Mirror Image (Capitol Chronicles Book 4)

by Shirley Hailstock

  Lifting the sweater away she felt the cool air. Gulping it in she tried to breathe, but took the male aroma of Duncan into her nostrils. No aphrodisiac could be more potent than the smell of a man in full sexual arousal. In seconds Aurora was clawing at his clothes and he was pushing her pants to the floor. Naked they stood. Her hands rested on his shoulders. A mere breath of air separated them. Her breasts, uplifted and pointy, stretched toward him. Light from the hall turned him into a golden god.

  "Now," he said in a controlled voice. "I'm going to make love to you."

  Her throat closed. No words had ever affected her so much as those just uttered. She felt each one touch her as if it were a precious stone he'd strung around her neck. Duncan didn't know it, but she felt as if it were the first time for her. Making love with him would be different from any experience she'd had in the past. She knew it. Her body knew it.

  He laid her on the bed and joined her, hovering above her.

  "Duncan, I want it to be slow."

  "I'll try my best." He kissed her cheek, settling onto her, allowing her to take his weight as it pressed her into the mattress.

  "I don't mean you."

  His mouth didn't stop its motion. It worked its way down her throat to her breast. When he took her into his mouth she gasped, unable to stem the rapture that rushed through her like a wild fire. "I mean me," she finished when coherent thought made it possible for her to speak.

  This was going fast, she tried to tell herself. She tried to let him know, but her legs spread and he filled the gap. A pleasure roared from inside her, threatening to overwhelm her. Unable to stop herself she rubbed against him. He groaned in reaction.

  "It's been a long time, Duncan. I'm afraid."

  He looked at her. His eyes were full of passion. "I won't hurt you.”

  "I'm not afraid of being hurt. I'm afraid it will come too fast.”

  Duncan silenced her with a kiss. His knee separated her legs. They were silky, smooth, and long. He slid his down hers, knowing she would move and brush against him, knowing the pleasure she generated with each movement. She was hot and he was burning off the scale. Her mouth tasted of love and sweet tea and he drank from it as a dying man drinks. She was driving him crazy. He wasn't sure he could survive this much longer. He wasn't even sure he could get the condom on before he exploded.

  Raising himself, he entered her, easily filling her. She gasped into his mouth. Her legs wound around him and pulled him all the way into her. Together they made music, their own music. They joined and rejoined, swinging to the hot jazz rhythms of a New Orleans juke-joint, dancing to the down home sound of a blues guitar, and rising to the crescendo of a symphony orchestra.

  Duncan knew his life was changing. He'd never really made love before. He'd told Aurora he was going to make love to her when he had no knowledge, no experience, of what he meant. Aurora had him wanting to shout, wanting to cry out for her to stop the pleasure, wanting her to continue it until he died from an overdose of her. He continued, drove himself into her as he'd never driven before. Over and over he pulled and pushed into the well that seemed to know him, want him, was made for him only. Then he felt it. He'd held it back as long as he could. It rose inside him, fighting to be released, fighting to burst through his control. The metamorphosis was fast, like a flash fire of nuclear proportions. His entire body changed, became a solid mass of need. It beat, throbbed, rushed blood through his system like a frenzied prisoner.

  "Rory! Rory!" He shouted her name. The words came without volition. He could no more control them than he could the monster that drove him, the dragon that breathed fire into his loins and seemed to blow faster and harder, pushing him higher and higher until the two merged and he succumbed to the fiery-hot demon and exploded in blessed release."

  Chapter 10

  Aurora's eyelids drooped. Luckily she didn't have to go before the cameras today. The insistent little things were so unforgiving. They saw everything—every extra pound, every wrinkle, every shadow under the eyes. After making love with Duncan until the early morning she'd had to use extra makeup to hide the telltale results.

  She felt wonderful. Duncan had said he'd make love to her, and he had. She smiled, checking the ceiling as if she could see him. She knew what he looked like—his golden body contrasting with the white sheet, disarrayed in a pattern that spoke of having sex and making love. She'd enjoyed both of them.

