Mindgasm - A Bad Boy Romance With A Twist (Mind Games Book 3)

by Gabi Moore

  She smiled knowingly.

  “Yeah. You have more in common with him than you think, you know.”

  Her shoes click-clacked down the hall until I couldn’t hear them anymore. I turned to walk the other way.

  What would my father say, if he could see me now?

  I sat on the cold concrete steps outside the building and watched the clouds. I watched them for a long time. Watched them till something cleared and went calm inside me. Watched them till I fell still inside, and could see a way forward.

  Chapter 17

  I folded the wad of forms and packed them tightly into a manila envelope.

  Applying for financing this late in the year was more bureaucracy than any human deserved in one life, but it needed to be done. I had cried a little this morning, looking at my online banking and seeing that aunt Lila had indeed killed the direct debit. Shut off the tap. With the last trickles, I had to make my next move.

  I had just over two weeks before I’d have to pay rent again, pay for my Internet connection, my utilities. I still had my credit card, thank god. I had blown the last fifty pounds I had in my account on rice, beans and frozen vegetables. That would last me for a good while, if I ate carefully. If they approved my convoluted appeal for a loan I could start looking for a new, cheaper place. But then, they may not approve my loan. I couldn’t think about that, though.

  Belinda had offered me a place to stay for a little while if it came to it, which was fair given that I had stolen her role and all. Tamara had told me she’d give me some grace with the coursework and that I had a month to get my act together, but that she expected me to finish up the hall scene set that I had started. Becky would pick up after that. This meant I’d have regular rehearsals, a whole play’s worth of new lines to remember, all the regular class work and tutorials, and a set to finish. And I’d do it on rice, beans and frozen vegetables.

  I stared over at some DIY supplies stashed in the corner. The hall scene was mostly done, but I needed some kind of artwork for the centerpiece, something that could be lowered and whisked away as it morphed into the wedding scene. I felt a pang that I wouldn’t be able to do the wedding scene anymore, but …well, let’s just say there were a lot of things I couldn’t afford to think about right now.

  My phone pinged.

  It was Adam.

  Tamara told me the news. You can’t keep ignoring me, you know. You’re basically getting married to me in the morning, remember? :p

  I flung my phone down onto the bed and tried not to think of him. Sweet, dark, irresistible Adam Morgan was the thing I could afford the least right now, that was for sure. Let him enjoy his weirdo girlfriend; I was on the skin of my arse and needed to think of myself. Oh, he was Bluebeard and I was Boulotte. I didn’t care about how many other wives he had buried in his secret chamber. I was going to act, and I was going to be a professional. And I was going to ignore each and every one of his stupid messages.

  I woke the next morning fired up with fresh energy. I walked briskly and arrived at the college well before everyone else, while the air was still icy and I could watch the clouds a little before heading in. People shed their coats and scarves at the entrance and slowly began to take on their stage roles, to unpack the props and plug in the lights, to crack open the thick scripts and rummage in their bags for pink highlighters and lip balm. As usual, he was late. Late to his own wedding.

  “Channeling Boulotte this morning, are we?”

  I turned to see a smiling Tamara come behind me and playfully tap my dangling earrings. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. It wasn’t a dress rehearsal, but why the hell not? It had cost me a lot, this scary debut as an ‘actress’, so I might as well make the most of it, right?

  “We’ll start just as soon as Adam’s here,” she said and gave me a knowing look.

  “Sure, no problem at all,” I said, and she nodded.

  “You uh …you OK to do the kissy bit?” she said, trying to sound lighthearted.

  The kissy bit. Well, the truth was, it was infinitely harder to not kiss Adam than it was to kiss him. Kissing Adam had come so easily to me I had hurled myself headlong into his arms at every opportunity. No, the torture would be to stay mad at him, to remember that he wasn’t good for me, to kiss him, but not too much. To kiss him, but not mean it. To look like I meant it, but not to really mean it. He could kiss me as an actress. But he would never kiss me kiss me again. Just kiss me. I was resolved.

