Never Have I Ever

by Clearwing, August

  “Don’t presume to know what I have and have not experienced, Miss Minogue.”

  “Piper. You can call me Piper. And, I’m not. I just… I’m trying to extend an olive branch here. I don’t know what kind of women you and your brother are used to Ethan—”

  “Simpering fools mostly,” he said evenly.

  I shook my head and dragged my tongue along the back of my teeth to ward off an unintelligible string of curse words. Once composed, I looked back at him. “Well. I’ve never been one to simper. Submissive slut though I may be, it is for Noah and Noah alone. And only because he’s earned my respect and adoration.”

  “He seduced you, nothing more. This affair between you will end soon, one way or another.”

  I wanted to beat my head against the table. “Are you always this suspicious of people?”

  “Enough to protect what’s mine… by any means necessary.”

  My eyes narrowed at him, a little wary and a little more insulted. “Okay, I came over here to make peace. Outside of those terribly unwarranted and superficial reasons already listed, you have no reason to hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Miss Minogue,” he said as he slipped his glasses off. He folded them and set them on the table. “I feel absolutely nothing but indifference towards you, in fact; which is why I have no problem telling you, if you’re not careful, something bad could happen.”

  “All right.” I exhaled, resigned to my failure at getting through to him as I stood up. “You know, you can threaten me until your face turns blue or Judgment Day, whichever comes first. I gave myself to him. I belong to him, and he’s assured me that he’s not going to ‘kick me to the curb’ as you classlessly put it when we first met. So, if all you have to offer is intimidation in return for my token of solidarity, you can kindly and respectfully go fuck yourself.”

  He didn’t bat an eye at my blatant veracity. Instead, he took a long swig from his drink, then said, “There might be one thing.”

  This’ll be good. “Oh. Enlighten me.”

  Ethan stared at his glass for a moment and tilted it so the ice clinked against the sides. “Paperwork takes a while. The funding for that mockery of a science faire project hasn’t been transferred as of yet.”

  The intention of his statement became all too clear in immediate fashion.

  “Did you fall out of the Crazy Tree and hit every single branch on the way down?” I flourished my arm out in no particular direction as if to gather some form of thought from the Æther. I never gave him time to answer. “There’s no way in Hell you would do that. It’s Noah’s contribution, not yours.”

  “His contribution, which comes from the company’s coffers and,” he sucked in a breath; soft, and sarcastic. “Technically speaking, I am his boss.”

  “That funding was going to be there whether I worked at the observatory or not. I’m not getting anything out of it except the comfort in knowing research will continue.”

  Ethan looked up at me, the satisfied ghost of a smile beginning to tug at the corners of his mouth. Every single word that spilled from his lips dripped with subtle disdain masked as condescension. “And that’s all you care about isn’t it? Not the money, no. If you cared about that you would have taken my first check and disappeared to the other side of the country. You care about the people. You care about the education and the discovery for the sake of discovery and are content in the knowledge that the human race will just keep on learning despite itself.”

  One half of me was pissed, the other half crushed. “You really want to fight me on this, don’t you?”

  “No, I would rather not waste my breath. It seems you are leaving me little choice, however. I wouldn’t care two licks about the damned observatory if you didn’t work there. But you do. And you feel for the people. So take a moment to think; exactly how selfish are you that you would strip those opportunities away from the future of your scientific field?”

  Who was he to talk about selfishness? Hello, Pot, I’m Kettle.

  The observatory did need the money, but in the end they weren’t strapped for cash. There was still enough floating around until we had time to locate another investor. I stood my ground, my growing feelings for Noah and the strength he instilled in me to be a more forceful personality echoing back.

  “Like I said Ethan; kindly and respectfully,” I ended it there to allow him to fill in the rest for himself.

  As I walked away, he managed to get the last word in, “One way or another, Miss Minogue.”

  The bell above the door at the café clattered violently against the glass as I tore it open and emerged onto the streets of sunny Los Angeles. It was difficult to get me angry. It was a fucking miracle, almost. People had to work expertly hard to get under my skin the way Ethan did. At that point I just saw red. My legs moved by themselves; muscle memory of the walk back to my car while I resisted the urge to slam my fist through the paned glass shop windows lining the buildings on my left.

  I vaguely heard the sound of the café bell a second time as I reached the corner, followed by Declan’s voice shouting, “Hey, Piper! Wait up!” and hurried footsteps running to catch me.

  “Now’s not a good time, Dec.”

  “Whoa, whoa! Wait. Stop.” He took my arm and pulled me off to one side of the sidewalk so we wouldn’t get trampled by other pedestrians. “What happened back there?”

  I pursed my lips in an attempt to abate the desire to lash out at him just for being present in my fuming rage. Instead, I was pointing back towards the café, wanting all my frustration to tear through the building and knock Ethan on his ass.

  “That is the most infuriating man I have ever met in my entire life!”

  “Yeah,” Declan agreed with a laugh, “Ethan’s a bit of a whack-job. Don’t let him get to you, all right? He drives people crazy to get a rise out of them so that he can come out on top and look like the better person.”

