by Carmen Faye
"If you bothered to keep a journal, that might mean something," he said softly and not really to her. Then in his regular voice, he said, "What makes it so good?"
She was sitting up straighter now, searching his eyes. Something was going on with him, but she doubted it had anything to do with the stress.
He's having similar experiences! Both of us! What the fuck?
"Well," she started, watching him intently and combing her hands through his thick, dark hair. "I discovered a personal goal today. Something I could become passionate about. Something that drives me to complete it. I've never experienced anything like this before."
"What's the goal?" he asked.
"How do you know I don't journal?" she asked, avoiding his question.
"What?"
"You alluded to the fact that I often talk about journaling, but never actually do it. How do you know that about me?" she asked.
"I ... um..." he said searching his head and then he shook it, and looked at her, a little unfocused, "You know, it kind of irritates me when you have something to say, but are nervous about it, so instead of saying it, you dig and poke at me to see if I'll come up with it from the line of questions you are asking. If you have something, then say it."
Then he stopped and stuck is tongue into his cheek, and looked so endearing suddenly, she almost forgot that last tirade of his. "And I," he started carefully, choosing his words almost one by one, while looking around for answers, "have not known long enough to say that to you. I'm sorry. Something isn't right."
Shaking, she said softly, "No, you were right. Exactly right. That's exactly what I've been doing. I do know something and I am very nervous about telling you, and I'm even more nervous about why it is happening."
She now had his full, undivided attention. "Go on," he pressed softly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She got up and walked with hesitant steps, over to the cabinet under the TV. Opening the cabinet, she dug around looking at titles and then dug around some more with slightly more boldness, and then began to laugh. Soon her laugher was turning into something close to hysteria.
He tried to figure out what was going on and failed. Miserably.
"Alright, give,” he told her, “What is this all about? And no dodging."
She was on her knees by this time, laughing and held up her hand, begging him for a bit more time. "I had this...” she started and then fell into another bubbling fit. “I thought that... Oh God this is hysterical! I was so fucking nervous too. I can't believe this shit. Whatever is going on with you, I must have it in spades. Talk about fucking delusional!" she laughed some more.
"What?" Cole demanded, his voice cutting the hysterics from her mind like the reaper's scythe goes through souls.
She got off the floor, closed his cabinet and while continuing to smile, sat down beside him.
"I had this idea when I first got here," she began, "that I had been here before. That I somehow knew things about you there was no way I could possibly know," she offered.
She took a pull from her beer. "So, anyway, one of these things was pretty fucking specific. It wasn't like your favorite color is red and you have a tattoo on your leg. Nothing vague like that, which could have been mentioned or noticed over the time we've been together, or by any number of other explanations, all right? This one was fucking clear, elaborate, and very specific about its facts."
He was listening to her, she noticed. He was listening to her very intently. His attention was so galvanized on her, she was a little slower with the rest of it, "So, this ... vision... for lack of a better term, it reveals to me that in your TV cabinet, right over there, were two porno DVDs. One focused on ass, the other on tits. But you don't watch them. You use them as ambiance during poker games where none of you big boys watch them. You just set it on repeating play, turn off the sound, and let them run like mood music or something."
Her giggles started again. "So," she said, rubbing his thigh in a friendly way, "After you said that spiel about me knowing something—which was dead on, you know. I do that shit all the time—I figured it was this porno movie thing and I was going to come clean and went over to get the movies. But you don't have porno movies in there! None! The whole thing's just a fucked up delusion and here I have been shaking from it since we got her. Stupid! Right?" she finished and then began to laugh again.
But Cole didn't laugh with her. In fact, he was looking rather puzzled and serious. Then he got up and walked into his bedroom. A few moments later, he came out and set two DVDs down on the coffee table in front of her—Double D Delirium and Ass Attacked Teens.
He fixed her with his blue eyes and she froze, and her laughing fit completely cured.
"I had them in my bedroom,” he explained. “My sister's kids came over yesterday while their house carpet was being shampooed. I didn't want the little tikes stumbling across them. I'm not the best uncle, but I'm far better than that," he stated and took a deep breath. "Normally, these DVDs are exactly where you went to look for them. Two days ago, you would have found them. Tomorrow, you would have found them, as well."
"Dear mother of God," she whispered. "I can't know that about you."
"Just like I can't know that you like to hide little pieces of chocolate from yourself," he told her. "Or about the two steel balls in your purse, which would have been better if they were in your pussy for the ride or that you really detest SUVs. Or that you really love mother of pearl, but will not use it for any form of house decoration, because it reminds you of a trailer park in El Cajon where he tried to pay you forty-dollars for a blow job and slapped you around when you called him a fucking sicko."
She reached for her double tequila and downed it in one gulp. Then, throwing back her bright blonde hair, she rose from the couch and began to pace the room, occasionally glancing at the two hilariously absurd DVDs like they were vipers.
Cole walked back into the kitchen and came out with the tequila bottle. "Three of these and you spend the night because—"
"You're a fucking lightweight," she finished, continuing to pace. "And if you think I'm leaving until we talk a whole lot more, you are crazier than I am after six."
