Never Have I Ever

by Clearwing, August

  The awkwardness was just beginning to reach a point where I was about to kick her out of the room to stop the staring when my phone rang to life. A rush went up my spine when I saw the Caller ID said Noah.

  I couldn’t answer it fast enough for my taste. “Hello?”

  Noah’s voice crept into life, rattled and husky, over the line, “Hello, my pet.”

  My blood ran cold. He didn’t sound well. Not as if he was sick; more like distressed. I waited a moment before I said anything and just listened to his side of the phone. His breath was ragged, almost as if he had been crying.

  “What’s wrong, Sir?”

  “Not a thing,” he said. He cleared his throat, perhaps knowing that I could hear the forlorn tone in three simple words. “All’s well. Fun fact for you: Oscar Wilde died in this dreadfully trendy hotel I’m staying at.”

  I smiled. “Is that why you sound so upset? Is Oscar Wilde’s ghost haunting you?”

  For a second it seemed like he wanted to laugh, but it soon transitioned into the release of a long sigh. I heard the shifting of cloth on the other end of the line like he was lying down in bed. “It’s been a long trip already, sweetness. I just needed to hear your voice.”

  “You’re kind of scaring me here.”

  “I promise it’s nothing to worry about. How are your finals going?”

  I didn’t like the shift in topic, but felt the urge not to press him about it. “One down and three to go since one of my professors counted my project for the observatory as a final. All the others are next week. How’s Paris?”

  “Boring,” he said it as if it should’ve been a given. He wasn’t there for vacation but for business so the sight-seeing would probably be pale at best. Noah went on, “And stressful. And I’d like nothing more than to have you here just so I could keep you captive in my hotel room to torture and fuck mercilessly between meetings.”

  I let out a little moan and clenched my legs together as his voice turned me on. A moment later I snickered at the thought of the haunted hotel. “While Oscar watched us the whole time?”

  “Hey, the man’s been dead for over a hundred years. Since watching people go at it is probably his only means of entertainment I’d go so far as to pull up a chair for him.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” I taunted. Never mind the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, the cafés, the tunnels, the food, or the cultural experience; nothing sounded more alluring than just existing in the same room with Noah at that moment. “With or without the ghost of a dead novelist, the idea of being tied up in your hotel room is a heavenly one.”

  Why hadn’t I gone with him again? Oh, right: Fuck reality.

  I heard that Loki-like smile on his face through his words. “I love the anxiousness in your voice, pet. You’ve been following my commands like a good slut then?”

  And there was that word again. It never truly got to me until it was spoken from his lips. “I have, Sir. It’s been so goddamn difficult.”

  “Tell me; is the vibrator in you right now?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Good girl. I’ll let you in on a little secret to encourage you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I haven’t touched myself during this trip at all. Which, let me tell you, is an epic fucking undertaking for me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m saving every last bit of this pent up sexual tension until I get back. You won’t be able to walk for a week by the time I’m done with you.”

  “Saying things like that only makes me hotter.”

  “That’s why I do it. However, I have an assignment for you this weekend. Do you have any plans for Sunday?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Good. Keep it that way for me.”

  “What sort of assignment?”

  “I must have some secrets for the moment. I’ll let you know more on Sunday. Needless to say, it will push your boundaries more than you’re used to.”

  A little buzz of anticipation for the unknown spiked through me. “I’m up for a challenge.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. For now I think I’m going to let you go while I can still resist making you play with yourself until you come for me over the phone. I’m already rock hard just from talking to you. I adore the sounds you make too much, I think.”

  “I’m flattered and proud that I can do that to you.”

  “As you should be.”

  There was a pause between us, then I asked, “It’s pretty late there isn’t it?”

  “Oh yes, very late.”

  “And you're sure there's nothing wrong?”

  “Not in the least bit.”

  “Sir, before you go,” I trailed off, uncertain of what I wanted to say apart from an excuse to prolong the end to our dialogue and the comfort of his voice.

  “Yes, sweetness?”

  “I just—I miss you is all.” It was sappy. It was cliché. It was everything I hated in telephone conversations. But it was true.

  “Have a good night, my pet. I won’t leave you wanting for too much longer.”

  The line went dead. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen until it reverted to its black mirrored state. Did I imagine his change in tone at first? In the end he transitioned into his usual domineering self, but I could have sworn he sounded troubled when I answered.

  After a while I managed to slog through studying and, eventually, the rest of the week.

  ***

  “WHAT?!”

  Both Declan and Anya stared at me from across the café table with their respective mouths agape. It wasn’t the reaction I anticipated to telling them I slept with Noah. They weren’t angry so much as astonished. I shrank back in my seat and pulled my coffee to me like a shield, unable to fathom what they may say if I decided to tell them just how much sex we had or that absolutely zero percent of it was vanilla.

