by Lucy Harvey
“Do you want to say that again Angel?” I liked playful Roman – no, I craved playful Roman.
I opened my mouth to give my brazen response but Roman was of course one step ahead. Crashing his lips to mine he proceeded to distract me from his wandering hands.
“You’re going to pay for that Angel...”
Wrapping one firm hand around both of mine (an act I had grown familiar with in Romans presence) he pinned my arms above my head and started to tickle me with his free hand. I yelped and screamed through a fit of giggles trying to take order of my static breathing. My hands were bound and useless so I began to kick out and wriggle under his restraint.
“Roman please, I’ll do anything, just stop.” I giggled and laughed so hard within seconds I had the hiccups.
“Promise you won’t fight back?” He teased.
“I promise, please just stop.”
Roman let me go but he didn’t move from his position, he just stopped and stared as though he was peering straight through me, as though he could see every little thing inside me.
“You know it will always be you, don’t you Angel?”
I nodded my head at his endearment. If I was to respond I would confess just how deeply and obsessively I had fallen in love with him in just a short space of time. Time was nothing to me and love was everything whereas time was everything to him whilst love never ranked at all. If I was too speak I would ruin it. I cradled his defined jaw in the palm of my hand.
“Always. Now let me go shower, you promised me dinner remember?” I chastised.
“I thought you said I ate like a pig?” he enquired.
“Nobody said anything about you eating.”
I scurried off the bed before he had chance to affectionately assault me further and headed for the shower. As I reached the door of my en-suite I glanced back over my shoulder to catch Roman staring at me – not just staring he was appreciating me. I loved the effect my naked body had on him, when all else failed the standard logic of man and woman would always have my back.
Roman flashed me my favorite look when he took in my appearance. Earlier, when I returned from my shower I was welcomed by an array of items strung across my bedroom floor.
Awaiting me on our bed was a fresh set of matching underwear (white of course), the necklace that carried a dismantled heart surrounded by angel wings (another spontaneous gift from the guy who swore he did not believe in any form of romance or love) and finally the dress I wore when my soul first collided with his.
It had not been a great length of time since that night that sealed our fate but it felt like a lifetime ago, an emotional whirlwind of a life. Roman always reminded me of the image that haunted him ever since. Me. His angelic temptress sinfully wrapped in a crimson dress, convinced that I was everything good and bad in the world wrapped in one beautifully luring shell.
“You were everything that could possibly entice me yet everything I had grown to fear. My not so innocent Angel wrapped in a sinful dress not even the naughtiest of girls should wear.”
I had a better memory than most but even if I didn’t there was no way I would ever be able to shake the life altering compliments he gave me. I remembered the dress he fell in love with was carefully placed in the back of my wardrobe. It was as sacred to me as it was too him so I kept it in the back. Part of it still reeked of that night and whenever he was not around I would smell it just to feel close to a part of him no matter how sick or disturbing that was.
The fact my bedroom was now in a state and my belongings were flung everywhere made my heart swell. It was evident he wanted nothing more than to see me in this dress. To me it was as though we were starting over, we were the people we were that night before we so carelessly interjected one another’s lives.
My eyes wandered over to him stood half naked in the center of the room. He had been watching me this whole time, a nervous anticipating glare etched upon his face as he gaged my reaction. Without a second thought I dropped my towel and jumped into his safe arms. Anyone witnessing would have thought it had been years since our last embrace with how greedily I took his mouth with mine.
Roman was the most intoxicating drug, my fix in order to be free from my demons and I would never get enough.
I traced my lips smiling at the memory as I watched him gift me that same look now as he saw me in the dress.
The love rapidly growing between us could never be mistaken or over looked. For although it was an uncontrollable, unpredictable kind of crazy it was real. It was raw. It was what I would soon rely on to keep me sane through our dark patches. It was what cradled me through the nights he tried to make me believe he would not stick around.
Waking up next too Lily was becoming a treasured familiarity. It was only when I slept near her my demons were at bay, I could sleep and dream or not dream at all. Without her I would spend my nights running from one nightmare to the next hoping whatever bad guy followed me to that illusion was one I could fight back.
Brushing her matted bed hair out of her face I placed a soft kiss on the top of her nose. Never before had I kissed another’s nose but the way hers would wrinkle in response made my chest ache. I dragged my nose against the softness of her cheek, Lily’s skin was always so soft as though she bathed in a heavenly mixture of feathers and linen. I gently kissed her cheek and she murmured a soft innocent sound, I couldn’t help myself, that noise was intoxicating so I kissed her again.
“Down boy.”
“I shouldn’t be here.” I admitted.
“What?” Lily changed from dreary to sharp in a millisecond and grabbed the covers to wrap around herself. “Was it something I did? Does this feel wrong?”
It was baffling that someone who let me explore every inch of her body so freely and confidently reformed into this vulnerable version of herself.