  “I offered a ceasefire, offered him dinner and to get to know me before he dismisses me as a gold-digging whore and he still—he—he—Argh! I’m done!” I threw my hands up in the air and started off again.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Ethan wants a war,” I called over my shoulder.

  Declan’s voice waivered, “And you’re going to give him one?”

  “Exactly the opposite; I’m not giving him the satisfaction!”

  He finally stopped following me. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m cleverer than he is!”

  ***

  This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea.

  This is a REALLY bad idea.

  But here I was, standing at the door to Dr. Fairbanks’ office Monday morning and my mind hadn’t been changed. My phone was in my hand and I clutched it tight. I needed somebody to stop me. I needed somebody to talk some sense into me before I did anything rash. I called Noah, Declan and Anya all that morning and none of them answered. I left no messages. What would I have told them, anyway?

  The way Ethan said what he said, though, made me realize that the only way the threat of ripping funding away from the observatory meant anything to him was if I worked there. The only solution was to no longer work there. If I could convince him that I moved on, that I had nothing to do with Mt. Wilson anymore, then maybe I could save them. I would be out of a lucrative job, but at least it would help the team in the long run. Ethan kept tabs on me. He’d know when I walked. And that was exactly what I counted on. Finding a new position somewhere else was a job for Future Piper; a job which may or may not be terribly difficult dependent upon my list of contacts.

  I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

  Dr. Fairbanks’ voice came from inside, “Come in.”

  Someone, call me, I thought as I walked into his office. I closed the door behind me and waited for Dr. Fairbanks to finish riffling through paperwork on his desk before I approached him.

  He looked up at me. “Ah, Piper! Good to see you. You missed a lot while y
ou were away. I thought you’d be back in time for the Curiosity landing on Mars last week.”

  “I caught it online” I told him, though I wished at that moment I could have shared in the exhilaration live rather than from a hotel room in Sydney.

  “You should have been in the control room down at Caltech. Tears of joy all around,” he said. Then he waved away his own enthusiasm. “So, are we ready to get back to work?”

  “About that…” Fuck, this was hard. “I actually came to let you know that I need to submit my letter of resignation.”

  Dr. Fairbanks instantly rose to his feet then and leaned his hands on his desk. “What? Why? Is there something that needs to be addressed?”

  “Oh! No!” I waved my hands in a kill gesture. “There’s nothing wrong with the observatory or my coworkers. Not in the slightest. I’m just going to try to secure a position back at Caltech for a while.”

  He sighed and lowered his head. “Well, I had a feeling you might want to move on to bigger and brighter things after graduation.” He looked back at me and wet his lips. “What if I offered you a full time position here as a Team Lead? It would mean a bump in salary of at least ten thousand to start.”

  My jaw dropped. “Um. Wow. That’s very generous of you, Dr. Fairbanks. But, it’s not about the pay.”

  “We need somebody like you on our staff.”

  “Have you considered Tish or Q for the Team Lead spot? They’ve been here much longer than me.”

  Dr. Fairbanks flipped through a file idly. “Tish didn’t want it. I offered it to her. She said she’d rather crunch the data than manage people.”

  “And Q?”

  “He won’t go anywhere without his sister.”

  “Yeah, point.”

  “Is there nothing I can say to convince you to stay on? We really need you.”

  You need the funding far more, I thought.

  Why would nobody call to persuade me to stop this lunacy?!

  “No, Doctor, I’m sorry. I love it here, but something else is calling to me at the moment.”

  “Very well. Far be it for me to stifle the dream of working where you want to.” He took his seat again and collected up a few papers from his drawer, then handed them across his desk to me. They were exit interview questionnaires. He continued, “Get these back to me today if you can. You’ll leave on good terms. Though I’m less than thrilled at this sudden departure so soon after your vacation; if you ever need a recommendation, point them in my direction.”

  I fished my badge and keycards from my purse and placed them on the desk delicately.

  “I have your contact info, sir. Thank you for understanding.”

  Before I rescinded my decision, I exited his office and shut the door firmly. Not even 11 a.m. and I was in dire need of a stiff drink.

  Refuge came in the form of the ladies’ bathroom on the first floor just off to one side of the diner. I washed my face with cold water and tried to make it all make sense. I felt sort of sick and queasy; all in all like the giant turning machine that was my life just got knocked into a different gear and I had to readjust to the flow of things.

  I stared at myself in the mirror, watching the little droplets of water roll down my forehead and cheeks while tourists hustled around me to get to the next scheduled event in less than ten minutes. There were three sinks in this bathroom, so I didn’t feel so bad about occupying one all to myself for the better part of those ten minutes.

  As the last of the tour group left the restroom, I toweled my face off, tossed the towel in the trash and returned to staring at myself in the mirror for a moment longer.

  And it was there in the public bathroom of my now former place of employment that it hit me full force. “Oh you stupid girl,” I said to my reflection, “You thick, stubborn, stupid genius.”

