by Cybill Cain
Even with the late night, I felt well rested and was looking forward to getting to know Annie better today. After a hot shower, I dressed and headed downstairs, remembering she had promised me breakfast. I glanced into the living room on my way by and skidded to a stop. She was curled up under a blanket on the sofa, still sound asleep. I leaned on the doorway, and took my time absorbing the view before me.
The soft light of the room made her look like a painting herself. I’d noted the décor last night, the plush soft furniture and seascape tones, and she looked like she belonged among them, like a mermaid washed ashore. Her long dark hair covered her pillow, and I wondered if it was as soft as it looked, and what it would feel like wrapped around my fist when I kissed her breathless. The longing to join her under the blanket came over me suddenly, and I stood up straight ready to go to her before I remembered we’d just met, and waking up cuddled in my arms might be a little too much to start.
Unsure that I could maintain my distance, I backed away slowly, and headed for the kitchen. Some coffee would help me clear my head, and give me the fortitude I needed to figure out the right way to get to know the intriguing woman that had just landed in my lap.
I opened several cabinets, searching fruitlessly for caffeine. When I opened the fourth, something fell out, clattering loudly across the floor. I froze, sure the noise would awaken her. Shaking my head, I reached down to pick it up, and got a surprise. It was a DVD of Quality Service, my fourth movie. I turned my head, and narrowed my eyes suspiciously.
Last night she had acted like she didn’t know who I was, and though I sometimes longed for anonymity, a little star recognition might have been nice from someone I actually wanted to impress. I’d felt a little let down when she’d treated me like an ordinary guy, but if she had my movie, then she knew who I was, so what was she playing at exactly?
I’d had some pretty rough experiences with people who had been brainwashed into believing I was one of the characters I’d portrayed. Some of them I’d been forced to get restraining orders against. Was she up to something, or was something else happening here?
Shrugging, I put the DVD back in the cabinet, and closed the door. Time would tell on what her motives were, but I would be cautious until I had a better feel for the situation. I was opening another cabinet when she spoke behind me.
“Good morning, Max.” I turned around, and found her dressed in shorts and t-shirt, her hair a victim of serious bed head. This is what she looks like when she first wakes up, my mind whispered. I immediately wanted to take her back to the sofa, and truly make her morning good. My dick was in complete agreement, already anticipating the sweet warm sensations of her around it. No bra, my brain gasped as all the blood left it to make my dick even harder. My eyes were riveted to her hard nipples when she stretched and yawned.
“Good morning, Annie. I was just looking for some coffee.” She dropped her arms and smiled at me.
“I’ll get it. Sit down, and take a load off.” I watched her unabashedly as she moved confidently around her kitchen. “I picked up some bagels yesterday, and some bacon and eggs. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” She kept moving.
“Me, too. Bacon and eggs?”
“If it’s bacon, you never have to ask.” She hesitated, but didn’t turn around. After a few seconds she started pulling the eggs from the fridge, keeping her back to me. Within a few minutes I was sure she had forgotten I was there entirely, because she started singing Gypsy again, this time quiet and under her breath. It took me right back to what I had seen last night, making me shift in my seat as the head of my cock pressed tight against my zipper. I hadn’t had sex in a while, but it was almost annoying that every breath she took made me hard.
Like she knew, when she leaned over me invading my space to pour my coffee, her soft breast pressed against my shoulder. I inhaled through my nose, and found she smelled like the ocean. As if living so close by had let it soak into her skin, and become a part of her. “Sugar?” she breathed out next to my ear.
“Yes?” I said, thinking she was talking to me. She set the spoon and bowl of sugar next to my elbow and danced away, but not before I caught the gleam in her dark brown eyes. I smiled, she’d done that on purpose, I was sure of it. It tickled me that she was so playful, but all’s fair, and I would get her back for that.
I watched her lay the bacon out on a cookie sheet, and stick it in the oven. “How do you like your eggs?”
“Scrambled is fine.” She cracked them open into a large bowl, and reached for a fork to mix them.
“Cheese and milk?”
“Sure.” I couldn’t remember the last time someone had made breakfast for me like this. I was used to eating craft services or in restaurants. I knew I was a customer here, too, but it didn’t feel that way. Something about sitting in her kitchen, seeing her completely at ease with her early morning appearance around me, made this feel more intimate than a business transaction.
“So, Annie, tell me about yourself.”
