Cabin In The Woods

by Kristine Robinson

  “You can’t fix this with flowers and stupid gifts, Nicola.”

  “Go ahead, look in the bags.”

  “I don’t care – I can’t be bought.”

  “Just look damn it!” Nicola insisted and Teri reluctantly picked up one of the bags.

  It was dancing shoes – boxes and boxes of dancing shoes.

  “For your students,” Nicola said sheepishly. “I know how much you care about those kids… I couldn’t help but notice none of them had proper shoes…”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Teri softened as she looked at the bags. It was a lovely gesture but it didn’t change how furious she was with Nicola.

  "I'm so sorry, Teri. Please, can we do this proper? I acted like a fool – I can't live without you," Nicola pleaded.

  “You’re being dramatic. I thought you didn’t do commitment?” Teri wasn’t going to fall for kind words again – she’d been hurt too many times.

  “This time is different. I’m willing to try it out. My world is meaningless without you…”

  “Just more empty promises. Always just empty promises. And the moment you have me in your bed again, you leave or kick me out – I don’t know which is worse. I can’t do this anymore, Nicola. I’m not a robot – I can’t just sleep with you and not feel anything.”

  “It won’t be like that anymore, I…”

  “Please leave,” Teri insisted.

  “I’m not going anywhere, not until I have you back.”

  “Fine, then I’ll leave,” Teri turned around and marched down the street, leaving Nicola (still surrounded by shoes) on the sidewalk.

 

  Teri angrily marched down the road to her apartment, Nicola not far behind, shouting her name.

  “Teri – please.”

  “Go away, Nicola. Stop following me! I told you, I’m not doing this again.”

  Nicola didn’t listen and continued to follow her, pleading all the way.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes. Just tell me what I can do,” she was close to tears now but Teri was having none of it, picking up her pace.

  “You’ve done enough. Just leave.”

  They reached the apartment block in no time and Nicola showed no signs of letting up – she was desperate. Nothing else mattered anymore.

  “Please can we just talk,” she begged as Teri unlocked her apartment.

  “We’ve tried that before. No, I know how this ends.”

  “Just for a second, let me explain.”

  “No, I’m done with you!” Teri shut the door in her face, locking it as she leaned back against it.

  “Please let me in, Teri. I have to talk to you,” Nicola insisted.

  “Go away!”

  “I’m not going anywhere. Please let me in. I’ll stay this time. I’ll sleep over!”

  “I don’t care – you’ve had your chance. I’m not letting you in. It’s too late.”

  “I’m staying here until you let me in! I’m never leaving you again.”

  "Well, then you can sleep in the hallway for all that I care!"

  “Teri, please!”

  Teri ignored the pleas outside her door and put on the radio, turning up the volume until it drowned out the sound of Nicola’s desperation.

  She’d leave soon enough, Teri thought as she poured herself a glass of wine and ran the bath. She slipped her tired body into the warm water, submerging her naked flesh in the steaming escape. She closed her eyes and drifted off to a happier world – but kept having to fight off thoughts of Nicola that crept back to her mind time and time again.

  Last time she had a bath was at Nicola’s place. They had candles lit and soft music playing in the background as they took turns teasing each other’s bodies with the streams of warm water shooting from the detachable faucet.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind. ‘It was over, for good this time,’ she told herself.

  But Nicola didn’t leave.

 

  Eventually, Teri turned off the music and went to bed, determined not to fall for Nicola's dramatics again. She had put her through enough already and she was done with the turmoil.

  But Teri is woken up by a loud knock on the door not too much later – it was 3:04 am according to the flashing red alarm clock on her bedside table.

  “Go away, Nicola,” she shouted, still half asleep.

  “Miss Alexander! It’s the police – please open up!” the authoritative voice sounded from the other side and Teri jumped out of bed, wrapping her dressing gown around her sleepy figure.

  “Yes?” she queried, opening the door only a sliver to the face of the older gentleman in the blue uniform.

  “I’m sorry to bother you Miss Alexander, but your neighbor has reported a domestic disturbance.”

  “Everything is fine,” she replied, shutting the door.

  “Miss Alexander?”

  She opened the door again.

  “I’m so sorry, but your neighbor has reported this person sleeping outside in the hall. She claims she’s a friend of yours and you won’t let her in? I’m sorry, I just need to verify the facts here – your neighbors are concerned about safety. You know with prostitution on the rise in the neighborhood and all that…”

  Teri opened the door further and saw the officer’s grip on the haggard-looking Nicola.

  “Teri, please let me in. Tell him I’m not crazy, that you know me,” she pleaded but Teri just stared at her coldly.

  “I’m sorry officer, I don’t know this woman. Thank you for keeping our neighborhood safe,” she slammed the door shut and went back to bed.

 

  “Okay Miss Clarke, you’re free to go. You’ve been bailed out,” the officer informed her the next morning as he unlocked the cold cell.

  “Finally, took her long enough. What do I pay her for if she can’t even come bail me out earlier – useless assistant,” Nicola mumbled to herself, trying to straighten out her wrinkled suit that she’s been wearing since she went to work the previous morning.

