Void

by Cassy Roop

  “Your father has been dead for years, my friend. He is not here any longer to put those lies in your head or to make you doubt your abilities. Yet, you still let him in like he were standing here before you today.”

  “That is what happens when you are told practically from birth that you are a ‘nobody’. That you are a fuck up. A metaphorical hole-in-the-condom accident that only existed because my mother was too moral of a person to abort me.”

  I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I tensed even though I knew it wasn’t my father’s hand. Although it was meant to be a comfort, it still made me jump every time someone made the gesture. You see, it wasn’t always just words from my father that cut deep, but also the searing pain from the back of his hand, or his fist when it collided with my ribcage. My mother, too afraid to stand up to him because she would also be on the receiving end of his wrath, was only able to stand by and watch as he took out his anger on me.

  “Your father was an imbecile who had to compensate for his on insecurities by taking it out on you, Andris. Since I have come into your life, I have watched you grow. I have watched you fight him and the lingering effects he has left on you as a person. And since Nicola has entered it, I have watched you become so much more. That is why I don’t want you to let the fear in. I don’t want you to allow your father’s memory, or thoughts, seep in and taint this evening for you. I want you to be with her. Be normal. Make love to her without the blindfolds, without the restraints. This is what I have primed you for. This is what our arrangement has been working towards since the very beginning. You can do this, Andris.”

  He walked away, as I stood there staring in the mirror. I felt a little lighter from the conversation with him. I allowed Link’s words to flow through me like an antibiotic attacking the venomous virus left behind by my father. When I looked in the mirror, I saw his eyes staring back at me through my own. I looked so much like him, yet never wanted to have anything to do with being like him.

  Straightening my shoulders, I took one last look at myself before I turned to walk down the hall and out of the apartment before I even allowed him the opportunity to invade my psyche. I had a woman to pick up for our date. A beautiful, sexy, intriguing woman, who after tonight, would belong to me.

  Dear Journal,

  Andris suggested that I write down anything that I feel so that I can start recognizing those feelings and then maybe be able to better understand them. It is strange that in just a few short weeks, I went from being this vacant hole, to someone who experiences a thousand new and different emotions all at once. Not only is it thrilling, exhilarating, and exciting, it also makes me feel apprehensive, scared shitless, and overwhelmed.

  I admit it seemed rather stupid at that moment when he gave me this to write in, but the more I thought about it, and even more now that I’ve put pen to paper, I have to admit that it was a good idea.

  There are so many things I want to say to Andris that I am unable to. He told me I didn’t have to let him read what I have written in here, but that he would discuss them with me if I wanted him to.

  I am more than excited for tonight. To have a chance at a real relationship, with real feelings is the part that excites me the most. Each new moment I spend with Andris awakens more and more emotions within me that I never imagined would ever be possible.

  It isn’t that I never wanted to have emotions. I tried. Desperately. I begged my mind to let go of whatever shield it was holding up that prevented me from being normal. I watch my friends in school experience things and feel different feelings that felt unreachable to me. I always wondered why I was born with the inability to feel. I knew my mother didn’t have a drug problem, so I couldn’t blame it on her. I always thought it was due to the lack of emotions they seemed to show to me. I blamed it on my lackluster childhood, the sense of abandonment that I had only read about in my psychology textbooks. I took classes in high school, trying to better understand the things that were happening, or rather weren’t, happening to me. I got to live life everyday bare and expressionless, completely empty. I was seen as weird, or unsociable. A real sociopath. People thought I was crazy or that something was wrong with me. Not only was I looked down upon by my peers, but by my own parents, even the doctors who tried to “fix” me.

  Andris is the only person who has looked at me like a real person. He doesn’t make me feel stupid, or suggest that I am holding back. It is almost as if he can see through me—to the real me. The little girl who has been screaming on the inside to break through the shell that I’ve lived in. To the woman inside of me who wanted a normal life, a normal way of feeling.

  He is the only person who has ever ignited a spark within my soul, the only person to ever make me feel the flames of desire. I get warm from one look, I grow like a fiery inferno from his touch. My body and mind buzz to the point that I succumb to sensations. My mind gets to wonder and think for itself instead of having to try and analyze every detail that unfolds before me.

  He has become a craving, a need so powerful that I no longer have control when he is near me. I welcome it. I want to submit to the feelings over and over as they overwhelm me. They drive me to the point that I could spontaneously combust, and fail to exist in my past anymore and only be enclosed in the present and the future. My body and mind feel as if they have awoken from a long eternal slumber. I feel resurrected from death and brought into a new light.

  Andris is my light. Link is the flame behind the light.

  Link.

  How can my feelings for someone I have never truly seen be so powerful? I’ve never had the pleasure of looking into his eyes, but I’ve had the pleasure of the glorious feel of his hands on my body. I’ve felt the enormity of his presence and how he has the power to obliterate any rational thought to the point I am left with nothing but ecstasy.

  But with the pleasure also comes something that I’ve rarely gotten to feel, but now experience it tenfold.

  Pain.