Cole sat down, seeming much calmer now with no sign of bewilderment, and said, "Talk about what?"
"What? This!" she screamed, smacking at the DVDs.
"They were on sale, two bucks a piece," he told her.
"No, no, no, you are not going to play word games with me right now, Cole Porter! Why is this happening? How?" she pleaded.
"I have no idea, but now that I know I'm not whacking out over the close call I had today and that you are having the same experience, I'm alright with it for now. So, you know things about me. So what? I don't know everything about you and I doubt you have a complete insight into my closets and itinerary either."
"But why anything?" she asked, calming down a little, "You are right, by the way, about not knowing everything. I've been interested in your paintings, the ones on the wall, since I arrived and have no insight about them at all."
"My sister," Cole told her. "She does them part-time. I believe she's a major talent, but she won't make any leaps. She thinks of it as just a minor hobby."
"Katherine, two years younger," Nicole recited from a memory she didn’t possess.
"Yes," he nodded, "What color is her hair?"
Nicole thought about that and then shrugged, "No idea. Weird."
"So, there remains a treasure trove of things to indulge in with each other," he pointed out, but then added, "or has this freaked you to the point you would rather not go any further?"
Nicole searched his eyes and face, and then his hands. "I am freaked," she stated with an overly calm voice—a voice controlled, and fiercely held in check. "Alright? Very fucking freaked. When did it start with you like this?" she asked Cole.
Cole told her about her kiss at the café, their first kiss, and the illusion it created in his head. He gave her details, including her hips and her preoc
cupation with finding new flaws or marks on her skin, and how he loved her stretch marks, but she would never believe him.
After describing the illusion he told her his decision about delving into that illusion and wanting it to be his final thoughts on this earth. He told her how that illusion felt like a life so complete; he was about to die a happy man.
She burst into tears again and fell into his arms, "Shit, Cole," she blubbered.
"I didn't die and I didn't get shot, and they weren't my last thoughts. Just giving you an example of how real they were – are – to me, how charged with emotional stuff."
She wept and kissed his neck, and rubbed her hands across his cheeks and chest, "So, what do we do, Cole?"
"Well, I think we should probably go out next week, as well, basically because I really do like you. Then we can make a few memories of our own. Be ourselves with each other."
She nipped at her lip, "I kind of have this problem with understanding... hell, even knowing ... who myself is."
"About time we discovered her then, I guess. My gut tells me that I'm going to really like her and I would like to spend as much time with her as I can."
She hesitated, but she knew she had to ask or it would be an elephant in the room for her, "And what about what I do for a living?"
"Call girl? Well, that's what you do. I don't expect you to quit just because of some weirdness and an emotional afternoon. No, why don't we just keep us for the days off and explore for us a while? Both of us know that something, some weird part of us, is really serious about each other. The rest of us needs a chance to catch up," he suggested.
"Yeah," she nodded, "I like that a lot. That's some logic I can get behind."
He nodded and then added, "After that, we'll get married, have three kids, move to the suburbs where you can join the PTA and develop SUV ass."
She snorted and slapped his arm, "You are awful! I will never, ever allow us to own an SUV. Hear me? Never! Those visions can shove it up their ass."
Cole opened his mouth to say something and she hissed him silent, cutting her index finger across his lips. "Zip it! Never. Ever," she affirmed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was a month later that she came to Cole's house with the intention of taking him to bed. After some seriously hot kissing and petting last week, she sucked him off. It was the best and decidedly the most intimate blowjob she had ever given. She was concerned at first about his size, but loved his beauty. Afterward, he brought her to several blissfully sweet climaxes with his fingers by demonstrating some serious levels of unexpected skills.
It was the first climax she experienced with someone else for longer that she could remember. Since Jorge, she supposed, who was the long term, abusive boyfriend she was with before running away.
It was her desperation during the week after running away from Jorge that she decided to be more honest about her whoring. Before Jorge, it was like having sex and then getting a gift, which wasn't really whoring, her denial told her. But after that first week, she needed cash. She was alone on the street, with no money, no friends and remained sexually attractive despite what Jorge did to her. Less than two days later, she was agreeing to become a call girl.
She didn't climax with clients. She was too focused on them, too relaxed enough for a climax to rise. She faked orgasms all the time; it was basically her job and she was seriously good at it, not too much, not too little and occasionally shedding some emotional tears from her eyes, so that she could get caught trying to hide from her client. Her moaning was good, as well, which she practiced every day for over two months back when she first began acting as a call girl.
Everything about her sexual performances was pulled apart, examined ruthlessly, assessed for usefulness, then reassembled adding in new skills and seductions. She was, from top to bottom, a contrived lover. Techniques such as pompoir and kabazzah were sought after and learned. She studied fetishes and strove to understand the underlying attractions. She desired a bottom line understanding around what was so powerful inside their experience that they drove men to perform all sorts of strange behavior with their lovers.