  Fanning herself, she knew better than to let her thoughts go in that direction. She went back to making her cookies. Today she visited her mother and it was cookie time of the year. They celebrated the season, announced the coming of winter and the holidays. It was one of Aurora's favorite times of the year. Taking a moment to gulp down some coffee, she packed the car and left Duncan a note.

  Smiling, she went out the door, waving at the guard as she passed him. November was one of her favorite months. The last of the leaves were gone and the holidays were in the air. The malls and stores had already been decorated and she could see a Santa everywhere she looked.

  Somehow she felt today would be different. Maybe her mother would recognize her. Anyway, her spirits were high.

  Aurora checked the mirror. She'd become used to Duncan doing it each time they went anywhere, and since the accident she'd wanted to make sure she wasn't being followed by a dark van. Behind her the street was clear except for two cars. One turned off at Washington Road and the other skimmed into a parking space on Nassau Street. She continued up Route 206 heading North.

  Her visit was no different than those of the previous three years. Her mother talked, although her speech was beginning to slur. Aurora couldn't remember it being like that on her last visit. Cassandra Alexander hadn't lost any weight. Her frowns were more frequent, though.

  Aurora shortened her visit to speak to her mother's doctor. He told her everything that was happening was to be expected. The man was compassionate and caring. Dr. Christian had been her mother's doctor from the time she'd moved into the facility. Aurora liked him and believed him. It didn't make her feel any better that her mother was folding inside herself, cutting off small pieces of reality month after month.

  When she left his office she returned to her mother. The need to be close to her kept Aurora there. For a while she just watched. Either Cass didn't notice she was in the room or had forgotten she'd left and come back. Aurora didn't know which was the case.

  Then she went to her mother, sat next to her on the sofa, and pulled her into her arms. She held her like a small child and talked to her. Aurora knew she didn't understand, had no remembrance of her, her other children, or the husband she'd lived with for more than, a quarter of a century. Aurora told her about her children, about the daughters she had who were married, about her grandchildren, her son in law school and her daughter studying in Hawaii.

  She told her about her husband. Even when she knew her mother had fallen asleep she continued to explain. Continued to relive what she could remember of the relationship they'd had as a family. Even when the tears blurred her vision and spilled down her cheeks she went on. It was something she had to do, for herself as well as her mother. She needed to tell her mother everything. She needed to be forgiven. Why, she didn't understand. She needed to exorcize the guilt she felt for not being able to help, for not being able to stop this from happening. She understood, at least her mind did, that she did nothing to cause the condition and there was nothing she could do to stop it, but that didn't keep her heart from holding onto the guilt.

  She wanted another chance—to make more memories, to take her mother to places she'd never seen, to sit and talk with her, tell her things that mothers and daughters understood. She wanted to take back her rebellious teenage years and replace them with glorious days of laughter and fun. Aurora wanted to hug her mother, and know that Cassandra Alexander understood the love that she'd always felt for her.

  Aurora rocked her mother. Sitting on the sofa with Cass asleep, she rocked and rocked and rocked. She heard the do
or open and knew the nurses stood there. It was either time for medication or a meal. She didn't know which. She'd lost track of time, like her mother. Time didn't hold meaning. Only love had meaning. Hot tears spilled down her face. Her mother had said that to her long ago and somehow, from somewhere, she remembered it.

  "I love you, Mama." She wiped away the tears with her fingertips. "I love you, Mama. I've always loved you."

  Someone moved behind her, then came to stand in front of her. She didn't stop the rocking, didn't look up for the nurse. She just moved back and forth with a slow swinging movement, like a wind up cradle.

  "Aurora."

  Duncan stooped down and looked at her. Through her tears she saw it wasn't the nurse.

