him and Mona’s consistent arrangement in the past. Mona loved him though, so her motives were no longer the same as his, if they ever were.

  Sophie opened her mouth to respond to Mona’s attempt to make her jealous but Adam interrupted. “I work in trauma.” For some reason women really responded to that. Her foot stroking his leg told him more than her face did. A fake smile and an “oh,” was all that he got however.

  Mona smiled, self-satisfied. Knowing Adam as she did, if he thought for one second Sophie was interested in him, he would make his moves on her, keeping her distracted as she coaxed Oliver. His attention would be harder to keep but men were so easily manipulated.

  “She’s not the one then,” Mona whispered in Oliver’s ear. Adam’s deep voice speaking low to Sophie, he could no longer hear what he was saying as the pub filled up with people.

  Oliver turned to stare down into her face, eyes half closed; she was watching his lips and licking her own. He knew what she wanted; her body language had never been subtle. “I still don’t love you, Mona. You can’t make me feel what I don’t.”

  “No more than you can make Sophie love you by dressing her wounds and being her caretaker.”

  “She and I have shared more than you and I ever did. There’s more to love than being lovers.”

  “I would have given up everything to be with you but as it stands I will take what I can get of you,” her hand played with his belt buckle, “and I can make you forget what it feels like to love someone that doesn’t love you back, even if it means pretending for both of us for just a couple of hours”. Oliver looked at Sophie, Adam sitting too close to her, his mouth close to her ear, she listened intently. His body began to respond to Mona’s gestures and his own resentment at the interruption. If they had not come, he would still be ignorant of Sophie’s feelings and under the delusion that they were more.

  Sophie didn’t like Mona sitting so close to Oliver, she could see out of the corner of her eye that her hands were under the table and Oliver looked down at her red mouth. Sophie’s imagination went wild at what must be transpiring under the table on the other side while she tried to avoid being touched without seeming to be rude.

  Adam proceeded to talk about his work but the clean scent of his aftershave and pouty bottom lip made her ponder how different his kiss would be than Oliver’s, they were so different in personality. Would Oliver care? Would he notice?

  “I can see you’ve been hurt,” he said sliding a knuckle delicately down her cheek bone, over the bruise, “I’m sure Oliver has taken good care of you, I can do the same.” Moving her head a few inches away from his hand didn’t faze him at all, his hand slid from her cheekbone to her jawline.

  “I’m sure you could,” she replied and then regretting the phrase when he lifted her hand he saw the faint red marks, a thrill coursed through him. Sophie realized he had mistaken her compliment as an advance. He took her hand and traced the line on her wrist, her pulse quickened under his thumb.

  In Sophie naiveté, his hint had fallen unnoticed on her, thinking at first his interest in her wounds were purely medical speculation. But she wanted to scream, wanted to back away but something else kept her there, waiting for Oliver to intervene but he seemed engrossed in whatever Mona was saying. He had been so angry about what happened to her the other night but now didn’t seem to mind at all.

  Oliver could see Adam touch Sophie’s face and for the first time in a long time he thought violent thoughts but he directed the energy inwards, sexual tension growing within him. Sophie could take any lover she liked as could he. He was a fool to think she would look at him with loving eyes just because he had been there to pick up the pieces. Now that he changed her perception about sex, she could choose to do it with whomever she liked.

  They were not exclusive, according to her. She was the one that dictated that and he was agitated again, Mona’s lips brushed his but he moved his head back. He didn’t want to be inside Mona any more than he could imagine Adam inside Sophie but his body was betraying that thought. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily as her hand slid below his belt.

  “Poor Oliver. My heart,” she took his hand and placed it above her breast, “would break over and over for you.” Moving his fingertips over the swell of her breast he remembered what she felt like, hot and willing and Sophie, hesitant and curious. A couple of hours at her place and he could leave whenever he wanted, anything to take Sophie’s words out of his head.

  Sophie saw Oliver’s hand on Mona’s breast, his fingertips sliding back and forth over the curve of it. She remembered how the light feathery touches Oliver gave as opposed to the pressing glide of Adam’s fondling.

  Downing the remainder of the wine, she found bravery in the alcohol and an unfamiliar feeling fuelled by what was happening across the table. “Ignore them, they do this all the time,” Adam took Sophie’s chin between his thumb and finger, turning her head towards him and his mouth came closer to hers. She couldn’t hear the words between Oliver and Mona struggling to try to read their lips but every time she looked over, they weren’t talking, just looking at each other with that smouldering look, the look he gave her before he had kissed her the first time on the lips, on the neck, on her wrists.

  Another secret he hadn’t told her but why would he tell her about past relationships. He was normal, not like she, having lived with her head in the sand. She had assumed that he had many relationships in the past but here one was across the table, seductively touching him and he not resisting.