  I backed up against the textured green divide between two stalls. I watched myself in the mirror as I sank below the horizon of the sink and I slid down the length of it until I was sitting on the cold tile floor. Nobody in their right mind did what I did. Nobody sane took a threat like Ethan’s and solved the problem by quitting their job to negate the effect. They fought tooth and claw for everything all at once. But then, they say—whomever the collective conscience of the world decided was them—that it makes you do stupid things, this—this depth of feeling which gripped me like a vice and refused to falter.

  Once and for all I could put a label on it. If I had to compare Noah to one thing it would be the all-encompassing mastery of the cosmos. He was the pulsar, the singularity, the violent storms of gas and dust that spun together to create the Universe. He was the serenity of a quiet nebula as it nurtured the growth of new stars. He was rage and wonder and untouchably beautiful in his propensity to make no sense unless you took the time to study the rules that governed the impossibility of his existence. Noah was my fucking Higgs Boson. He was the one missing element of the Standard Model of Piper Minogue; the final piece that made everything fall into place and at last make reality itself just click. And I found him.

  It was there in the brief stillness between tour groups, when the bathroom was void of all witnesses, that I declared, “You damned foolish girl; you’re completely in love.”

  Neither one of us had said the L word; not to one another, at least. It was never discussed. I wasn’t even sure if it was allowed. But there it was, rearing its head for the first time. When Noah originally approached me about becoming his submissive I never once stopped to ask if it was only a game to him, if lust could be the only thing he felt for me. Were words like “adore” and compliments like “incredible” little nuances of the greater whole of love coming through, I wondered. Could something like this ever mean the same to him as it did to me?

  And then my phone rang. It was him.

  {CHAPTER SIXTEEN}

  Bad decisions are something that can’t be avoided. Humans, by the very nature of our humanity, are flawed, selfish and careless. Typically, I was better at devising ingenious ways of problem-solving. If I said that quitting my job wasn’t a big deal to me, I’d be lying. It was a difficult choice, but it was also the only way to ensure the funding remained at the observatory without giving Ethan what he wanted; without walking away from the best experience I ever had. Without walking away from… fuck it; without walking away from the man I loved. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make as long as it continued to deter Ethan from trying to blackmail or threaten me.

  The last thing I needed was to escalate the tension by striking back. That went double for letting Noah figure out I just quit my job for him. I considered myself a fairly strong person; smoothing things over as silently and with as little confrontation as possible made sense to me. At least until I found a way to dissuade the most insufferable man I ever met from destroying me further. A person, once painted into a corner, can easily move once the paint dries. The only question: How long will it take for the paint to dry?

  Now, however, I needed to get lost. I needed to forget. I needed to drown in any and every sensation I could possibly fathom so I stopped thinking about such heavy things like secrets kept and love I was completely afraid of. Most of all, I needed Noah to be the one who brought me to the singular place in my head where it all happened. His calling me so soon after I walked out of Dr. Fairbanks’ office was either irony at its finest, or kismet. I wasn’t sure which yet.

  I stared at my phone. The melody of my ringtone echoed through the bathroom. What made sense ten minutes ago as I resigned from the observatory disintegrated into the overwhelming feeling of frustration at my lack of common sense because of my epiphany of love.

  Nevertheless, I answered.

  “You, my dear, sound like you’re in a tunnel,” Noah said after my greeting. He sounded happy. That made one of us at least.

  I wasn’t unhappy of course, not with the blast of the verbal confession to myself still ringing through my head, but I also wasn’t certain I was ready for him to hear it. Not until I figured out what it was h
e wanted out of the insanity that was our relationship.

  “Ah, yeah, I’m at Mount Wilson. Just a sec,” I told him. I pulled myself from the bathroom floor and walked briskly through the foyer to the double doors in the courtyard outside. “There, that’s better.”

  “If I’m interrupting anything I can call back.”

  As I sat on a bench away from the prying ears of tourists, I assured him, “No, you’re not, Sir. It’s just been a weird couple of days.”

  “Ready for it to get weirder?”

  I took a deep breath to clear away the crazy in my head and reached for my cigarettes. “All right, lay it on.”

  “Ethan told me he saw you at the café downtown yesterday. He said you invited him to dinner.”

  “An invitation which he immediately declined,” I replied. I lit up and inhaled the sweet, calming blast of nicotine. Another nail in the coffin. “Apparently, not only am I not good enough for you, but I’m also not even worthy of getting to know in order to change that sentiment.”

  “He said something similar.”

  “You know what you said before, about wanting him to be the last person to know I’m your sub?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “He figured it out,” I said, wincing a little at my own mental scorning. “Hiding the cuffs you gave me wasn’t exactly feasible at the time. I’m sorry, Sir.”

  “That’s not your fault, don’t apologize.”

  “Still…”

  “No, you shouldn’t feel guilty,” Noah insisted. I could hear the smile on his face. From the sound of it, he had no clue just how extreme our conversation at the café was. I wanted to keep it that way. He added, “If I didn’t want people to recognize the cuffs for the symbol they are then I wouldn’t have given them to you. Besides, that wasn’t the weird part.”

  “Then, what is?”

  “Ethan had a change of heart after you left.”

  “Come again?”

  “Provided it’s still on the table, he wants to accept the invitation. Well, we want to accept the invitation. He mentioned you were adamant about the both of us being there.”