by Heidi Lowe
“Whatever, Hilarie!” I said, leaving her right where she was and storming into the bedroom. I hoped she had a splitting headache when she finally woke up.
There was so much to think about. So much had happened in such a short space of time, and I needed to process it all.
How was one expected to feel after an outburst like that, and a revelation like that? Afraid? Betrayed? Deceived? Embarrassed? Flattered? Where did one go from there?
I went to bed, but I didn't get much sleep. The image of Jean's face as she was exposed haunted my thoughts every time my eyes closed. If she'd remained in the room we all would have seen those remarkable red tears, I was certain of it. The way that she charged from the room, the way that she refused to look at me told me everything Hilarie said was true. It also brought up more questions that I'd put off asking myself, or Jean: how long had she really been in my life? And what the hell did she want with me?
“You look like hell!” was the first thing Petr said the following morning upon entering the studio and finding me curled up on my beanbag. I'd been there since seven, having been unable to sleep, and wanting to be far away from Hilarie (who was snoring on her eyesore couch when I left).
I shot him a tired glare. “Not today with the bitchy comments, all right.”
He handed me a coffee, which I snatched gratefully.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“I think you'll need more than that for my thoughts.” I sipped my coffee and it instantly made me feel better. “I had the worst night last night. I think.”
He laughed. “You think? Well, was it or wasn't it?”
“That's just it, I'm not sure. I don't know how to feel.”
“What happened?”
“I found out who my benevolent benefactor is...”
“Jean Posey?” He didn't seem nearly as surprised as I thought he would.
“Why aren't you as shocked as I was?”
“Well, come on, Lis, it's pretty obvious.”
“Not to me!”
“You've never been very perceptive.”
I face-palmed. “It was horrible. Hilarie got drunk and jealous, then started blathering, loudly I might add, about me and Jean getting it on. Then she let slip that Jean had bought all of my paintings. Turns out she found them in a secret room in the house. She couldn't even look at me, Pete. Just announced that the party was over, then darted from the room. It was horrible,” I said again.
“For you or for her?”
“For both of us.” I pondered his question for a minute. Something suddenly occurred to me. “It was horrible for me because it was so awful for her. And only two minutes earlier we'd sat in the garden holding hands.”
This, of all things, shocked him.
“I didn't know you were the holding hands type.” His eyes were wide and amused.
“Neither did I! I never was before, but with her, when we were there, it just felt right.” I knew why it felt right, and so did he; neither of us needed to say it.
“And it doesn't bother you that she's been watching you this whole time? For who knows how long?”
“It bothers me that she took so long to show herself.” Maybe she knew I wasn't ready to meet her back then, when the wounds of losing my father were fresher. At eighteen, having just come out of a group home, miserable and hating the world, I would have staked her at first sight. Would have saved up for the sharpest piece of platinum I could buy to do the job. No, she'd come at the right time. Had she not been watching me, following me, whatever, I would have been raped and murdered six weeks ago.
I owed her my life. Even before saving me from those boys, her secret purchases of my paintings when I was a broke teenager had saved my life then, too.
I should have run after her instead of going home with Hilarie.
“Jesus, could you try closing the door a little more gently?” Hilarie said when I got in that evening. She was sitting on the couch exactly where I'd left her, and hadn't changed her clothes. She held her head in her hands and grimaced. I felt no sympathy.
“Sleep well?” I asked, glowering at her, my hands on my hips.
“Not really,” she said in a croaky voice. “That's what comes of downing vampire-champagne.”
I rolled my eyes. “That's what comes of being an ass!”
She grimaced again at my raised voice. “Keep your voice down.”
“I'm glad your head's pounding right now, Hilarie. You deserve that and plenty more after your outburst last night.”
She cut me a scathing look. “Did I embarrass you and your half-dead crush?”
“No, you only embarrassed yourself.”
“I wasn't the one who blew up at her guests and ran out of her own party.” She laughed wickedly, bitterly. “Aren't you going to thank me for exposing your stalker? I did you a favor.”
“You were being a vindictive bitch. You could have waited till we were alone to tell me. You didn't have to shout it to the whole world.”
She shot up from her seat. “Yes I did. I saw you two out in the garden. Yeah, Lissa, I saw you. Looked really cozy. My girlfriend holding hands with another woman,” she screamed, her headache all but forgotten. The thumping from our miserable neighbor went ignored.
I had nothing in the way of a defense. The truth was I felt relieved that everything was finally out in the open.
Her eyes searched mine for something; I didn't know what.
“You're so obsessed with that fanged freak that it doesn't faze you at all that she's been stalking you for the last six years, maybe longer.” She shook her head in disbelief, looking at me like I was a freak of nature. “I'm your girlfriend of two-and-a-half years, and you have never once looked at me the way you look at her.”
“My girlfriend who called my artwork shit? Is that what a girlfriend does?”
“Well you're not exactly Pablo Picasso, are you? No normal person would pay real money for it. That's why your only customer is an old vampire who's been stalking you for a quarter of your life.”
I swallowed back my tears, taking the insult against my work to heart. It was all coming out now. The whole, ugly truth.