  “I think I can handle it,” I said breezily.

  She patted me on the shoulder and went to fuss over with a group of crew members as they put together a makeshift arch. I took a deep breath. I liked this. I could do this. Acting. Maybe it was in my blood, after all.

  The doors banged open and everyone turned to look. Adam, of course, making a grand entrance. I studiously ignored him and pored over my script instead. As if he had his own gravity, he sauntered over to the stage and warped and bent everyone’s attention as he did, catching a trail of quiet looks, leaving a little wake of silence behind him as people watched.

  He was just as hot as always. Just as animally magnetic as always. It was mightily inconvenient, to ignore a man so obviously unignorable …but I did it all the same. People looked to me for a second, realized there wouldn’t be any off-stage drama this morning, and quickly got back to their work. Out the corner of my eye I watched him chat a little with Tamara. Fine. I could do this. Channeling Boulotte. Channeling the great Norman Westling, why not.

  Everyone settled and found their places on stage and we began.

  I lost myself to the flow of the moment.

  I loved this.

  Loved watching the ballet behind the ballet, the coordinated cogs of this great drama machine. I loved how it came together, all the separate threads, timed just right, telling a smooth, full story. It was nothing less than magic to me. I stood in the wings and watched the forest nymphs and various ‘wedding spirits’ dance their part on the stage. They were wearing Primark tights and ratty gym shirts, but I could see that they were woodland sprites, could see them leap high into the air like the otherworldly beings they were.

  “Good …good, lots of energy here, lots of joy everyone …good, keep it light…” I heard Tamara’s voice from behind the heavy velvet curtain.

  I didn’t have to look to know he was standing there, in the opposite wing. I didn’t have to look to know that he had worn the same trousers he always wore to rehearsals, the same light grey ones I had peeled off his excited body more time than I could remember. I didn’t have to look to know that he was looking at me.

  “And two three four, then out with the nymphs, nice …down comes the wreath…” I heard Tamara saying. The nymphs’ footsteps were hard on the boards, and I felt them bounce as they sprung off stage and cleared the way for the arch to descend. And then, all eyes were on us. I paced out into the strong light, face filled with fearful wonder. And there before me, pacing towards me, was Bluebeard himself.

  I saw it all. I saw the evil eyes of a sorcerer, one with the faint smell of murder still on him, one with white gloved hands and a perfect smile, but sharp teeth and too much spring in the step. A handsome man. Alluring. Exciting. But completely dangerous.

  I flitted my eyes closed and came to stand beside him, the full magnitude of what I was doing washing over me. I didn’t become Boulotte. I was Boulotte, from my dainty feet to the top of my doomed head. My wedding. The moment my life transformed, fairy-tale-wise, from dry bread and worn clothes and pig sties to candied fruit and chamber music. It was perfect. Hopelessly, disastrously perfect.

  Then, with every fiber of my body, I fluttered open my eyes and looked into the dark face of my husband. He didn’t become Bluebeard. He was Bluebeard. I trembled in my shoes. I trembled elsewhere. He was an aristocrat, a worldly man. A man who would …show me things. I gulped and looked up at him. Adoringly. A delicious fear tinkling in all my wedding jewels.

  “Nice, good …lots of forebo
ding here. Jeremy no more pink light, you’re too heavy handed there, yes, good…” I heard Tamara’s voice puncturing through everything.

  The moment swept on.

  I remembered my lines and spoke them as my own. The set moved and flowed around us, our movements and speech carefully choreographed. Soon, he would take my hands. We would seal our devilish union with a kiss. It was written in the script.

  “Good …OK, Adam a little less enthusiasm from you …just for the time being. I like it; let’s keep going…” said Tamara.