  Her foot had ceased rubbing Adam’s leg but where she left off; he took over, sliding her sleeve up to tickle the inside of her arm to the crook of her elbow. “I can make you forget this,” he said, touching her face again, “and these too,” his lips kissed the raised red marks on her wrist and she saw Mona’s lips touch Oliver’s and her stomach dropped like she was falling, she pushed against Adam’s chest.

  At first he didn’t budge but smiled at her amused until she pushed with her whole body. Focusing on the door, all these strange emotions filled her up, giving her the strength to get out. The door was her salvation, the street would mean freedom from the confusing feelings she was experiencing, running from the three of them. She grabbed what she hoped was her coat, not really looking and ran out into the rain.

  Adam yielded and let her go, Oliver yelled for her but his voice faded in the noise of the crowd and the clanking of plates and glasses. Pushing people out of the way, finally the spring air cooled her heated face, the rain had lightened into a drizzle. The sidewalk felt uneven underneath her feet as she rushed down it.

  Oliver had practically lifted Mona out of the way without apology and ran after Sophie. Outside the door, he looked the direction towards her flat but didn’t see her then looking towards his flat, he saw her rushing, arms straight by her side, hands curled into fists. How would he fix this? Friends were fine, more than fine better than her anger. There was no need for things to have gotten out of hand as they did.

  Adam and Mona sat quietly for a moment. Adam chuckled at the look on Mona’s face, “Well that didn’t seem to backfire, did it,” he said sarcastically, pouring the last of the wine into their glasses.

  “She’s young, beautiful, and damaged. I can’t compete with that. She’s the perfect woman for him and it breaks my h
eart to say so,” she ignored her glass and pressed her lips to Oliver’s abandoned glass, closing her eyes, letting the wine pour into her mouth, taking the last of him in.

  “I’m sure you could find someone to knock you about a bit,” she glared at him over the rim of the glass as he gulped his, “He would take care of you, if you went to him, he would have to, the good and noble Oliver.”

  “As ever you’re so perceptive. I’m not talking about physical damage, the kind that heals. I’m talking about deep rooted pain from emotional damage. Working in trauma you would think you would have picked up on that,” sipping the last of Oliver’s wine, she shrugged, “but you’re not a woman, we are intuitive with these things.”

  “To use against each other no doubt, in your scheming,” he understood women better than she gave him credit for. “No matter, thought I was in there though.”

  “Oh, I was hoping you were too,” Mona agreed.

  “One minute she was rubbing my leg, the next she was running away,” it was a shame, he would have enjoyed making her forget about Oliver.

  Mona sighed, she was agitated that things had not gone her way but her body still needed release, “That was me, you git. My God, men are so gullible. Play with your ego a bit and you’re putty.”

  “You,” he looked surprised and smiled, “I’m still hard,” she had refused him many times before but it was the first time Oliver had refused her.

  “Fine, let’s go,” gulping the wine she stood.

  Catching up to her, Oliver grabbed Sophie’s arm but she jerked it away and turned on him. “What was all that about,” blaming him was the best she could do.

  “I might very well ask you the same thing,”

  “If you wanted to be with her, that’s your business but in front of me?” Turning on her heels, she kept walking, he kept pace with her. Eventually they would end up at his place. There was something satisfying about that although she was probably too angry to realize where she was headed.

  The words had escaped her lips and altered his judgment. His jealousy allowed Mona to put on quite a show and Adam the accomplice. The responsibility was his as much as theirs. Sophie had let Adam touch her, maybe as a type of retaliation until she panicked and fled. “I don’t want to be with her.” He turned his collar up against the rain but Sophie, fuming, had forgotten the coat in her hand and was getting wet.

  Stopping again, outside his building, her voice lowered, “Adam told me that it happens all the time between you, for me to ignore it. How can I ignore it when it’s happening across the table? Seeing you touch her made me feel…..made me feel,” she was exasperated since the word wouldn’t come.

  “Jealous,” he put his finger on it and if it had been anyone else, her pride would have caused her to deny it but it was impossible, instead she just looked at him and huffed.

  “He was trying to seduce you, the same as she was and you didn’t stop him,” he pointed an accusing finger at her.

  “And you allowed it,” she blurted out.

  He looked stunned. “I don’t own you Sophie,” he pulled out his keys and preceded inside, she followed behind. Once in the door, they both flung coats and shoes, dropping them angrily wherever they landed. Oliver rolled up his sleeves and leaned against the credenza on the other side of the room, legs crossed, tugging at the top buttons of his shirt. “Who you want as a lover is none of my business if it’s not me.”

  “None of your business? You made me your business when you talked of friendship and I confided my deepest, darkest secrets to you and knowing that do you really think I would consider being with him, even for a second,” the absurdity of it was hard to fathom, if she was going to take a lover it could only be Oliver.

  “It looked like you were seriously considering it,” giving her the same look he gave Mona, the same look he gave her that night after the sex club incident. “In which case why would it bother you to see me and Mona together? Friends, we’re just friends. Your words not mine.”

  “I would not consider anyone as a lover but you,” she blurted it out when she should have kept her mouth shut.