“There really isn’t much to tell. I’ve lived at Escape my whole life. It used to be just our home, but after World War II we opened our doors to tourists, and changed it over to a B&B. I inherited it when my mother passed away.”
“You didn’t leave to go to college?” She shook her head.
“No, I didn’t want to go to school. Everything that matters to me is here. In addition to running the B&B, I’m also an artist. I’ve sold a few pieces in Wilmington, and I also take pictures, professional head shots and landscapes.”
“I bet there are a lot of great places to shoot around here.” I saw her smile as she checked the bacon.
“Yes, I love this place. It’s the little things, you know? The everyday things that I love to shoot. Every sunset and sunrise is unique, and the people here who struggle to make ends meet while they wait for the tourist season to begin, they’re the real story.”
“How do you mean?” She shrugged.
“I don’t know, like Yancey McAllister, the Mayor, he works so hard not just to make sure we get our share of federal funding, but also to fundraise locally for the schools and the parks. His wife, Oliva, makes the best strawberry jam you have ever tasted, I guarantee it. She donates what she makes from selling it online, and at the farmers market every year to raise money for the kids to put on plays and take field trips.
“Then there are the local fishermen who go out every morning at dawn to catch seafood for the restaurants. They work so hard from sunup to sundown to provide for their families, wondering all the time if the ecological damage from offshore dumping will reach the point that their businesses will go under, but they never give up. We never give up.
“Last year we had a mess when a bunch of needles and medical garbage that was dumped off shore covered our beaches a couple of weeks before peak season started. The whole town got out there with rubber gloves, and worked together to clean it up. We couldn’t afford not to, if we lost the money from tourist season a lot of folks wouldn’t make it to see another.
“The tourists who come here to see the beach and spend their money have no idea what it’s like to live here, and scratch out a living from the basics that make their vacations such a great experience.” She set my plate down, complete with toast, and grabbed a jar of jam from the fridge.
“Is that…?” She smiled and winked at me.
“You betcha. You’re gonna love it.” I grabbed some toast, and started covering it in jam as she went on.
“I also take care of the lighthouse for the town.” She pointed out the kitchen window to the tall black and white structure I could see in the distance.
“What do you do exactly?” She slathered jam on her toast, and took a bite before answering me. I followed suit, moaning when I got a taste of strawberry heaven.
“Toldja,” she laughed, covering her mouth while she chewed. She swallowed, and then continued. “Not a lot really. I make sure everything is in working order in case of emergency, and clean
up behind our local teens from time to time. It’s not hard work. In the summer, I do some shifts taking tours up to the top, but they only start after Memorial Day.” That was almost a month away.
“Any chance I might get a personal tour?” She smiled around a bite of eggs.
“I think we can work something out. I have to go out there later today, anyway. You can tag along if you’re not busy.”
“I have zero plans. Count ‘em,” I said, holding up my hand in the shape on 0. “Zero plans. I’m on vacation, and I don’t want to be scheduled to do anything for the duration.”
“Meenan said you were staying a month?”
“That’s right.” She took the chance to run through the amenities again, while we finished up our meal, most of which I remembered from before. When she got to the DVD selections available I remembered what I’d found in the cabinet.
“What kinds of DVD’s?”
“Nothing too current. Some old movies though. Citizen Kane, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Chinatown, and some rom-coms.”
“No action movies?” Quality Service was an action movie. Her cheeks turned a rosy shade of pink, and her eyes refused to look up from her plate.
“No, but you might find something on Netflix.” I grunted, and let the subject drop. She’d been so open and forthcoming it didn’t seem like she was an unhinged stalker. The compassion she’d displayed when talking about her life here made it seem unlikely that she was up to something nefarious, but I didn’t want to be too quick to judge. We sat there sipping our coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes before she asked me about how I’d come to be here.
“Meenan said you were friends with his boss. I must admit, I find Meenan to be intimidating as hell, and I’m curious as to what his boss must be like.” I leaned back, crossing my arms, feeling full and satisfied from the meal.
“I’ve never met Thomas Meenan. James, his boss, went to college with me, what seems like a thousand years ago. We were close back then, and try to stay in touch, but I’m always traveling, and DIH takes up most of his time.”
“DIH?”
“Draven International Holdings, you didn’t know that?” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully.
“I guess you would say I work for a subsidiary of his main company. Hey, while I’m thinking of it, take a look in the fridge and see if there is anything else you want me to get. I’m going to shower, and can run to the store after that.”