  It was Saturday; my last respite from class until I dove head-long into finals. And it was a beautiful day; the kind of day with a late spring breeze and sparsely clouded skies that poets write about. I had chosen to spend it with them. Could they not have at least sounded a little more thrilled with my good news? Anya was the one who encouraged me to go to the party where I met Noah, after all. She berated me for not seeking out a relationship in the past two years. By all accounts she wanted me to get laid if nothing else. Except that the whole idea of just getting laid became something else. It developed into something more than I thought possible. I supposed it wasn’t at all what either of them expected.

  “You slept with him? As in, you spent the night?” Declan finally managed to ask.

  I laughed with a touch of nervousness, subtly eyeing the small crowds of people walking past us in the open air of the sidewalk that afternoon. “More like the whole weekend?”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “I’m fair sure it wasn’t a dream, Declan,” I said. The vibrator inside me made me certain of that if nothing else.

  He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and waved his hand from side to side as if to discount anything and everything I just said. “You don’t understand. Noah doesn’t let women stay over. He always, without fail, every time, makes them leave. He fucks them, but never sleeps with them as a rule.”

  Setting aside the fact that Declan failed to warn me about that particular fact before I went home with him I was sensing a story behind Noah’s reasoning. Still, it made me feel a little special.

  I sat up straight in my seat and shrugged. “Well, I did,” I said with a touch of pride. “Twice.”

  “He also doesn’t date,” Declan noted. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

  Besides indulging our fantasies and experiencing the best sex of my life?

  I decided against saying that.

  “I’m not sure. But we went for drinks Saturday night and I didn’t leave his apartment until Monday morning. He even made me breakfast. It was sweet.” I pulled a cigarette from the pack in front of me and li
t it. When neither of them said anything I pulled the cigarette from my lips and pressed for a reason. “Why do you both have that look on your faces like I just shattered your childhoods or kicked your puppy?”

  Declan ran his hand across the top of his shaved head and stared at Anya with wide eyes and a worried expression. They exchanged a knowing, however uncertain nod.

  “Maybe he’s gotten better?” Anya said to Declan with a strange and tense sound in her voice.

  “Oh my God, he’s got a hamartia doesn’t he?” I was joking Saturday night when I asked if his fatal flaw was a multiple personality disorder. Now I was staring daggers at my best friends and waiting for them to tell me that maybe he in fact did have a fatal flaw. “Declan? Talk to me.”

  “I’m not sure if he’d want me to be the one to tell you.”

  “Too late,” I snapped. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “You’re really going to make me tell you, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I confirmed with a resolute nod.

  “Fine.” Declan sighed and took a long pull from his coffee like it was whiskey. “You know we met in college right?” I nodded. “We were in the same fraternity.” Again I nodded. All things I was well aware of. “My second year, his last year, we were roommates for a few weeks. Normally seniors got their own rooms. Actually, Noah had his own room for every semester even when he wasn’t a senior. Should have been a hint. Anyway, we were short a room so I offered to bunk. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but it wasn’t like he turned his nose up at me. We were friends by then.”

  “Can you Cliffs Notes it for me?”

  “Getting there. Being roommates happens to be integral to the story. Basically he has some demons he needs to sort out. Major ones. He doesn’t like sleeping in the same room with anyone because he gets night terrors something fierce. A couple weeks in I found out first hand just how fierce.”

  “What happened?” I asked cautiously.

  Declan went deadpan and more serious than I ever heard him sound in his life. “I woke up in the middle of the night to him screaming in a way that no human being should be able to. I never saw anything like it happen before so had no idea what to expect. I tried to wake him up.

  “Let me tell you, for ten seconds the world may as well have exploded. It was all swinging fists and howling and I almost thought I was in a fucking horror flick. Once it was all said and done his hands were around my neck and I was trying to grapple him to the ground.”

  As Declan finished recounting his story, my hand seemed to touch the base of my neck and collar bone of its own accord. The ghost of Noah’s fingers clasped around my throat during our time together returned to me. I really did like that feeling. I lost all control when Noah did it. I put my life in his hands and thus far trusted him not to step over the line.

  “I’m bigger than he is, sure,” Declan continued, “but when you’re already in a groggy state it takes a while for the adrenaline to kick the fuck in. I threw him off me in the end. It gave him a mild concussion ‘cause he smacked his head against the wood floor pretty hard.”

  “Jesus. Poor Noah.”

  I thought Declan might choke on his own tongue when he blurted, “Poor Noah?! What about poor ME? Dude nearly killed me!”

  “She’s not fucking you, Declan,” Anya muttered into her coffee. “Trust me; let’s just stick with ‘Poor Noah’, okay?”

  He just stared at her. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

  Anya sighed and put her coffee down. “Let me tell you a little something about people who get night terrors: they can’t control them. It isn’t like he’s going out and getting drunk and starting a bar fight.”

  Declan leaned against the back of his chair, throwing his arm over the backrest and pivoting to the right so he could face Anya a little better. “Drunken belligerence would have been preferable. At least all the violence would have been focused on someone that wasn’t me.”

  To her credit, Anya defended Noah by adding, “People are paralyzed when they get night terrors. The only time they’re a danger to anyone is when somebody”—she looked pointedly at Declan—“tries to snap them out of it rather than letting it run its course.”