  Several different types. Not only do I feel torn between two men who make me come to life in many different ways, I am now also in the predicament that I have to protect both of them. If I were to lose either of them, I don’t know what I would do. How is it that I have come to the point in my life where two people are completely detrimental to my survival?

  My thoughts wanted to continue to flow on the pages of the leather bound journal, only a knock at my door broke me from my written confessions. With a trembling hand I placed the pen down on my desk and closed the journal and slid the strap into place to lock it. I felt the need to perform the ritual as if it would seal my thoughts inside the bindings. I could never share with neither Andris nor Link the information I had written on the pages. If they knew what I had agreed to do in order to protect both of them, they would never want anything to do with me again.

  Being a whore had never bothered me before. Being a slut used only to pleasure men and for my own monetary gain never crossed my mind as being wrong or dirty. Now that I had two wonderful men in my life that I felt extreme feelings for, it did bother me. It made me feel disgusting for all the times I nonchalantly let a man inside of me. It made me feel weak for letting a man, who could have been married and even had a family waiting for him at home, penetrate my own body. For years they invaded my body unharmed, but now that I had Andris and Link, all of those men in the past began to penetrate more than my body. They are now ghosts of my past actions and mistakes that threatened to invade my thoughts. I’d never let them in before. Never allowed anyone in, but now that the shield was down, the army of my sins began to triumphantly march inward to where I was sickened with agony over my actions.

  Another knock sounded at the door and I opened the drawer to place the journal inside and stood up, smoothing the imaginary wrinkles on the front of my red Valentino cocktail dress. My body trembled with excitement, but it also shook with anxiety. I had never been nervous for a session before, but this was no ordinary session. This was a date. My first real one in my life. I ch
uckled slightly, thinking about the fact that I was in my mid-twenties and just now experiencing the things that most normal girls did in their teens.

  I looked in the mirror, adjusting the spirals of curls that cascaded over my shoulders and checked my makeup in my reflection to ensure that it was perfect. Taking a deep breath, I let it out before I left the comfort of my room and made my way down the hall to my condo’s front door. With a trembling hand, I reached for the knob and opened it completely unprepared for what was waiting for me on the other side.

  I felt sucker punched in the gut at the sight of him as if all the air had left my body. My eyes roamed over him clad in a light grey suit that accentuated the muscular build of his body. His tie matched the same blue of his eyes, making them stand out even more. His normally messy, yet sophisticated hair was now controlled and styled so that it left more of his gorgeous face open for my viewing pleasure. His smile was devastating, to the point that if I didn’t breathe soon, I would very possibly pass out before him from lack of oxygen.

  “Hi,” I forced out when I was finally able to find my breath once again.

  “Hi,” he replied with confidence as he too used his eyes to make love to my body without so much as a single touch. We stood there, assessing each other’s appearance as if looking at the beauty of one another for the first time. I guess you could say that we were looking at one another in a new light. We were taking our relationship beyond the contract, beyond the professionalism of him being my doctor and pushing it into a one way freight train heading for something unknown.

  He took a step towards me, but I didn’t move as I felt the warmth from him even from several inches away. His scent invaded my nose, threatening to turn my brain into mush to the point I couldn’t form a coherent thought. In the next instant, my back was against my door, his hot lips on mine and my leg hiked up to encircle his waist. His hands sought past the fabric of my dress as he pushed higher and higher up my thigh, nearly leaving my ass exposed to the occupants of my condo’s building.

  I didn’t care. All I could concentrate on was the expert way he explored my mouth. The way he kissed me as our tongues danced together, and the way I felt like he was absorbing into me. I felt my nipples pucker beneath the fabric of my dress and my toes curl as he squeezed the flesh of my ass. I felt weightless, as if floating from the earth, as his other hand came up to cup the back of my head as he tried to deepen the kiss. When he finally released my lips from his, I felt the painful absence.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about doing that the second you walked from my office earlier today.”

  I smiled from his confession, having had the same thoughts throughout the afternoon.

  “Well, who am I to stop you, Doctor?” I smiled, meeting his equally sparkling eyes that matched the same desire of my own.

  “If I don’t stop, then we will never leave your condo. Besides, I think your neighbor behind us was enjoying the show.”

  I looked over his shoulder to find old man Winters staring at us with wide eyes. I leaned in and placed my forehead on Andris’s shoulder, unable to control the giggles I was trying so hard to suppress. The old man stared at us only seconds longer, before I heard the sound of his condo door shutting and Andris and I both laughed. His warm hand cupped my chin and lifted my face to where our eyes met. Even through our fit of laughter at being caught making out like a couple of hormonal teenagers, I could still see the fiery desire in his eyes. They danced with luminosity as he stared directly into mine, silently letting me know what was to come later in the evening without a single word passing his lips.

  “Are you ready to go?” He asked, leaning in and brushing his lips across the shell of my ear. The act made my body shiver with a glorious delight. Even if I didn’t feel the wetness already pooling between my thighs, other parts of my body would have been a dead giveaway about the readiness that I possessed.

  “Sure. Let me lock up and grab my purse.”