  It’s been a long night and she was grateful to get out of the unfriendly police station. Arrested for prostitution – imagine. The press was going to have a field day with this.

  She collected her belongings and made her way to the lobby. But it wasn’t her personal assistant waiting there for her – it was Teri.

  Nicola glared at her angrily. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe you got me arrested.”

  “I’m sorry, Nicola – I was furious at you… you drive me crazy, you know that right?” Teri shrugged somewhat apologetically.

  “I can say the same for you. I mean bloody hell, I just got arrested for you. But I suppose I have nobody else to blame for that but myself.”

  Teri walked up to her and hugged her close. “Did you mean it when you said you wanted to try this for real?”

  “Every word of it. I’ve never met anyone like you, Teri. You throw my entire world into chaos but without you, there is no world…”

  "Oh, Nicola! You know you'll have to get me a key made to your apartment now, right?"

  “Please – because clearly sleeping in hallways is frowned upon in modern society,” she smiled.

  “Come on, let’s go home,” Teri kissed her deeply, slipping one arm around her waist as they walked out together.

  “For real this time?”

  “For real.”

  Love Me Hard

  ~ Bonus Story ~

  A First Time Lesbian Romance

  I wanted to kiss her back, but we were already in the middle of a kiss, and that meant I couldn't kiss her further. But that didn't mean that my hands didn't suddenly have minds of their own, exploring Emma's body, slipping under her clothes and groping parts of her I would have never dreamed of touching before she kissed me. “I thought you'd never done anything like this before,” Emma said. “For someone so inexperienced you sure aren't afraid.

  I moved to New Orleans because I wanted more cultur
e in my life. I'd heard so much about the place and watched a few documentaries about regarding its history. When I moved, I figured I'd be able to make it work, but then things started to get harder and harder without a roommate. So I put up an advertisement explaining that I was looking for a roommate and a friend, and Martha answered. It wasn't long after that when she introduced me to her boyfriend Jake and we became an inseparable trio... But not all was right in our little paradise.

  * * *

  I'd moved to New Orleans because I liked the Gulf Coast and needed a big city to keep me entertained. New Orleans had everything I was looking for: culture, food, sand, and surf. The people who lived there were fun. Gentrification wasn't everywhere yet, although some places had changed, or so the locals would tell her. It wasn't long until my finances started to run thinner and thinner. There wasn't much I could do about it because the cost of living was so high. I worked as a waitress part time in a small mom and pop place, and even though the pay wasn't good I didn't want to look elsewhere. Competition for jobs in the city was fierce, and I didn't feel like going out and trying to turn over every rock looking for something different while at the same time working the job I already had.

  I thought about it for a while one day on a shift when no one was in the diner. There were days like this as often as not, it seemed like. And that meant that as often as not I wasn't making that great of money. That said I needed a roommate, more or less. There wasn't much else to it, and the quickest way to find someone was online. So I put up a quick advertisement on a community forum and by the time I was back at my apartment there it was, the email I'd been waiting for.

  It was, of course, buried under a pile of other emails that were from creepers and scammers and other weirdos of the internet. I had to skim through a couple of those, but it wasn't long until I came to Martha's email. She was a young woman just out of her master's program. Her email was intelligent and articulate. It was easy to tell that she was put together enough to be my roommate. Our hobbies were the same, as were the things we disliked. We meshed so well I wondered if lightning had actually struck and I'd found the perfect roommate. Of course, it wasn't that simple. We still had to get her moved into my apartment, which wouldn't necessarily be an easy undertaking.

  For starters, it was on the fourth floor of an old building with winding staircases. I had had a hell of a time getting movers to haul my couch and other bulky belongings up the spiral staircase. Martha said not to worry about it, though. She told me how she'd run into a mover who had been moving some rich peoples' couch up some stairs and he'd ended up hitting on her a little bit. She hadn't really been that interested at the time but now seemed like a good a time as ever to find out what kind of guy he was like.

  I thought it was endearing how interested Martha was in Jake. It was evident to me that she'd found him at least attractive because she kept talking about him, and was now finding ways to bring him around. She seemed like the kind of girl who really romanticized her potential partners, because when she had described the encounter to me, it seemed mundane, almost annoying that he would stop her on the street and insist that she speak with him. Martha was a strong willed woman, too, and I just couldn't see her not telling him to fuck off unless she really didn't want him to fuck off. And that was okay, that she hadn't wanted that. Anyway, I hadn't met Jake yet, so I didn't know what kind of person he was like, or if he would be the kind of person I would feel attracted to. Some people just put me off, and that was the end of it.

  But Martha also kept talking about how I would like him too, how it wouldn't just be her crushing on him. I found it a little odd that she was so eager to include me in the shenanigans, but maybe it made her feel more courageous to think she had numbers on her side. Whatever it was I didn't really understand it, but if this Jake guy ended up being cool, I just hoped that he had some friends as well. Martha said that she thought that he did, so I was on board with the mover before I'd even said yes to the move in!