  “Why does he have them?” I asked. “The night terrors, that is. PTSD? He wasn’t in the military was he?”

  “Oh God, no! I can’t picture Noah in the military,” Declan said. “He never told me why he gets them. He just apologized profusely and another guy gave up his room to bunk with me so Noah could have his space. Scared the shit out of the both of us. But, yeah. That’s why he never falls asleep with anyone. It’s why he doesn’t date. Dating leads to sleeping together and eventually maybe moving in and he can’t afford to screw with a woman’s head like that.”

  It certainly explained why Noah slept in his car instead of on my couch the first night we met.

  “Mostly only kids get night terrors,” Anya explained. “Adults can, but not as much. Though, I have seen it personally as carryover from child abuse. I doubt that’s what it is in his case however.”

  “No, definitely not, not ever,” said Declan confidently. “I know his whole life story and abuse was never in the mix. His brother’s a bit intense. Maybe the whole Selene debacle fucked with him somehow, but not abuse. Never abuse.”

  I narrowed my gaze at him. I remembered the picture on Noah’s mantle; the former girlfriend who had passed away. “What’s the Selene debacle?”

  Declan waved a single finger at me. “No. Uh-uh.”

  “I already know she died, Dec.”

  “No—no—no. That’s one you’ll have to hear from him. Consider me Switzerland.” Then he added quickly, “Wow. I can’t believe I’m speculating on one of my best friends’ mental stability. It shouldn’t even be on the table for questioning. He’s not on trial. And all in all he’s an awesome dude.”

  The last was reassuring at least. My vision roved toward Anya; Miss Psychologist. “Self-indulgent question here but is this something that can be treated?”

  She snorted. “Don’t you think he’s tried?” I just stared at her like she thought I was an idiot. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that you never took the classes I did. It’s treatable, but there are occasions where they just don’t go away. Hell, if he actually slept with you and didn’t kick you out then maybe he has treated it.”

  “Not possible,” I said. “He told me he broke his rule when he asked me out for drinks. That’s a pretty solid indication they’re still happening. Also—” I cut myself off. “No, never mind.”

  “Also, what?” Anya pressed.

  “He. Well. He called me the other day. It must have been three in the morning in Paris. He sounded upset and short of breath. When I asked him what was up he said he just wanted to hear my voice.”

  “That’s… actually really damn sweet,” Declan said. He sounded surprised.

  “Cavity-inducingly sweet,” noted Anya.

  “That’s not a word,” I laughed.

  “It is now,” she teased. “But that does sound like it may have been another episode. Or, you know, maybe he just really likes you.”

  I hoped it was the latter more than the former. For the life of me I couldn’t shake the sound of his voice when I first answered the phone. For a short-lived second the solid, commanding and confident man who kept me in his apartment all weekend disappeared and was replaced with someone else. It was a disconcerting feeling to say the least.

  Anya’s returning voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Judging by that look on your face I’m beginning to think that you really like him too.”

  “Yeah,” I admitted at length. “I really do.”

  Declan stopped berating himself for talking about his friend behind his back for long enough to throw some caution at me. “I would say this with anyone you bring into your life, so don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you to be careful, Piper. Noah’s like a brother to me, but you’re like a sister. I’d rather not have to pick sides or k
ick someone’s ass if I don’t have to.”

  Ah, Declan, the obligatory Knight in Shining Armor of our circle of friends. Not just for me, either. He helped everyone. It was simply the way he worked. I smiled at him. “Thanks hun, I appreciate the warning. I don’t anticipate there being an issue though.”

  He flashed me a wan smile. “I hope not.”

  I really didn’t want to think about the possibility of not trusting Noah. On the other hand I’d placed my trust in him very fast as far as relationship standards were concerned. So fast my head was still spinning. He also showed me so many different faces that I began to wonder which one was the real him. Could a person flip a switch like that and not be lying?

  For now I shouldn’t have a reason to seed doubt. Or maybe I didn’t want to seed doubt. Maybe I was blinded by how exhilarating the whole thing was. Gossip was the last element in which I should place my trust. I would have to confront Noah about it face-to-face, however long I had to wait. Either way, the insight into Noah’s head didn’t deter me from wanting more of him. Rather, it served as a catalyst to delve even deeper.

  ***

  Sunday morning I woke up to the sound of a text message from Noah rolling into my inbox. The time on my phone said it was just after nine o’clock.

  Noah: Good morning my pet. I am sending you an address. If you’re ready for your assignment then arrive at 1:00PM and speak with Howard Cartwright. Follow all of his instructions as if they were coming directly from me.

  I read and re-read the text several times before the meaning behind the string of sentences fully registered. The wording of it hit me with awkward clarity. “If”, it said, as more of a proposal. As more of a gentle nudge rather than the express and decisive commands which, up until this very moment, he gave me. He presented me the choice this time.

  With little more to go on than that of the name of the individual with whom I would meet, and the suggestive implication which the phrase “Follow his instructions as if they were coming from me” provoked, I was supposed to make the decision whether or not to comply with his request.