Flesh and Bone

by Ronica Black

  The girl and her eyebrow pegged me as if she knew every detail of my situation and she strongly disapproved. I nearly melted on the spot, my body was so hot and alive with infatuation and fear. Infatuation for a woman I barely knew and fear of the consequences of getting caught.

  “Address?”

  Emily’s home address flashed through my head. I knew it by heart. Knew everything there was to know about her by heart.

  No. Can’t do it. Too risky.

  “Two thirteen Willow Avenue. Suite one hundred.”

  Cartwright and Associates, to be exact. The place where I made my living.

  “Three dozen long-stemmed roses. Red. The darkest red we have.” She repeated my specific order and then waited for me to nod. “I’ll send them out right away.”

  I drove back to the office, anxious and nearly dizzy with the anticipation. The two previous times I’d ordered her roses I’d been too chicken shit to watch her receive them. Today, however, I couldn’t stand the thought of not knowing.

  Panic crept up my spine at the thought of my actions making Emily uncomfortable. Even though I had made it clear in my very first letter to her that it wasn’t my intention to be intrusive in any way, it still worried me. It was my biggest fear, next to being exposed.

  I wanted her to feel special, beautiful, respected, appreciated.

  From the comfort of anonymity, I could voice all these things. What I felt, thought, wanted. I was safe here. In complete control. There was no rejection, no expectations, no hurt. It was just me, romancing a woman with all my heart and soul, without risking my heart and soul.

  I’d done nothing but think of her for a year straight before I acted on my desires. My thoughts drifted back to when it had all begun. Val, one of the other partners, had come to a screeching halt outside my door one afternoon. She was breathless, her eyes wide.

  “It’s Emily,” was all she said.

  We ran down the hallway, and I heard the commotion before I saw it. Glass breaking, wood splintering. Her office door was ajar, and Emily stood in silence, gripping the remnants of a broken picture frame. Her chest rose and fell quickly and she spoke without looking, knowing we were there.

  “I’m fine.” But her voice was trembling. After a moment of silence, she brought her pained eyes up to meet ours. They were piercing gray and so full of pain it reminded me of a thunderhead ready to burst with a summer storm. When she spoke again, I almost readied myself for the crack of thunder. But she surprised me with her simple statement. “I’m filing for divorce.”

  It was all she needed to say. I understood, and what I didn’t know, Val soon clued me in on. Jack had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, their finances were in ruins, and Emily wanted out. Jack, though, didn’t seem to want to let go.

  I couldn’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to give Emily up either. And thus began my mad attempt to woo her from afar. I felt she needed me, needed my words, my thoughts, my feelings.

  I only hoped I was right.

  I held onto that thought as I entered Cartwright and Associates. The office was quiet and my secretary Prairie was probably outside enjoying a smoke. I sank down into the leather chair behind my desk. Thinking about Emily always put me in a trance, and I drifted comfortably in that warm place where only she and I existed.

  My mind heavy with the thought of her, I began writing down random thoughts with a pencil. Bits of the next letter or poem.

  My hand worked furiously as the images came. Emily had become everything to me. I would sacrifice anything, everything to see her happy, see her smile, see her feel the love that I had for her.

  If she only knew.

  But ultimately, she couldn’t know.

  A figure stepped into the doorway and I glanced up, expecting to see Prairie and her hair-sprayed helmet of bottle-platinum hair. I nearly choked when I caught sight of the woman staring me down with her cool gray eyes. Emily gave a slight smile, and my system struggled to adjust to seeing her for the first time that day. She stood all confidence and carved beauty, a shoulder leaning casually on the luckiest fucking doorjamb on the planet. One would never know by her presence that she was hurting deep inside. She was a strong woman. Brave and breathtaking.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Oh God, yes. Every single time you step into my world.

  “No, of course not.”

  She took a step in and my eyes couldn’t help but travel up and down her tailored slacks and fitted blouse. I immediately envisioned what I always thought she would wear underneath. What I had written down on the piece of paper under my hand.