“You're fucking her, aren't you? And don't lie to me this time,” she demanded, slightly frenzied. “She saves your life and you repay her with your body, like a common whore. Answer me, goddamn it!”
“I'm not fucking her!” I screamed, praying that her head would explode. “It's much worse than that.”
She waited for me to elaborate, to hear what was much worse than her girlfriend sleeping with another woman.
“I'm in love with her,” I said simply. The pleasure that filled me when those words escaped my lips caused me to let out a relieved sigh, followed by a smile. “I'm in love with her,” I said again, this time laughing to myself.
Hilarie glowered at me. I could see from her look that she, too, realized that it was indeed much worse.
“You're pathetic, you know that, Lissa. Just like every other immature kid who never grew up. You think they're sexy and cool. You think that they see you as anything more than a meal?”
“They might not, but she does. I know it.”
“Then she's welcome to you.” The look of disgust she gave me then, I thought she was about to spit in my face. “Pack up your shit and get the hell out of my apartment. You're done sponging off me. I'm done taking care of you. But now you've got someone richer and older to look after you. Just watch your neck.”
I sensed it was coming, but it still took me by surprise, being thrown out of the home I'd lived in for two years. Change, especially abrupt change, didn't suit me well. Stability was what I craved. But this relationship – if it could be called that – had run its course.
Only once I'd stuffed my belongings into two black bags did I realize how little I owned, and how much of a stranger I'd actually been in Hilarie's apartment.
“Lissa.” She stopped me just as I was halfway through the door, on my way to the waiting taxi. Her anger had gone, r
eplaced by something else: concern. “Be careful. I mean that. Remember what happened to your father.”
I hated that she brought that up, interconnecting the two things – my father's death with my love for Jean. It was akin to me warning women to stay away from all men because a select few were rapists and murderers. I hated it even more because her concern was genuine. I didn't want Jean to be someone people warned me about.
“Thanks,” I said dully, then walked out of her life.
FIFTEEN
The wind rattled the studio windows, howling viciously outside as though pissed off with me for some reason. The shadows of the swaying trees were ominous. Curled up on my man-sized beanbag, a paint-stained sheet that we spread on the floor wrapped around my body, as I shivered beneath it. I never remembered the studio being this cold, though admittedly, I'd never spent a night there.
Where was Petr when I needed him? He'd offered me his couch more times than I could count, and I'd turned him down every time. Now, when I was ready to take him up on it, the jerk had decided to take an overnight trip with his new squeeze.
Still, at least I had the studio.
It was just so cold, so lonely. And why did every shadow outside and in look terrifying all of a sudden?
I pulled the sheet over my head and tried to fall asleep, tried to ignore the creaking of the old building, that I'd never noticed until tonight. Every sound became amplified. Couldn't it just be morning already?
The blood rushed to my head, my body froze when I heard rattling at the studio door. That definitely wasn't the wind; somebody was there.
Crap! I trembled under the sheet as the door slid open. I prayed it was Petr, though in my heart I knew it wasn't. He was probably fifty miles away by now, me far from his thoughts.
I peeked up over the sheet. A figure reached for the light switch. Seconds later, bright light flooded the space, and I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw that it wasn't an intruder, at least not an unwelcome one.
I sat up as Jean rushed over to me.
“What are you doing here?” She knelt down in front of me, worry corrupting her beautiful face.
“I got kicked out.” All of a sudden I felt ashamed of her finding me here, like this, with a filthy sheet wrapped around me, sleeping on a beanbag. At my lowest. There was nothing attractive about that.
Now anger flickered past, making a frown line appear on her forehead. “She asked you to leave?”
“Can you blame her?” I tossed the sheet to the floor and sat up. “She found out I've been unfaithful to her.”
“But...” She frowned, completely lost. “But we haven't–”
“Not physically, emotionally,” I elaborated. “So here I am. Homeless, girlfriend-less, sleeping in my studio, nowhere else to go.”
She placed a tentative hand on my leg. “You always have somewhere to go.”
Something inside me blew up then. Rhymes and riddles, so far that was all she'd given me. Even now when I lay on a beanbag, my relationship over, in large part because of her, she continued to confuse the hell out of me.
“Where? To you? The woman who's been in my life for the past six years, who seems to know everything about me, down to where I'm going to be even before I know myself? The woman who stayed behind the shadows, treating me like charity, pity-buying my work and making me think I actually had talent? The woman who lets everyone else screw her, but when it comes to me, me, who she has this weird obsession with, she rejects me every time?” I'd raised my voice and didn't realize until I heard the echo in the sparsely furnished room. “Why would I have come to you when you don't want me?”
Her visible distress at my outburst showed itself in an expression of real pain, as though I'd abused her physically. Her hand moved to touch me, faltered several times before drawing back.
“You have never been charity to me, Lissa,” she said, her insistence steely and powerful. “I love every single one of the paintings I bought from you. I think you're an amazing artist. And don't you ever think that I never wanted you.”
It was such a weird thing to claim. Hello! Had she forgotten that she'd spent the last six weeks rejecting me?
“You want me, but in your own weird way. It's like the thought of touching me, of being close to me, repulses you.”