“That’s just the point, it feels so right it scares me.” I ducked my head embarrassed by how much I could unveil to this girl.
This all felt so right, that was why it was so dangerous. Lily was fast becoming something I could get used too, something I could learn to rely on. Something else that would walk away taking all of me with her.
“Don’t think Roman, just feel.” She leaned in kissing me firmly trying to make me forget, she was good at that.
Lily tasted minty fresh, she must have been up before me just to brush her teeth. She was always trying to be perfect without ever realizing perfect was exactly what she was.
This was the first time Lily had been in my bed. It wasn’t the first time I had ever had a girl in my bed, I was not one of those guys who could never have attachments other than sex. I could go weeks, sometimes months letting girls live in the delusional state that we were somehow attached. Lily must have read all about those girls and the games I played, I can’t say I regret it either. There was something erotically captivating about braking girls that thought they knew the world. It was me leaving them, ruining them. For I would never be ruined again.
But last night was a first. Snuggling and spooning and all that other pamzy crap Lily subconsciously forced me into last night was definitely a first. I liked my boundaries but no matter what state my body was in I always seemed to need an entanglement of some sort with her.
My bed was the complete opposite to Lily’s. Hers was a white wooden framed double bed hidden under a mass of different home-made cushions and covers. Mine was a king sized lair surrounded by the darkest oak I could find. Lily looked like a lost little kitten curled up in the center of my den. That thought itself made the blood in my veins rush south.
Slowly I edged off the bed, I couldn’t tell if she was too sore to pick up where we left off the early hours of this morning so I would make her come to me. Anyone else and I would be clicking my fingers demanding them on their knees but with Lily I needed to know she wanted me as bad as I needed to be inside her.
I trekked over to the grand piano nesting in the corner of my bedroom. It was the biggest room of my entire apartment.
I never understood those men that had small rooms with intimidating kitchens, never did I ever spend my time in the kitchen so I had no reason to dedicate the mass of my house to it. I purposely chose not to slip on my boxers or any attempt to cover myself. I watched Lily as her eyes followed the direction of my semi hard cock. The wheels were in motion.
Taking my usual spot on the red plush seat placed in front of the piano I removed the cover and swept away the collected dust. It had been a while since I last played. My fingers naturally drifted to play the same tune that had been on repeat in my head for weeks on end, it was the song I had wrote for Lily, she had no idea I could or would even write but one day I would show her this.
Closing my eyes and blocking out my surroundings I threw myself into the melody, the only thing I could feel was the coldness of the keys against my fingertips. Tactically I let key words fall from my lips a note louder than the others. “Darkness, You, Promise, Me.” I wonder if she knew that she was the beat inside my brain, the song implanted in my mind.
“Why piano?” The softness of Lily’s enquiry broke me from the trance of the symphony.
“It astonishes me how hands so dirty can create something so angelic.” She didn’t need to know my confession was about everything including my reason for piano.
“I could listen to you all day. You wrote this didn’t you? Yeah I thought so, it’s sweet and dark just like you. Have you ever considered going pro?” She waffled. Forever trying to push people to be the best that they could be.
“And give others a chance to tarnish one of the only pure things I have?” I reverted from playing and turned my stance towards Lily.
“Your music gives you hope?” Once again Lily had chosen to ignore what I said and take her own answer from my explanation.
I never understood if it was just because it was what she wanted to hear or what she needed to hear.
I laughed and strode towards her. “Angel, there’s no such thing as hope.”
As I leant back onto the bed and attempted to drag Lily towards me she pulled back out of reach from my grasp. She was not playing because her expression looked genuinely sad but more so confused. I stopped in my tracks waiting for her to speak. There were certain times I could test boundaries and push Lily but it was times like this when her vulnerable side was on show that I needed to be extra careful.
“You say that all the time, that there is no such thing as love or hope but you contradict that in every single thing you do.” Climbing out of the bed Lily began to pace around the room as she tried to make sense of what she was saying before conveying her thoughts to me.
Laying back with my head supported by my arm I watched and waited.
“You say you don’t believe in love but you ask to make love to me? You say you don’t believe in hope or fate or whatever other optimistic things there are but then you call me an angel and play piano. You take pride in how your brother looks up to you. I have heard you pray every night we spent together, I know it’s not to a god of such but it’s something that seems like hope to me.”
Fire burned through my veins, she was no longer humoring me, now she was irritating me. Whenever I thought we were getting somewhere or that she was accepting this was all she could have of me she proved it would not be enough. Once again she pushed for answers and reason that did not nor would they ever exist.
Lily stood at the end of the bed in nothing but my t-shirt from last night. I moved my eyes from her so the light glistening off of her like a halo or her taught nipples pressing against my shirt couldn’t distract me any longer.
“Do you want to know why I don’t believe?” I leaned forward tilting her chin so she was looking straight at me, she needed to hear this.
