Double Obsessions

by Charlotte Sloan

  “You have an interview Monday at one of my restaurants. It’s for a sous chef position. I trust that you will get the job. I have faith in your ability,” he murmured, and if she had expected him to say anything after sex, it would not have been that. Ella had no idea what to say, so she just nodded in appreciation and let herself fall asleep beside him.

  Chapter Ten

  A month had passed since Ella had first cooked for and slept with Michael. It was such a strange thing to think about how they met. She finished up putting away the food in the kitchen, and then looked around to watch the dishwashers and junior chefs cleaning. Her life had changed so much, and she was working a job that she loved going to every day. Being a sous chef was just a stepping-stone to the job she really wanted, to run her own kitchen one day, but it was a stepping-stone she had expected would be a lot farther away than it was.

  She left the restaurant after the head chef, making her way out to her car and heading over to Michael’s apartment. They were seeing each other pretty steadily, and she stayed at his penthouse more often than not. It was surprising to her, especially because of his reputation for never being seen with the same woman twice, but she would take it while it lasted. He was too good in bed to give up, and she was pretty sure she had fallen in love with him.

  He worked late that night, so she let herself in and cleaned up, climbing into his bed to sleep while she waited for him to get home. Michael came in just before ten, climbing into the bed behind her and wrapping his arm around her waist. He held her through the night, and she smiled in her sleep.

  Ella woke the next day, heading into the kitchen to make breakfast. She had tried constantly since they started dating to make him something he couldn’t live without, and while he said that he loved her meals and they were all satisfactory, she still had not made him that one meal that he would dream about. After starting a pot of coffee, she pulled out eggs and vegetables, starting everything to make them omelets.

  After everything was chopped, Ella poured the whisked eggs into the pan and waited for the eggs to solidify enough to flip. Michael came out, pouring a cup of coffee and sipping it. He sat down at the island and started reading emails on his phone while she cooked his omelet. She added the vegetables and cheese to it, folding the omelet and getting a plate for him. She slid the food onto a plate, setting it in front of him on the island and putting down a fork.

  She returned to the stove to make her own, turning back after a couple moments to look at him and see if he had tasted the omelet yet. He had, and he looked up at her and smiled. Ella finished making her own omelet, putting it on a plate and grabbing a fork for herself. She sat down beside him at the island and cut off a bite with the side of her fork.

  “You know,” Michael started, clearing his throat and looking at her. “I think I have finally found something I can’t live without.”

  Ella raised her eyebrows. An omelet was so ordinary, it was just eggs and vegetables and cheese. It hardly took skill. “My omelet is the best thing I’ve made for you?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t mean the omelet, my darling Ella. I meant you.”

  She smiled, looking down at her food and trying to calm the fluttering in her stomach. She was finally happy with everything in her life.

  *****

  THE END

  Seized By My Soldier

  I woke up, eyes wide and senses piqued, expecting him to be beside me. But of course, he wasn't. Still, that didn't stop me from believing it for several, groggy moments, thinking that at any point he would come emerging from the around the corner of the bedroom door, full and intact, and as mine as he ever was.

  There was a side of me that knew this to be a ridiculous notion, yet at the same time I just couldn't help but believe it to some degree, and I held my breath, thinking that it just had to be, and that his absence was the dream, as opposed to his return.

  But as the minutes kept on ticking along, and as the morning continued to dawn, it became abundantly clear that I was holding out hope for nothing but disappointment, and that the reality I was hoping for was intent on eluding me as it did every morning.

  Finally, it became ridiculous to keep expecting anything to change, and I had to give up, to face the facts, and to go on with my day as I did every single morning, deprived of what I truly wanted, what I longed for, and what seemed so lacking from my life that I could scarcely control myself over the loss.

  Still, even after I knew that I was only deluding myself, and accepted the fact that that was what I was doing, I didn't yet have the drive to change things, to roll my ass out of bed and go about my day without him. Instead, I closed my eyes for just a little bit longer, and inhaled a deep breath, holding it, and feeding my fantasies just a little bit more.

  I imagined him there, in the bed beside me, his heat, his substance, his presence next to me like some life-preserving force. Thick and perfect, wrapping me up in his embrace, pulling me so deeply into him it was like I was imprisoned in his flesh.

  His kisses, so sweet, so gentle, as they softly brought me into the new day, so tender and so loving that they would leave me with nothing but happy thoughts for the whole day to come. I loved him, tasting my flesh like this, and God how I craved it now, and how I burned for the fact that I knew that it was so far separated from me.

  And hell, even his scent I missed—not an especially wonderful scent first thing in the morning, and I'm sure this was mutually true. But the intimacy of it, the knowledge that what I inhaled was my own, property of yours truly, and myself property of him. God, how powerful scent can be, and how severe an absence it can be when it's taken away.

  Even though I knew that I would find no luck in this regard, I took in a deep breath, praying to the God he believed in that there would still be some lingering essence, some remnant of the beautiful bastard to sustain me through this new day, even the faintest trace of him still hanging behind on the pillows to give me hope, to give me the knowledge that things could somehow be all right.