She shook her head over and over. “You could never repulse me. I just... I just wanted better for you.”
There was that line again. “Stop saying that! It's not your job to want better for me. You're not my mom or dad; you don't need to worry about what's good for me.”
The tears she'd been trying her hardest to keep at bay began to roll down her face in a stream of red. Just as she had done before, she quickly wiped them away, hiding her face from me.
“My world isn't a place for you.”
“Then you should have stayed away from me. You should have let me get raped and murdered by those boys, or let me drown. Or starve to death.” I stopped, glared at her, then said something I didn't realize I even knew. “Or before any of that, there was stuff that happened in my childhood that should have resulted in my death – like almost being hit by a truck when I ran away from the home at fifteen...”
Behind her eyes I saw recollection when I mentioned this incident, as the truth – or at least part of it – dawned on me. This woman had been in my life for a long time, saving it, making it easier. I wasn't an adult when she'd first known me...
“You've watched me grow up.” It all made sense. That was why she was conflicted. “You knew me as a child, and you watched me grow into a woman.”
She sniffed, turned away so I couldn't see even more tears fall.
“I'm not a child anymore, Jean. I'm all grown up.” Couldn't she see that? I was a few months away from my twenty-fourth birthday – I hadn't been a child in a long time. But maybe I had to start acting like the adult I claimed to be. Hilarie was right, I needed to grow up and stop relying on my girlfriends to take care of me. I couldn't make the same mistake with Jean.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked in a tiny voice.
I took her chin in my hand and twisted her to face me. “You still don't get it. I want you to make love to me, to make me climax the way you would any other lover. I'm not the kid you once knew.”
She couldn't have stopped me if she'd tried. I smashed my lips to hers, literally stealing the breath from her. Whatever happened afterward was the business of the gods; but for that moment, I knew that she was mine, and there was no one powerful enough to intervene.
There was a reckless, breathless fumble to get our clothes off, as we reluctantly separated our lips from each other. Her pale flesh was cold and blemish-free as I held her close. My green eyes met her dark brown ones, mine full of determination, hers filled with trepidation. I pushed a strand of black hair from her face, before peppering it with light kisses, and gradually laying her down on the crumbled sheet.
She looked up at me, stroking a hand across my abdomen. “You're perfect,” she whispered.
“No, you are.” And she was. There wasn't a scar or unwanted piece of fat anywhere on her body. Everything, from the shape of her thighs to her breasts – just the right size, full and rounded, lacking most of the gravity of old age – seemed airbrushed. If I hadn't been so ravenous, and my need to have her so intense, her perfection would have been too daunting.
I unfastened her bra, freeing her breasts from one snare only to fall captive to another captor – my hands. Cupping her firm breasts appreciatively, I smoothed the thumb and index fingers of both hands over them, making the nipples hard, before taking each mound into my mouth in turn. My tongue kept her nipples rocky, and forced several low moans from her lips.
Temporarily done with her breasts, but vowing to return to them later, I left a wet trail of my kisses as I made my way down her stomach, taking my sweet time, and treating every kiss, every touch, as though it was the last. And when I came to her panties – white and silk – peeled them off impatiently. Six weeks of agony
, dreaming about this moment, didn't allow for patience now that I was so close to the honeypot.
I took her soft thighs in my hands, spread her wide, dropping little wet kisses on her inner thighs. Her breathing was heavy, frantic as I edged ever closer to her sex, teasing my way along, licking and kissing her flesh.
When my tongue finally reached its destination, I wasted no time unleashing it on her sex, lapping her up hungrily, taking it all, every last mouthful of her. It truly was a honeypot; delicious, moreish, a taste so sweet it could have been bottled and sold! She writhed beneath me, her moans echoing through the hollow studio. What an amazing sound, hearing her posh murmurs increase in volume, frequency and force, and knowing that I was causing this.
It was almost impossible to separate myself from her; her taste, scent and texture was like an addiction. Could I have remained between her legs, my tongue inside her forever? I sure wanted to try. But after several long minutes, my jaw slightly sore, she relieved me of my duty, taking my head in her hands and guiding me back up to face her again. Her eyes were half-lidded, drowsy with passion, as her lips sought out mine, which were glistening with her juices. Her kisses were fierce and eager, as though some force had taken over within her.
Before I knew it she had flipped me onto the sheet, with so much ease it looked as though I weighed nothing. No care was exercised in removing my bra and panties; both pieces of material were torn from my body; destroyed and unsalvageable. I was so glad they weren't my favorites.
When she opened my legs and inserted herself between them, I noticed that her body had warmed up as she pressed herself down. Breasts met breasts, stomach met stomach, sex met sex. She looked at me lovingly, and when we kissed again it was the sweetest kiss anyone had ever given me. A sweet kiss before action. She was still kissing me as she began to grind against me, taking me completely by surprise.
We held eye contact as she glided, the friction more intense than anything I'd ever experienced. It was as though the slightest connection with her sex gave me multiple little orgasms that left me in a euphoric daze. I lost all track of time and place, and we moved in perfect harmony together. She'd taken over, taken control of my body with the promise of ecstasy.