  “Oh really,” he took his hands out of his pocket and slinked up her to her like a cat, taking her wrist and sliding his fingers up to the crook of her elbow and down again. “This is the way you let him touch you.”

  “No,” she contradicted.

  “Yes,” he said pressing her wrist to his lips as Adam did.

  “What I mean is….,” she found it hard to think or breathe for that matter, “it feels different when you do it, it didn’t make me feel,” she blew the breath out slowly between her lips, trying to find the word, “excited. I’m….I’m confused, I don’t know how to play these games, Oliver.”

  “I’m not playing games with you, I never have. If this is just a misunderstanding we can clear it up here and now.” He still held her arm but was not moving.

  “Is that the way you touched her, all the time?”

  “True, Mona and I were intimate before. We sought each other’s company between relationships but now,” he shook his head, “how can I be with anyone else, when I…….. love you?”

  Sophie staggered from the words; his hands gripped her arms, holding her steady. Never had she ever heard those words that she remembered, and Oliver would never say anything he didn’t mean but intimacy was still an issue. That feeling filled her heart, she smiled, and then he smiled. But when the worried look came across her face his smile faded.

  Did it mean that she loved him too or not? When she didn’t respond verbally he asked, “What is it?”

  “You can’t… because I can’t,” she didn’t finish her thought.

  “Because you can’t love me,” he whispered, nearly choking on the words, unable to listen to his own voice to say the words.

  “No, it’s not that,” his face softened in relief, she continued, “I don’t think I can give you what you need physically, we tried it didn’t work.”

  The creases appeared between his brows with his look of confusion, his eyes wide. His recollection of that night was much different than hers but that would explain why she never talked about it and why she crept out the morning after.

  “Then we can try over,” he kissed her forehead, “and over,” he kissed her right cheek, “again,” he kissed her left cheek, “until you feel comfortable. But it doesn’t matter as long as you’re with me, it doesn’t matter how long it takes.”

  “You have more confidence in me that it will happen eventually.”

  He only smiled and nodded in agreement. She was beginning to tremble, her clothes clung to her, outlining her figure, her chest moving quickly with her breath, “Are you cold?”

  Unable to put what she felt into words she shook her head no.

  “Or is it,” his fingers rested against her cheek, so that his thumb pressed lightly at the top of her forehead and slid slowly downward, “passion suppressed for so long,” his thumb slid between her brows and down the slope of her nose, she closed her eyes relying on what she was feeling and the sound of his voice, “rising to the surface,” his thumb dropped from the tip of her nose to tickle her lips and settled on her chin, “and could it be that those feelings are for me?”

  She opened her eyes and whispered, “Yes,” but with urgency. The stubble on his chin tickled her face, his breath warm, his lips soft when he pressed them against her. Wrapping his arm around her waist, he pulled her as close to him as he possibly could, those parts of her body pressed against him aroused him in a way Mona never could.

  Sophie relaxed into him, feeling his muscles, his bones, his blood pumping, his erection growing. Her arms were around his neck, her hands in his hair, the softness of it contrasted with the roughness of his facial hair around her mouth as he kissed her wantonly, his tongue moving in her mouth as she did the same to him.

  They were frenzied this time, not the slow caresses of last time but passionate movements and heavy breathing that eventually synced together. His hands franticly un
did the buttons of her blouse while his mouth trailed kisses on her neck.

  There was the same tightness between her legs as before but this time it wasn’t frustrating it was painfully delicious. She undid his belt buckle while he undid her trousers, both dropping to the floor, and tossed. Her top peeled away from her wet skin. She had no patience for his buttons, gently tugging on either side of his shirt, the buttons easily slipping out of the holes revealing his chest.

  He continued taking off his clothes while she felt the softness of the patch of hair that swirled across his chest to the trail that lead to the top of his pants. Her lips brushed one nipple and then the other and then on her knees, she took his shorts off. He was hard; his cock red and waiting for her, it seemed the natural thing to take it into her mouth. The pleasure she was seeking was to pleasure him, being wanted made her want.

  His hands in her hair told her what she was doing delighted him and satisfied that she was accomplishing what she hoped not having any real knowledge of what she was doing other than what she wanted and what he wanted. With her right hand she gripped it as her lips moved over the tip of it, moving slow and then fast until she found a rhythm that was comfortable for her and produced sounds from him that she never heard before.

  Jerking away from her, he swiftly brought her to her feet again, half carrying her to the bedroom as his lips trailed kisses over her shoulder, pulling the strap down. The hooks in the back gave easily revealing her breasts and he took one nipple feverishly between his lips pulling on it gently, her body reacting all over from the localized experiences all her nerves were connected and reacting simultaneously.

  Crossing over to the other, he tugged at her underwear pulling them away, this time her knees parted without coaxing. Once she arched her back towards his mouth, he settled on her left breast, the nipple held firmly between his lips while his tongue massaged the hardened tip. The thumb of his right mimicked on her clit the same as his tongue was manipulating her nipple.