  I began to grow desperate after a few seconds of this, actually burying my face in the pillow, practically smothering myself, thinking that there must be something, something I was just missing somehow, and that I would find it if I just kept trying.

  But all there was to be found was the cool, neutral scent of fresh linen, empty and impersonal, pleasant under certain circumstances, but in my case disappointing as hell, robbing me of nearly every ounce of hope.

  I felt like crying, like gushing out and dissolving into my own fears and sadness, and accordingly I yanked the comforter up over my head, burying myself beneath the blankets and encasing myself in the warm, toasty oven of my own body heat. I dreamed for a while longer, or fantasized, one or the other, about his embrace, his touch, his caress, making me feel secure and able to handle everything going on around me, and carrying me through into the day as he'd always done when he was at home.

  But then, after a while, I just couldn't do it anymore. I had to get up, and I was somewhat prompted into doing so by the sound of canine claws scratching against my bedroom door. I sniffed, then touched my cheeks, noticing that a slight stream of tears had begun to form along my flesh.

  I dabbed them away, and then managed to pull myself up out of bed. I walked over toward the door and pulled a plush bathrobe from the hook—I was wearing a tank top and panties, and knew that my dog's demands would require a little bit more concealment.

  Or, well...it was Danny's dog, I guess, really. He'd been a shelter dog, a Jack Russell terrier, and I guess I'd more or less adopted him when Danny and I first moved in together. I opened the door to greet him, and a swirl of emotions, both good and bad, welled up inside me.

  Bandit was a fun dog, loving and playful, and it was hard not to let just a little bit of his joy and zest for the world seep into you whenever you were in the little firecracker's presence. Even as I stepped out into the hallway, he jumped with sheer joy to see me, hopping up feet into the air and making my chest balloo
n just the least bit with affection.

  You just couldn't help but smile at something like this, even if deep down you knew your pet's frantic efforts at hopping and prancing likely had a lot to do with the simple fact that they had to pee.

  But, like everything else in the house, there was also a sense of absence to all of this, unsettling and disturbing, filling me with a chill of nerves that nearly made me woozy as I stared sadly down at the cute, little thing. This was Danny's dog; Danny wasn't here. I was just taking care of the things he'd left behind.

  God, how I hated myself for these sorts of thoughts. My affection for the poor dog all but drained away, and I sighed heavily with discontent. “Come on,” I said without an ounce of enthusiasm, and I stepped over to open the sliding glass door for him.

  Instantly, and quite expectedly, he went bolting out into the yard and flying straight out toward the road—precisely as he always did, without fail.

  “Bandit! Get back here!” I yelled, and he gradually circled back around in his laps, as though he'd known from the start that he wasn't supposed to be going that far, and yet he'd done so anyway, just to test my limits. I didn't really care that much, I guess.

  I just sighed as he did his business, and stooped over in my bath robe to retrieve the dew-covered newspaper from my front lawn. Every morning, the rolled up paper in its plastic sheath practically burned my fingers whenever I touched it, despite being cold and wet and dripping onto the ground.

  I shook it off, and slowly took out the paper, holding my breath just a bit irrationally as I did so, as though this could somehow change its contents. I struggled to contain the avalanche of glossy circulars as they spilled out into my hand, and then cautiously flipped over the front page, and peered inside the paper, fearful of just what I might find.

  There was, frankly, nothing of interest in there, at least not on any level that mattered. Just the same, old things: politics and world events that seemed like nothing but words printed on a page, and whose effects only touched me in so far as they pushed my husband further and further away from me. I always feared, though, that one day I would see some headline about a fallen soldier, and would see Danny's face plastered across the page in black and white newsprint.

  It was largely irrational, I knew. Were anything to happen to the man I loved, I would surely be notified ahead of time rather than left suspended and guessing, only to find out when I opened up the morning paper. But of course, it wasn't all that rational of a thought process that took over me these days, and knowing what was true didn't always stop me from having these sorts of dark, fearful fantasies.

  I sighed, closed up the paper, and stepped inside with Bandit in order to get ready for my day.

  I stood in the shower for some time, letting the hot water roll along my body in a manner that felt wonderful, yet was somehow strangely chilling. I felt like I lacked the strength to tear myself away from this beautiful heat, and I stayed under the water until it began to grow cold as it fell down onto me, and at last I admitted to myself that it was time to get out and get started with my day.

  I got dressed, not caring all that much what I looked like, because what the hell did it matter, anyway? I pet Bandit on the head one final time, then made my departure through the front door and stepped into my car.

  I needed groceries, and drove somewhat dead-eyed off to the supermarket, unenthusiastic and disliking the notion of having to be out in public. As proud as I was of my husband, I hated the inherent feeling of being a military wife, and I somehow imagined that everyone else around me felt sorry for me when they looked at me, as though they somehow knew that, just because I was at the store by myself with a wedding ring on, I was worth pitying for my present life circumstances.