  I heard the creaking and wheeling of the props moving around us as we stepped forward, came onto a platform, waited for the wedding party to surround and frame us. It was only chipboard and stand-in tinsel. But it was also a breathtaking wedding of unparalleled splendor, a deliciously evil pairing of the sacrificial lamb to a man with cloven hooves hidden in his expensive calf-skin shoes. I could see it all. And I spoke, and moved, and the story unfolded around me…

  The wedding party shrank away from us and the light concentrated overhead, too-bright and painful.

  Now was the moment. A kiss to seal the deal. The mortal signature on the immortal contract.

  He took my hands in his. I could see him breathing with excitement, with devilish anticipation. I realized that I was …turned on. Very turned on. I gave him my hands and lost myself in his eyes, standing before him, his.

  My lips parted instinctually. He leaned down towards me, hands gentle, eyes vicious. In the time it took him to close and open his dark-lashed eyelids once, I watched my girlish life flash before my eyes, watched the seasons change and the rim of a new era spinning before me, and a great chasm opened up and I was on the rim, about to fall in forever. I couldn’t help myself. I closed my eyes and offered my lips up to his, and he kissed me.

  My sigh was a groan, a cry of a forest creature pierced through the heart. As I kissed him, a flock of birds exploded from the forest behind us. A glass chalice slipped off the table and shattered on a stone floor. The light popped into fragments around us and fell twinkling at our feet. Then a darkness descended. A thick, deadly darkness – blacker than black. Black so black that it became …blue.

  I pulled away and saw my kiss, still wet, lingering on his lips. He smiled; a smile of victory. The music came to an end and he dropped my hands.

  “Yes, oh my god yes! That is precisely what we’re after!”

  I woke up from my daydream and looked to see Tamara on her feet, watching the stage intently with the rest of the crew around her, frozen as they witnessed what was unfolding on stage with awe.

  “I don’t know what you guys are doing up there, but holy hell, I like it!” Tamara said and clapped her hands together with glee. She gestured for me to step down and come sit beside her.

  The lights came back on again.

  “Nyx,” she said, “come here for a second. That is brilliant, really. I think even the garbage men outside wanted to watch you, truly. This is good. I like what you’re doing here.”

  I tried not to follow Adam as he took the steps off stage and went to get a drink of water. The crew around us were talking again, getting prepared for the next round.

  “You know, there was something off about making Boulotte so …so …”

  “Innocent?” I said.

  “Exactly. She’s too one-dimensional, isn’t she? Too much a victim. But the way you look at Adam …it’s like Boulotte is not just a victim, she’s--”

  “She’s complicit. She wants it, in a dark way,” I said.

  She nodded absentmindedly. “She wants it…” she repeated, trying out the words in her mouth. “Yes, OK, good, I like where this is going. Tell me quickly Nyx, what’s missing in Boulotte’s character, do you think? What do we need more of here?”

  I flicked my hair and took a breath.

  “Sex,” I said.

  “Sex?”

  “Much, much more sex,” I said matter-of-factly.

  She stared at me for a while, thinking.

  “But why would she be so drawn to Bluebeard in the first place? Why would she be so keen on him when he’s so clearly bad for her?”

  Good question.

  Very good question.

  “Because maybe some part of her knows that in a way, he’s just what she needs,” I said. “He’s a catalyst. She’s daring herself, trying to see how far she can go. She wants it. She instigates change. And that change has to happen …violently.”

  She gave me another look.

  “Violently, you say?”

  “Oh yes. And sexily, too.”

  She gave me a naughty smile and nodded. “Good, OK. You do that Nyx. Bring that. I think we do need to change up this character a little… you and I need to talk I think, let’s discuss this at our next meeting.”

  She wandered off and made some notes in her script, but just as she left she turned around again and pointed her pen at me.

  “Before I forget. You’re still good to do the props for the hallway scene? I need a big print or something for the wall, yeah?”

  “Yup, got it,” I said. She frowned at me.

  “I promise. I’ve got it. Don’t worry about it.”

  She wandered off and went to speak to one of the forest nymphs.