  Martha and I first met at a coffee shop. Everything that I'd seen on social media, and that she had told me about was spot on. There wasn't any trickery afoot at all.

  “Well,” I said. “You certainly do seem to be the person you say you were. Which is excellent, because you sounded like the perfect roommate. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find the perfect roommate?”

  “Oh, totally,” Martha said. “I looked for a long time for mine, but never found them. I was about to leave New Orleans because of it. You know how it can be here in the big city. People are meaner, they care about each other less. I'm just not like that with people. So I'm glad that we met each other in person finally.”

  We both took long sips of our lattes and looked over the table at each other. Martha seemed to be aglow with the idea that we would live together. I really liked that about her, the way she always had a smile on her face while she looked at me. There was something about that which I found sexy in ways I couldn't even begin to articulate to myself.

  "Well aren't you cute, looking at me like that while we talk about a boy," Martha said. "You know, there could be a lot of fun in this being roommates thing. I didn't know there would be so much tension between us right off the bat. And I mean tension in a good way, of course. There are a lot of things that can really come between people, like work and sleep schedules, but I know that we'll click just fine."

  “I do, too,” I said. “So, when is the move in date?”

  We planned on a day, and before we knew it the day was upon us. We hadn't really talked about Jake lately, so he was still up in the air in my mind. I'd gotten busy at work and hadn't had time to figure out exactly what was going on between them. What little conversation I had time for, Martha treated it as a flirty get-together with a purpose, like a kind of work adventure with a dating aspect to it. I thought it was a little coy but figured maybe that was just how she got down.

  Summer was coming to an end. The sweltering southern swamps that were on the edge of town were pushing their smell inward. It was hard not to notice the smell, and at night, when I went for a walk along the dirt roads, sometimes I'd run into locals out looking for will-o-wisps in the swamp—something I didn't think I'd ever see anywhere else. But fall was coming, and soon the few leaves swirling around our street would be joined by many more. It would be hard to tell them all apart, and then there would be winter.

  But I was looking forward to fall, especially a long, drawn out one. I wanted to feel all of the chill air, and throw the crumpled leaves up above me to watch them swirl through the streets.

  Martha's move slipped my mind for a few weeks, but she reminded me the day before.

  “Jesus,” I said. “How could I have forgotten something like this? It's a big deal, and I don't want to treat it like it isn't a big deal, either.”

  “Listen,” Martha said. “It's fine. I totally get that we aren't on the same schedule all the time. And besides, you are one of those people who gets lost in nature. How could you not get lost in the changing seasons that we're seeing around us? It really is something else! There is so much color on the trees. Like a painter who really went crazy when he was buying his oils.”

  We both laughed at this, and I was relieved that Martha wasn't put off by my absent mindedness. Many people referred to me as a space case because I would forget certain things that were important, or what society considered significant. For me, there wasn't anything more important than nature—Martha had that right.

  “Well, anyway,” Martha said. “I'll be over in the morning with my things. Jake said that he's down to help load everything into your place and that he isn't even going to charge us! He did say something about wanting to be paid in beers and steak, or something like that. Unfortunately, neither of us eat meat, so there's that.”

  I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry.

  “Hey, it's been great talking, but I have to make it to yoga,” Martha said. “I'll let you know when I'm on my way over, all right?”

  “So
unds good!”

  I couldn't wait to have her as a roommate, I decided as I watched the sunset out my living room window. The extra room wouldn't be empty anymore, and there would be another person to share company with. We were both excited to live together and really get to know each other. That was something that was clear. And Martha was happy that I was down to be her partner in crime, something I understood now. Before I'd thought that it had something to do with cowardice, but now I realized that it was much more to do with just wanting other people to be culpable with her. It was something that every little kid understood, a feeling of being scared to be the only one. That was something that I hadn't felt in a long time, and finding it in someone else made me feel youthful inside.

  When Martha called the next morning she was already with Jake. Jake had offered to let Martha ride in the moving truck because she didn't have a car of her own. Many people in New Orleans didn't have vehicles, and a few of the smarter men had learned transportation was an easy way to make time with girls. By the time they got to my place they were chatting like old friends, and it made me smile to see them flirt openly. Moving was fun when there was a dynamic which was fun. Jake made sure to make both of us laugh, and even flirted with me a little bit.

  At first, I wasn't sure what to think about him flirting with both of us. It wasn't as if I hadn't expected it, but I was just taken aback at how open he was being. Martha didn't seem to have a problem with it at all. I didn't have a problem with it either.

  ~*~

  After we had moved Martha's belongings into my apartment, Jake cracked open a few beers and handed them to us. I liked Jake, he was the kind of guy that girls saw at bars and wished they were brave enough to take home. He was tall and handsome, and he was mostly quiet. When others talked, he listened more than he chimed in, something that I appreciated in a man so imposing already. And then there were Jake's eyes. They were the kind of blue that colored the sky on the edges of the horizon. There was something mysterious about them, something wonderful and caring. I could look into those eyes and never look away and had to be careful not to do just that when he was talking.