  "She's fallen asleep," Aurora said. "She's isn't going to come back, Duncan." A huge sob made her sniff. "She's gone...lost to me. She'll never see me again. Never know me."

  "Give her to me." He looked over her and signaled to someone. Then he took Cassandra Alexander in his arms. Aurora's hands released her. Two white coated orderlies lifted her mother and gently placed her on the bed.

  "She's never coming back," Aurora whispered and the tears flooded through, falling from her eyes as if from a broken dam.

  ***

  Duncan didn't speak on the way to his house. He didn't think he could. Being part of The Marsha Chambers Show, he'd been privy to emotional scenes that reached extremes. The worse moments happened when the cameras weren't rolling. Nothing in his experience compared with today's heart-wrenching episode, though. He wanted to help Aurora, wanted to take her pain away, and shoulder it as his own, but he could no more stem the flow of tears coming from her eyes than he could prevent the wind from blowing or the earth from turning.

  She was alone, as alone as her mother, who was caught somewhere between this world and one of her own making. He thought Cassandra Alexander's was safe and painless, while her daughter struggled with demons.

  He didn't want to take Aurora back to the studio compound until she'd had time to recover. He'd been furious when he woke to find her gone. The moment he smelled the sugar he knew where she was. Every nerve in his body was tense when he discovered the guards had let her pass through the gates alone. She was in his car. They'd assumed he was with her, when all she had was a seat full of boxes.

  Arriving at the nursing home he had been ready to part with the few remaining brain cells he hadn't burned off worrying over her when he found her rocking her mother and crying. He never wanted to see her that unhappy again. He'd stood by the door, his heart lodged in his throat, his own eyes misty with emotion, until he could pull himself together enough to help her.

  He pulled into his driveway and pushed the button for the garage door. He helped her from the car and into the house, taking her to the sofa in his living room.

  "Lie down and I'll make you something to eat.”

  "I'm not hungry." Her voice was flat, as if she were in shock.

  "Then rest and I'll make tea."

  She sat staring. He didn't like it. She could make herself sick. After the night they'd spent together, how could she go off alone?

  He'd reached for her, finding her space empty and cold. Disappointed, he'd gone in search, but opening the door he'd smelled the sweetness, tasted the sugar on the air—and knew. He didn't need the empty feel of the house or the sound of walls with no heart beating in them to tell him he was the only living person there.

  He left her. Tea would make her feel better. He'd brew it, bring it to her, make her drink it. He spent his time in the kitchen efficiently, not dragging out time to enjoy the process, only following the functional and quick method of boiling water and gathering cups and saucers. When he returned to the living room she was no longer sitting up. He put the tray down. Her head lay on one arm, her feet still on the floor. He removed her shoes and pulled her feet up, then covered her with an afghan.

  Pouring himself a cup, he sank in the armchair across from her and watched.

  ***

  Bells woke her. Aurora heard them from a distance. She wondered where they could be. There weren't any bells in her house. Then the deep, resonant sound of the gongs beat out the hour. She opened her eyes. This wasn't home. Then she remembered. The morning's activities came back like the aftermath of a nightmare.

  Duncan slouched in the armchair across from her. He'd fallen asleep. She smiled slightly at him. He'd come for her as if she were in danger and brought her here. The cold pot of tea sat on the table between them. He was a nice man, she thought. A good man. She admitted she was more than a little in love with him. In time she knew she could fall all the way. But she no longer had the right.

  Alzheimer's Disease could be hereditary. She'd seen her future this morning. One day she would be in the same secret place her mother inhabited. In a land where no one could reach her, where there was no today no tomorrow, no past no future. The people she loved and who loved her would not even be memories. That was the worst part, Aurora thought. Tears formed in her eyes again. To think that the good times would go, that they would just slip away one night like the closing of a door, of never being able to open it again, or to even remember that there was a door to open.