  Emily,

  Red.

  Lace.

  Rich like velvet.

  Dark and smooth and satin.

  Teasingly covering her creamy skin in seductive webs of deep ruby.

  My lips sucking through the satin lingerie.

  Her neck, arching and showing itself, paling from the moonlight as her head tilts back in pleasure.

  Her hair, cascading over her shoulders like ocean waves inked by night.

  Red.

  Clinging to her skin.

  Dark and moist from my mouth.

  Red.

  “I was wondering if you were working on the Meyer file?”

  My brain screamed back from my world of ripe, racy red.

  “No.” I blinked a few times too fast, afraid that she would be able to see the secret thoughts in my eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  You don’t think so?

  Emily seemed to consider my response curiously and uncrossed her arms as she approached. My breathing began to coincide with her steps, leaving my body in bursts as she inched closer. She rested a graceful hand on one of the two smaller chairs facing my desk. Her perfume collided with the air I was having trouble holding in. My pupils threatened to dilate at her scent. She was my drug. And I was dangerously addicted.

  “You were working on it, weren’t you?” She glanced over my desk, and I hastily covered the paper I had been writing on with my hands. Her gaze lingered over the very obvious culprits and I lifted one hurriedly to scratch my face in hopes of appearing more at ease. She took her time meeting my eyes, and when she did the slight grin grew, nailing me to my chair.

  I struggled to breathe, completely pinned by her presence and the silent words her eyes were whispering.

  I know you’re up to something. I know it’s you.

  “Brynn?”

  My body jerked. “I’m sorry?”

  “The Meyer file?”

  “Right.” I skimmed my desk frantically, having lost all rational thought. “I’m not sure where it is…” I rifled through papers and in my panic brushed the one with my thoughts of her off the surface. It drifted slowly through the air, like a feather finally free of the bird. It fell to rest on the floor at my feet. I didn’t budge. I didn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I hoped that she would ignore it. I knew she couldn’t read it from where she stood.

  “Aren’t you going to get that?” Her eyes were trained on the sacred piece of parchment.

  To my astonishment, I let out a laugh. “That? Oh no, it’s nothing. Just a piece of paper.”

  You’re a fucking moron and she knows you’re a fucking moron. Look at her. She’s looking at you like you’re a fucking moron.

  “The file…” I stuttered, my mind suddenly functioning. I’d do anything to get her to stop looking at me. “I finished with it yesterday. Billy should have it.” I sat frozen with fear in my chair. She was the predator and I was the prey. If I didn’t move, maybe she wouldn’t see me. I certainly was turning the same color as my chair. Burgundy.

  Her hypnotic eyes were passionate and penetrating, the kind that offered little detail but unbelievably great depth.

  “Okay then,” she finally spoke, her voice soft yet husky. “I guess I need to find Billy.” She smiled, her expression completely platonic, glanced down at the paper one last time, and then walked from my office.

  I sat in the vacuum of he
r absence trying desperately to calm my flying heart rate. I closed my eyes and counted to five.

  One. Breathe, Brynn, breathe.

  Two. Christ, I can still smell her.

  Three. You’re a moron. A fucking moron.

  Four. Her eyes, her body, her piercing eyes.

  Five. I’m doomed. Completely doomed.

  I walked to the door and pushed it closed. Pressed my face against its cool surface as my lungs filled with grateful air. It was getting worse, this addiction of mine.

  I squeezed my eyes closed in shame and frustration. She was still there, in my mind’s eye. Grinning at me. In red. Red like the roses I give to her.

  A knock in my ear caused me to jump.

  “You have the Meyer file.”

  “What?”

  Prairie, sixty-five years old and verbally abusive, strode inside. I couldn’t survive a single day without her, although I knew she wished I could, and would.

  “Where did I put it?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows?” She shouldered past me and shuffled papers around on my desk in search of the missing file.