  But I knew that was ridiculous. There was no way that anyone would have that sort of insight, but like nearly everything about my life at that time, my reason did very little to mitigate the fear.

  This same feeling of not wanting people to feel sorry for me was one of the main reason I tended to gravitate away from other military wives, the only people who could really ever know precisely what it was I was going through.

  It was just so strange, really, he whole experience of it. Having as good as lost the man you loved, for an indefinite period of time, in some foreign city you've never heard of, for a cause that neither you nor the man fighting fully understands.

  All the way through, you sort of just have to believe whatever it is people tell you, take things at face value, and try to avoid overthinking things if you want to make it through the whole ordeal with your sanity intact.

  And I guess that was probably what Danny was going through himself, but to a degree that was far more palpable, and the stakes far, far higher. But, at the very least, Danny had the benefit of actually progressing through that hardship.

  His ability to come home and be with me again depended wholly on tangible actions he could take every day, so it must have seemed like he was racing toward a finish line. But on my end, there was really nothing I could do at all to speed up the pace of time, or to bring the man I loved back home to me a minute faster.

  I guess I was just trying to stay afloat all that time. The smart thing to do would have been to expose myself to those other military wives and relate to someone who could sympathize so directly with my problems. I'm not really sure why I was so resistant to the notion.

  I guess the reason is probably a selfish one. I didn't want to share this experience with anyone else, as bad as it was. I wanted it to remain solely between Danny and I, confined and limited, and kept within our own, private boundaries.

  Having to be around the other women who were going through the same thing felt like an intrusion of some kind, a butting in that I'd never signed up for, and I preferred waiting out the days leading up to my love's return in solitude, as painful as it may have been for me on a number of levels.

  All throughout that time, these trips to the grocery store were about the only socializing I squeezed into my day at all, if you can really call it that. Once in a while, I would call my parents or Danny's, and very rarely I would go out and have coffee or something with my best friend Julia.

  The only thing that got me through those long, lonely days were the video calls with my husband, holed up in some hellish, God-forsaken place halfway around the world, trying for my sake to make it seem less terrible than it was, but the misery he was experiencing painfully evident on his face and in the way he spoke to me.

  Recently, he'd made a request to me, to send him a rather private video of myself, and I'd been putting it off ever since, feeling that it was wrong on any number of levels. Not morally wrong, but...well, it just felt sad. Like it somehow emphasized just how separated the two of us had become.

  And I knew that there was no way I could perform what he asked of me face to face, and that if I ever did manage to do it for him at all, it would have to be via a pre-recorded message that I could be in control of.

  But I was beginning to feel my longing for his flesh more acutely than ever. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit it, really, but as I stepped through the aisles of the grocery store, I began to feel a heated sense of lust, with every man that I passed somehow reminding me of him, making me burn for a male's touch.

  I was wholly faithful to the man I loved, of course. I always had been, and I always will be. But it was hard not to let my eyes wander from time to time in his absence, imagining myself taking solace in someone else's arms, being taken by someone and driven to forgetting about the distance from the only person I wanted in my life.

  By the time I got up to the front register, and was checked out (in more ways than one) by a strapping, young cashier, I was feeling so hot and flushed that I could feel sweat beginning to form down my neck, adding to my erotically charged discomfort.

  Today, I knew, would be the day I recorded the video for my husband and sent it to him as the sweetest of surprises.

  Even upon making the decision, there was stil
l a considerable degree of trepidation leading up to the actual unfolding of events before I managed to fully work up my nerve. I had never before produced an, ahem, erotic film, in any way shape or form, and I was feeling nervous as hell about the prospect of doing so.

  Once I was back home, I closed all the blinds in our bedroom and closed the door behind me, then went through a variety of outfits, trying to decide which bit of lingerie in my wardrobe would serve best to tempt and to tantalize him as it melted from my flesh.

  Even once I had decided on something that would do the trick, I didn't really feel pretty. I mean, I was okay. Really I was a beautiful woman, and had always been told so, but my appearance just felt inadequate in my mind for the gravity of this situation, like I needed to be perfect for him if he was to derive an ounce of enjoyment from the performance.

  But of course, I could only work with what the good Lord gave me, and I knew that no matter how long I might have spent adjusting and primping in preparation for the show, at the end of the day it was just going to come down to my own perception of myself, and there wasn't really a hell of a lot I could do to change that.

  Finally, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and rush this thing head on, and after a considerable time of fiddling with my laptop's webcam to arrive at just the right angle, I took a deep breath, and clicked on the record button.

  “Hey, babe. God, I'm...I'm sorry, I'm so nervous. Wow.” I paused for a moment, trying to gain my composure, and then continued, “I, uh...I thought maybe I'd make that video you'd asked about a while back. You know? I'm...I'm not exactly sure what you'd like, but...well, I just thought maybe I'd give you a little taste and see how it goes. I bought this new nightie the other day, by the way; I thought you might like it. It really...emphasizes things, if you know what I mean.”