  I stood and thought for a moment. I had no idea how I was going to put together the hallway props. My mind was in pieces and to be honest, I hadn’t even started with “something to go on the wall”. Rehearsal was over for the most part, but I almost didn’t want to go home. It would only be more frenzied calls to the student finance office. Only more emails flat-hunting. More beans and rice. I looked around to see if anyone needed my help; if I could distract myself. And of course there he was.

  “That was a good rehearsal,” he said.

  “It really was,” I replied.

  “So you’re at least speaking to me in person?”

  “Of course. You’re my co-star, why wouldn’t I speak to you?”

  The look he gave me almost hurt.

  “Are you still mad at me?” he said.

  I sighed and looked away.

  “Can we talk? Come for a walk with me or something,” he continued.

  The light in his eyes looked dim. It was enough to me melt. I wanted more than anything to be mad at him, no doubt about it. But my body certainly wasn’t playing along. Had he spoken to Tamara about getting me this role?

  “I’m really busy though,” I said, with every last thread of willpower I had.

  “With what? Let me help you with whatever it is.”

  I looked up into his eyes and saw his eagerness. “Really? You want to help me?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “OK. Well, I have to make a piece of artwork or something to go on the walls for the hallway scene.”

  “Cool. But we’re doing the hallway scene tomorrow…”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then we’d better get busy, right?”

  Chapter 18

  “I’m just warning you,” I said as I unlocked the door and led him inside, “the place is in a state, I’ve packed a lot of things up so don’t mind the mess…”

  I could handle it. Bringing Adam to my flat was a bit like a recovering alcoholic going to the pub. It was worse than tempting fate. It was flirting with fate.

  “Looks good to me,” he said and scanned the room.

  “Well, considering what your place looks like, that’s not the compliment you think it is,” I said and headed to the kitchen to get some water. When I came back he was just standing there in the doorway, looking dejected.

  “How long are you going to do this, Nyx? Can we just talk?”

  “We’re talking right now.”

  “I miss you. You’re ignoring me.”

  “So?”

  “That’s the worst thing you can do to me, Nyx, please…”

  “I’m sorry I can’t give you attention right now, I’m not in the position to have any kind of relationship I guess. I’m sorry. I need normal, healthy things
in my life now. Boundaries. A regular bedtime every night. A budget. That kind of thing.”

  “So?”

  “So, that’s not exactly you, is it?” I said bluntly.

  He looked hurt.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It’s just …I’m in real trouble here. I don’t know if they’re going to approve financing for me. I don’t know where I’m going to sleep in two weeks’ time, or what I’m going to eat or…”

  “Sleep with me. Eat with me,” he said quickly.

  “But you’re the reason I’m in this mess in the first place,” I said, and glugged down my water.

  “Mess? What mess? It looks to me like things are going really well for you. You don’t have your shitty aunt running your life anymore, you’re finally doing something you’re good at …where’s the problem?”

  “You see, that’s the problem. You just don’t get it. I’ve lost everything, Adam. Every last thing. My friends. My mum and dad. Now my aunt. You have no idea what that feels like.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “You have no idea what’s it like to lose basically all your family in one day, and--”

  “At least you had a family, Nyx.”

  “What?”

  He kicked a cardboard box on the floor and looked angrily at me.

  “I had nobody growing up. Your dad was fucking Norman Westling, of all people. Excuse me if I don’t break out the tiny violins for you,” he said.

  I was stunned.

  “What ...what happened to your parents?”

  With horror I realized that I had never asked him. I had never asked him anything, really. I had no idea about his siblings or his family. No idea about where he had grown up.

  Shit.

  “I lost my parents too, Nyx, first my dad, and then my mum. I was 14 when she died. The last year she was alive she spent entirely in her bed. I swear to God she never left that room. She died in that room. I’d go in there and try to cheer her up, try to dance or sing or tell her jokes or something, anything to get her to wake up and pay attention to the world again. She was a fucking zombie…”