  I turned off all the lights and grabbed my coat and purse before locking the door to my condo. I turned back around and found the heat of Andris’s stare upon me, lighting me up from the inside out. I felt addicted to the force of his gaze, like it was the greatest high I had ever been on. His beauty hit me like a freight train every time I had the pleasure to just look at him.

  He crooked his arm and I slipped mine into his as we set off down the hallway towards the elevator. I was instantly brought back to the first night that he led me to the place where I fulfilled the duties of my contract with him and Link, only this time it was different. Whereas before I wore a blindfold, I could now clearly see where we were going. Yet, I still didn’t know where we were going, just like before, both physically speaking and relationship wise.

  We were assaulted by the cold air as we stepped outside my condo’s building. Waiting at the curb was a very masculine looking supped up pick-up that had wheels that looked like they were my height. It was sleek, yet sexy. Mysterious, yet powerful looking. I arched my eyebrows in Andris’s direction as I looked from him then back to the monstrosity of metal in front of us.

  “It’s a four wheel drive. The forecast has called for heavy snow tonight so I wanted to be sure I could get you home safely.”

  “Oh,” was all I could reply. I couldn’t help the small sense of defeat I felt at the prospect of him wanting to bring me back home. The silly, inner-girl within me had hoped that he would invite me to stay over. Isn’t that what people in a relationship did? Maybe I was thinking too far ahead, not knowing yet where the diameters of our arrangement stood.

  “Although, if I have anything to do with it, you won’t be leaving for quite a while.”

  My heart seriously skipped a fucking beat. My body flushed with excitement.

  “What if we get snowed in and I have to stay a while? You may grow tired of me.”

  “Oh, I’ll be tired all right, but it won’t be of you, it will be because of you.”

  He winked at me as he opened the passenger side door of the truck and offered his hand to me to help me climb into the cab. Warm, heated leather molded to my backside, adding to the warmth of my body that Andris had created with his words. He shut the door and walked around the other side to climb in. I had a small sudden flash of fear as Link came to mind. How would he feel about my new relationship with Andris? Would he be angry? Would he even care? Did I want him to?

  Thoughts and questions swirled in my head until Andris finally climbed into the cab of the truck and broke me from my thoughts.

  “Wow. That was an intense look.”

  “Hmm?” I asked, looking over to him.

  “You looked very serious when I climbed in just now. Are you sure you are okay with this, Nicola?”

  “Already trying to analyze me, Doctor?” I said with amusement in my voice and a smile upon my lips. When he didn’t return my amusement, I placed my hand on his thigh, momentarily lost in the feel of him beneath my hand before I found my voice.

  “Of course I’m okay with this. More than okay. I was just thinking—how—how does Link feel about this?”

  Andris started the truck and the rumble of the motor could be felt through the leather seats beneath my body, enhancing with synchronization the already intense buzz of my body with the closeness of Andris. I moved across the bench seat of the truck until I was shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh with him. The familiar electric spark of heat hit me the instant we touched and for a brief moment I allowed my eyes to close and relished in the feeling. It felt amazing to finally feel that sort of feeling with another person, especially with a man who, with every second that passed, became that more etched into my soul.

  “I saw Link just before I came over. He is okay with our arrangement. However, you are still under the terms of the contract for three more weeks.”

  “Are you okay with that? I mean, are you going to be able to allow me to be with another man outside of our—”

  “Relationship. You can say it, Nicola. In fact. I want you too.
I want to move forward with the idea of you and me. That is, if you want it too.”

  “I do. I must be honest with you, though. I—I also have feelings for him as well.”

  He sat back in the seat, resting his head against the seat as he closed his eyes.

  “I sort of thought you might. I appreciate your honesty. I must warn you about Link, though. For him it’s all about sex, Nicola. He doesn’t have the same feelings that I do.”

  Woah.

  “What feelings would that be?”

  “That I can see myself falling in love with you.”

  How many times could a person’s heart skip a beat in one night? Warmth radiated through me and I leaned into him instinctively and placed my lips on his. I probed until he opened to me and I slipped my tongue inside, devouring the taste of his mouth and completely loosing myself in the feel of his mouth on mine. I may have initiated the kiss, but he quickly took control, cupping my head and tilting it ever so slightly so that our mouths were aligned perfectly. We were both breathless when we finally detached from each other and I worked hard to try and catch the breath that was trapped in my lungs.

  Wow.

  Putting the truck in drive, Andris pulled out into traffic, one hand on the wheel, the other hand threaded through mine. In therapy, many doctors had given me romance novels to read to try and trigger an emotion or thought within me. There were several ones where a young girl would ride next to her crush or boyfriend in a pickup truck just like the one Andris and I were in now. Back then, I never even thought twice about what the girl was feeling riding so close to her man, but now having the experience myself? I had to say it was fucking awesome. I felt seventeen—experiencing love for the first time.

  I couldn’t wait for what the rest of the night held in store for us. With the looming cloud of worry that hung over my head at what I had agreed to with Cardinelli, I didn’t want it to seep in and taint the evening that Andris had planned for us tonight. For a few hours I could put aside the dark and step back into the light that Andris created within me.