  A man carrying an enormous number of roses poked his head in my door.

  “Emily Cartwright?”

  “Down the hall, the last office on your right.” My head buzzed and my heart raced. I followed him quickly, while managing to stay a safe distance behind. Several coworkers eyed the explosion of red and smiled, making comments as he passed by.

  “More roses for Emily.”

  “God, who is this guy?”

  “I don’t know, but she should tell Jack to go fuck himself once and for all.”

  Laughter. I smiled, unable to hide my eagerness. The man stopped at Emily’s door and I made myself comfortable among the other waiting women.

  “Emily Cartwright?”

  “Yes?”

  “Delivery.”

  She walked to the door and the group of female coworkers moved in unison like a gossip crazed little herd, coming to a stop just outside her door. Emily’s face flushed and every emotion was plainly visible. She was taken aback, overwhelmed, and obviously very moved. Her eyes searched the three dozen roses and a hand came up to cover her mouth as she took several steps back.

  “Is there a card?” She seemed to know the answer, but a hint of anxiety was still apparent in her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I knew what it said and repeated it to myself as she opened the envelope to read it.

  Emily,

  A modest representation.

  Of your every breath.

  She slipped the card back inside the sleeve and her hand trembled as she laid it next to the flowers. She stood staring at them, wordless, as the man tipped his ball cap at us voyeurs and exited the office.

  “Well, did he sign his name this time?” Val wanted to know.

  “No.” Emily turned, her eyes distant, searching for answers she knew she wouldn’t find here.

  “How do you know it’s not Jack playing some sick game?” Val’s secretary, Diane asked.

  Emily shot her a look. “Jack can barely spell his own name. He could never express himself with words, with words like…” She stopped, drew a deep breath. “And he would never spend money on flowers.”

  “No,” Val affirmed, “this guy’s different.” She walked to Emily’s desk and lightly touched the flowers, a gleam of appreciation in her eyes. “He’s bright, sensitive, and passionate. And madly in love with you.”

  “Mmm.” Emily stood staring through the large office window. I watched her intently, knowing she was in a world that I had created. For the briefest of moments, we were there together.

  “Expensive wine, poems, letters, roses,” Val went on. “I would say it’s all terribly clichéd if it wasn’t so damn good.”

  “Yes, I know.” Her attention lingered beyond the window, beyond the streets, beyond the cars. “It, all of it…it’s like this person knows me. Really knows me.” She paused, as if trying to make sense of it all. “And cares.”

  Silence filled the room, thick as fog, while the women all nodded and sighed.

  “Does Jack know?” Diane asked.

  “Yes.” It was a whisper but heard by all. “His private investigator filled him in.”

  “He’s giving you hell over it?”

  Emily looked to Val and the gray of her eyes looked like mist mixed with rain. She was lost and alone. My heart shuddered at the sight.

  “He’s convinced I’ve been cheating too.”

  I nearly fell over with devastation. My doings had caused her trouble. Oh God. She was suffering even more at the hands of her husband because of me. I felt sick.

  “Okay, okay, break it up.” Prairie startled us all, brushing past me, shooing the other women away. “There’s work to be done, ladies.” She paused next to Emily and spoke in a gentler tone. “Here’s the Meyer file.” Emily turned and took the file slowly, offering Prairie a tired smile. My secretary glanced at the desk covered in red and snickered. “I thought it smelled like a funeral home in here. This secret admirer of yours needs to show some guts and ’fess up or get lost. God knows your life is troubled enough.”

  Upon hearing that last statement, I turned and made my way back to my office. Everything I had tried to do, tried to share, had blown up in Emily’s face. This game I had been playing, been gambling on, was now over. I had taken the risk and failed. I could no longer pretend that I lived in that world where Emily and I could coexist in love and in happiness.