  This was her fate. She let the tears spill, hot and scalding, down her face. They collected in her ears and she didn't move to clear them. She cried for the lost love she would never know, for the growing love she had to forego. She cried for the children and grandchildren that wouldn't be hers. She cried for the past, the memories she had which she'd lose, and for the future ones she'd make and forget.

  She'd been close, she thought, so close. Duncan was the first man in years she'd wanted to know better. He made love to her, incredible love. He'd taken her to levels she didn't know existed and she wanted to go there again and again with this man. She wanted to savor her time with Duncan West, hold the memory of him like a warm winter blanket when he left to pursue his goals in California. Now she knew that no matter how many times he made love to her, in time she wouldn't remember it.

  ***

  Split personality. That was the only term Duncan could think of to describe what had become of Aurora since the visit to her mother a week ago. During the tapings she was the same—compassionate, warm, connecting with the audience and the guests. As soon as the lights went out on the stage, she crawled behind that protective wall she'd erected around herself. She seemed determined she wouldn't let anybody get near her. She wasn't unfriendly. If someone stopped her and asked a question, she'd answer, engage in conversation, but she'd soon excuse herself and slip off to the guest house.

  She spent hours there, seeing no one, talking to no one. The only times she'd even let him near her was on the set, or when discussing some aspect of the program.

  She hadn't talked about her mother. Duncan recognized she was grieving for a woman alive but totally lost to her. He wanted to help her through it but didn't know how. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, make incredible love like they'd done before, but she barely spoke to him. He felt she went out of her way to avoid him. It was making him crazy.

  Aurora came in then. He saw her from the window in the control room. Wearing a red jumpsuit with a short, blue, waist-length top and white sneakers, she looked ravishing. The waist nipped in, and Duncan clenched hands that itched to curve around it. She stepped around equipment being readied for today's taping, her movements as graceful as a tiger's. His loins tightened in reaction.

  Duncan watched in quiet fascination as the stage crew and producers made final preparations before the audience filed in. They knew something was wrong. No one said a word to her. They tiptoed around, not wanting to be heard or to create harsh sounds. Duncan had to talk to her today. This had to change. It was now affecting the show.

  Moments later the audience began to come in and the crew left the stage. Up today was the U.S. National Gymnastics Team and then a segment on an up-and-coming author. The usual stage had been replaced by practice mats, four-inch beams, cheese mats, a trampoline
, uneven and even parallel bars, a stationary horse, and a few other pieces of equipment.

  The music began signaling the start of the show, also a signal for Aurora. Duncan witnessed the change in her demeanor. The sadness defining her body language changed to something resembling joy. The team filed onto the stage and took up positions at various pieces of equipment.

  Duncan took his usual station, placing his microphone on his head. He tried to capture Aurora's attention. She didn't look at him. The show began.

  "Explain this to the audience," Aurora asked a small girl who couldn't have been more than fifteen. "What is this called?" She stood in front of a small, carpet-covered piece of wood with two industrial coil springs raising it several inches off two slats that looked like runt skis.

  "This is the springboard. It's placed before certain pieces of equipment like the horse or the beam to give us enough spring to mount the equipment, or to spring over it.” Her voice was high and young, but she spoke with assurance.

  "You're going to demonstrate what?"

  Aurora held the microphone to the freckled, redheaded girl. "I'm going to do several exercises on the beam."

  "The balance beam," Aurora explained for the benefit of the audience, "is this horizontal, four-inch, padded railing behind me." She turned to put her hand on it. "Look, it's only about as wide as my hand." The overhead camera immediately picked up the image. Images of her slender hands caressing him went through Duncan’s mind.

  The teenager backed away and Aurora said, "Let's watch."

  The girl stood for a second, her feet flat on the floor, heels together, arms at her sides. Then she raised up on her toes and began to run forward. Three feet from the spring-board she leapt on the board, sprang into the air, turned a somersault, and landed with bent knees on the tiny platform four feet off the floor. The muscles of her legs were clearly defined as she held herself with not so much as a waver right or left.