“We live in a world combusting with people waiting on a magical ending and the euphoria of their own fairy tale. We rely on the expectation of a magical answer without really believing in magic itself. We expect to love and have the sensation returned yet we don’t even love ourselves.” Lily tried to divert her eyes from my glare but I pulled harder at her face so that she wouldn’t lose focus.
“How can you expect someone to love the ugly parts that you detest? We eat and sloth in hope to get skinny wondering why we cannot reach perfection. We continue to intentionally mess up and have the audacity to wonder why we are no closer to our dreams. The human race is a pile of shit and that’s enough reason in itself as to why I do not nor will ever believe in hope or love.” By this point I was unintentionally shouting at her.
Lily was not so quick to push her views on me now I had well and truly shut her up. I could hear the doubt ricochet in her mind and she soaked in everything I had said. I leaned forward to try and kiss her but she pulled back. Guilt started to implant in the pit of my stomach as I watched the fire in her eyes fade like I had just torn a part of her away, then I realized that I had.
“I just need to believe that there is a greater good or a bigger picture, a reason for all this pain.”
She had told me more times than one how much she needed to believe that, sometimes it was the only thing that got her through the day believing that it had a purpose for the day after. I needed to wipe that look off her face, that horrible disappointed look. I never wanted to see someone smile so badly.
“But there is always an exception Angel, sometimes there is a light that out shadow’s all that darkness.” I was not entirely sure whether I believed that but she needed to hear it.
Lily’s features softened and it was as though she had come back from wherever she tried to bury herself in her mind. I cradled her close to me.
I would do anything to make her smile.
That needed to stop before it killed me.
I inspected carefully as I watched every single perfect limb become clothed, Roman moved so effortlessly as though posing whilst he got ready for work. The days until I started my internship were numbered and I was glad, I hated having all these free hours to lie around questioning my life whilst Roman was busy at work.
My plan was to stay and snoop. After Roman poured out his delusional outlook on love it triggered something within me to hunt for any kind of information that would relay his background to me. Of course Roman was always a step further than me.
“I’ll drop you home on my way to work, the house needs to be empty so the staff can do a thorough clean.” He stated whilst he tightened his tie around his thick neck.
Whether it was true or not he would have found some way for me to not be left here alone.
“Shall I come around later Angel?” Roman enquired. It puzzled me how much he had a hard time believing he was ever truly wanted.
“If you like, I’ve just downloaded the last season of One Tree Hill if you’re interested.” I teased.
“It’s a da- it’s a date.” He stumbled on the word date and cleared his throat as though talking trash, this was new to him but at least he was trying.
As I climbed out of his car he leans forward and playfully slaps me on the back side.
“Oh and Angel if you ever tell anyone I watch that crap you will not be able to sit down until everybody forgets you ever said it.” He commanded through a sly smirk and raised brows.
“Is that a promise?”
Roman readjusted himself in his fitted signature jeans. I watched as he smiled and shook his head before speeding off down the road taking my heart along for the ride.
Turning on my heel I headed to the door letting myself into my house, I collected the mail scattered along my porch and made my way inside. The essence of vanilla complemented the safety of returning home, after staying away in unfamiliar territory I always loved the comfort of arriving back at my safe haven – my barrier against the world.
As soon as I entered my body fell to the floor and a chorus of held back cries poured through me. I sat and cried in a huddled ball on my hallway floor until I felt stable enough to move forward. Whether I allowed it or not Roman completely captivated me. The emotional overload was too much. Givin
g myself a well needed pep talk I put my exploding emotions down to my lack of sleep and picked myself up along with any self-dignity that still remained.
My bedroom was boiling when I entered and I made a note to self to remember to leave it slightly open on the safety hatch whenever I next stayed at Romans. The thought excited me, was this something I could finally get used to? I don’t know how it could get better than that. Before drawing back my satin curtains and letting air into the room I quickly plugged my phone in to charge. The last message I remember receiving was an outpour of crazy from Harley – wedding plans were definitely starting to take their toll.
After slipping into something more comfortable (my signature oversized t-shirt) I began to thumb through my mail discarding bills to the bottom of the pile – they could wait till finance day. Before cringing at the realization of just how much I had to pay for this month I came across a small sealed white envelope. As I racked my brain for what it could be I carefully tore at the back to discover what was inside. It was an acceptance letter. It had been almost six months since I applied at MM ‘Misunderstood Minds’ in New York – if I remember correctly I sent the application on a whim after finishing a bottle of white wine never thinking I would stand a chance.
Before I had chance to process what this could mean for me or most important Roman and I my phone began to vibrate against my nightstand.
“Hell-”
“Lily where the hell have you been? As joint maid of honors you and Peyton are supposed to be at my beck and call but no you are both of in the land of uncontactable shit friends whilst I panic all by myself. If I force Dixon into one more wedding related task I swear he is calling the whole thing off. I even think I have found a grey hair and it is all your fault.” Harley waffled down the phone in a whiney pitch causing me to hold the phone a fraction further away from my ear.