  *

  The steady pelting rain did little to soothe my pain. It slammed against my floor to ceiling windows and sloshed down in thick ripples to fall and rage in fast moving puddles on the street. Lightning flashed, brightly and briefly illuminating my loft, as if rudely reminding me of my empty bed with a merciless flash photo. I leaned upon the cool glass, helpless before the pain, hopeless that it would ever end. I couldn’t sleep and hadn’t been able to for days.

  I missed her. Even though we worked in offices a mere fifty feet apart, I’d made it a point to avoid her. And it was killing me, my invisible cord to her torn.

  I stared into the wine as it did its best to comfort me. Edith Piaf sang to me in sultry French tones, seemingly aware of how bad I was hurting. I took a long, warm sip and closed my eyes. The splattering of rain, the scratchy croon of old vinyl being read by a needle, the dark, rich taste of Silver Oak—they should have been enough to soothe me to sleep. But even though my body did grow weary and heavy, my heart still bled.

  I walked to the night table next to my bed where I refilled my glass in the candlelight. Thunder growled in the distance and trailed off into a faint knocking noise. I cocked my head, curious as the noise became more of a presence. I glanced at my clock. It was midnight. A weeknight. The sound grew louder.

  Who the hell could it be?

  There, through the tunnel of the peephole, stood a figure framed by the dull glow of the hallway light. A lone, shadowy figure. The Silver Oak and I decided we didn’t care who it was. Together we were fearless. I unlocked the door and turned the knob.

  The door opened slowly. An inch at a time. And then, it stopped.

  I blinked. I disbelieved. I blinked again and stared.

  Emily.

  Dripping wet.

  Long coat and short midnight hair, slicked back against her head.

  Full, deep red lips.

  Piercing, hurricane gray eyes.

  The wine glass, full and crimson, fell from my hand.

  It broke on the wood floor. Loud but far away.

  I blinked again.

  Emily. Emily. It was Emily. Was it really her?

  “Hello.”

  Yes, it was her. The sultry, throaty voice. I couldn’t speak. She seemed to understand this and stepped inside.

  “Do you mind if I come in?”

  She was dripping and cold with rain. I could feel the chill and smell its earthiness as she moved past me. No umbrella. Just her and the coat and the rain.
<
br />   “Yes, of course,” I somehow said. I eased the door closed and turned to face her, too stunned to think about anything other than the way she looked.

  She held my eyes as she took a step toward me, her words searching.

  “Do you like my hair?”

  The question seemed so out of place, that for the briefest of moments I feared I was imaging the entire thing. She lifted her hands to her hair, where her fingers ran through it.

  “I got it cut. I needed a change.” She trailed her fingertips slowly over her damp neck to the coat, darkened with moisture. “I’ve been wanting to do it for a long time. I’ve been wanting to do a lot of things for a long time.” She paused. “Do you like it?”

  My eyes were fixed on her lips where the question birthed with smooth, seductive tones. I swallowed hard as lightning flashed in her eyes. She’d brought the storm inside with her.

  “Yes.” The whisper floated from me, raw and exposing.

  She seemed satisfied with my answer and undid a button on her coat as water continued to drip onto the floor with a steady patter. She should have been shivering, trembling with cold, but her body resonated with nothing of the sort. She was slick with wet, yet electric with humming energy. I felt it. As if she were a live wire, dangerous and whipping against the shiny black pavement, ready to strike if I stepped too close. She took another step closer and I caught sight of her shoes. High heels. Red. They seemed ill suited for a cold, midnight visit in the penetrating rain.

  “What are you doing here?” The pieces of the puzzle were falling around me, slow drifting snowflakes settling to rest on the floor, but I couldn’t yet put them together.

  She studied me with deliberation. Her cool eyes seemed to breathe heat upon my skin.

  “You stopped.”

  I stared, confused.

  “You stopped,” she repeated. She worked the remaining buttons open, but held the ends of the garment closed. “It’s been two weeks. No wine, no roses. No letters.”