Her days were comprised with such endeavors. The time spent on these researches always returned profitable directions and performances for the show. Despite all of this, she knew next to nothing about what she personally enjoyed or what got her off or how her body was aroused. This had been a concern with this relationship continuing to become closer and intimate. Last week, though, most of her concerns were washed away.
Cole had her covered. She could just relax, and let him excite her. She didn't need to know much about the erogenous stimulations of her pussy, because Cole already did. And his fingers, while thick and strong, were also fascinatingly dexterous.
This week, she brought an overnight bag to his house, carrying it in from the taxicab without comment and setting it in his room like an act of defiance.
Just try to stop me from fucking you this time, Cole, her overnight bag challenged.
Her nervousness was extreme, however. While she could perform and seduce, she wasn't sure she remembered how to make love with a man. She feared her call girl mind-set would fall into place, filling the vacuum created by her atrophied sense of worth and realism.
This would still satisfy Cole, which was important, but result in her being left outside of the act—distancing her from the passion she now craved. She couldn't think of anything to help herself, though. How do you practice being normal?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After spent a period of time on the couch, kissing and becoming together again, they took a short ride out to a mall and watched a decent action movie, and then returned home with take-out bags of Chinese food. Sitting on the couch, they toyed with chopsticks, told jokes, and teased each other viciously.
The déjà vu experiences were far less assaultive these days. The weirdness of them was eroding away, as well. Each continued to report insights to the other, as they were revealed. It just felt like the fair way to handle it—to let the other person know, that you knew something new about them, something that was probably very personal.
The experiences, as they saw them, felt like exposures of forced intimacy. This was a major challenge for both of them since neither of them had much experience with intimacy and detested being forced to do anything.
They were on their third after-dinner beer when Nicole told him, "I want to make something clear, Cole. If you'll have me, I want to leave the show—when you are ready. I want to move into your house where brown is the tone spiked with blue. I want to water your dying plants, fix you meals, shower with you, sleep with you, and have sex with you. After these last few weeks, the show has nothing to offer me. Nothing. I do, however, want to know what you will do for employment after I quit. Am I leaving you in a spot?"
He searched her face as she said these words, and searched her expression now. "No, you won't be leaving me in a spot. I have savings and there are always jobs with the brotherhood. I could probably even acquire a real job. Maybe. Well, probably not without some favors called in since I've only had one real job in my whole life."
The visual intimacy she received regarding this job of Cole's was shocking to her. "Shoe sales?" she barked, nearly spilling her beer when she was suddenly submerged into a mall shop scene of young Cole on his knees before a woman, helping her try on shoes. He was pissed, because this was the twelfth pair the woman had tried on—having no clue how sexually aroused the woman was at the sight of him down there. Nicole could read her. She wondered if the Cole she knew now could read her.
"I hated that job," Cole spat to her from his position on the couch.
Nicole laughed, her mirth becoming warm in her belly, "You had no idea what was going on, did you?"
"What?"
"The women!" she pushed, "They were all over you. Hell, you could have charged three dollars for fetching shoes and they would have paid. The woman I saw you with, the twelve shoe woman? Red hair? Large breasts? Prob
ably thirty. She would have paid dearly to have you come home with her. She was about to cum in the store!" she continued to giggle and Cole took a lonely noodle from their pile of Chinese wrappers and tossed it into her hair.
"Hey," she complained.
"Hey yourself," he chided. "I was fifteen for crying out loud. Between a naked woman and the keys to a bike for an hour, I would have chosen the bike every time counting myself lucky."
She rubbed his shoulder and then kissed the side of his neck, "Don't keep me waiting like this, Cole. Do you want me? Could you want me? Is it still something we need to wait for?"
"Yes, I want you,” he told her clearly. After some thoughtful moments he said, “I take it, the faster we move you out, the better, right? I mean, once the news is clear..." he offered, never really understanding the politics of her life.
"Gabriel, of course, will want to hurt me if I leave him. I don't think he'll physically hurt me. He'll trash my apartment and break all my pretty things, like they mean anything to me now. He'll try to find out who I'm moving on to, so he can threaten and coerce me into coming back. He'll really be pissed if I try to take his clients. That's where the money is, but since I'm not taking anything, he'll likely just throw a fit and seek out some mean, nasty, little revenge for leaving, and that will be it. I'm not his slave for Christ's sake."
"Gabriel? That's the first time I've heard that name from you." Cole said, paying close attention to what was on the horizon of their future days.
"Gabriel Morelli. He's my pimp, Cole. The man in charge of the stable I'm in. Top of the food chain. My manager, Antonio, deals with finding new clients and keeping my security available. The finances are boring, so I won't lay that out, but Gabriel gets a large cut from my fees."
"How much are we talking about, for your fees?" Cole asked, and she heard in his voice risk calculation, not voyeuristic curiosity, so she told him.
Cole’s whole being seemed to drop into deep thought, "So, you don't have any agreement? No debt to pay off? No baggage you are leaving unclaimed? Nothing like that?"