“What do you have planned today?” Which really meant, are you painting, because the image of that was still at the forefront of my mind.
“I’ve got some dusting and vacuuming to do, maybe a store run for you, and a visit to the lighthouse later this afternoon. I might paint some this evening. I really want to finish the piece I started yesterday. When I do, I’ll put my headphones on so the music won’t bother you. As you probably heard last night, I like it loud.”
“It won’t bother me.” Her eyes locked with mine, and for a second I thought she knew I had seen her after all. It felt like she could see right through me. “In fact, I’d love to see your studio, if that’s all right?”
***
Annie
Sometimes when someone speaks you can feel the layers of their words. The first layer is often an illusion, designed to make you think one thing, when another is closer to the truth. His request was meant to seem like polite interest that could be moved aside with a casual wave of the hand, but the deeper truth was that he was very invested in seeing where I worked, and that peaked my interest.
It was a natural reaction to someone asking to see the inside of your heart, and knowing that they are completely aware of what they are asking. The layers made it easy to pretend otherwise regarding the intensity, but I had a sixth sense about these things, and what I heard in his request left me a bit unsettled.
When people came for headshots I always set up the backgrounds and light umbrellas in the living room. My studio was a sacred space to me. No one had ever been in it before, not even my mother when she was alive. She understood I needed that space to create, it was why she had given it to me. I leaned in, bracing my elbows on the table, looking directly into his eyes.
“No one has ever been in my studio before, besides me.”
“Then I’ll be your first.” More layers, stuffed with a smoldering sexual promise that burned into me. If I let him in would he treat my gift with the respect it was due, or would he be lumbering and dismissive of my private secret dreams?
I took so long to answer that most people would have backed off, sensing the magnitude of their request, if not the full meaning, but Max’s eyes never wavered, and he did not back off. He was leaving it up to me, and he wasn’t going to move until I answered him.
“Can I think about it?”
“Yes.” His simple answer confirmed the depth of his desire, and hinted that he would treat it with all due deference. “I hope you say yes.” Unable to take the intensity of his stare any longer, I got up and took our dishes to the sink, but I could still feel his gaze on my back. The possibilities made me hot and tingly all over.
***
As much as I’d needed to get away from Max, I wanted to get back to him, too. I hurried through my shower, and changed into some cutoff shorts and another t-shirt before tromping back downstairs to find him. I had nothing specific to say, yet. I wasn’t quite ready to say yes to his request, but I wanted more of his attention, even if it meant letting him into my world deeper than I had ever dreamed anyone would want to go.
The house was empty, but from the kitchen window I could see him walking barefoot along the edge of the waves. The wind made his shirt billow around his broad chest, and swept back his movie star hair like a lover’s caress.
It was so strange to see him out there, already a strong presence in my world. I’d walked that beach my entire life, but seeing him there now felt right, too, like he belonged here. I watched him until he disappeared behind the hill that led back to my house, jumping at the idea of him finding me like this. I ran to the living room, pulled out the vacuum, and the cleaning supplies, and started cleaning like mad. If I hadn’t been distracted I would have been nearly done by now. He didn’t return immediately, and I was almost done with the dusting when I heard him behind me.
“Is that your table and cards?” I was dusting my grandmother’s card reading table, carefully picking things up and putting them back the way she always kept them. When she’d passed, Mom had left it, and when I took over, I too had chosen to leave her corner as it had been for more than sixty years. I stopped dusting, and turned to look at him.
He was leaning in the living room doorway, his arms crossed across his broad chest. The sight of him there made my breath catch. He looked just as at home here as he did on my beach. I told myself to calm down and answer his question. It really wasn’t like me to be this whimsical, but he had cracked open the door to the treasure room of my soul, and I didn’t know how to close it again, or if I even wanted to. There was something about being truly seen that was erotic like nothing else ever had been.
“My grandmother’s, actually. She gave card readings to tourists when we first opened the B&B. My mom took it over after she passed.”
“And now you do it?”
“I can. I have. If someone asks, it’s always good to make some extra cash on the side.”
“Do me.” A dozen images conjured by his words blew through me, none of them what he meant. I was in his layers again, swimming in something I didn’t know the name of. He was already in the chair smiling up at me before I could turn around. “It’s only fair after all,” he added.
“How so?”
“When I was on the beach just now, I was thinking of you. I believe I have some inkling of what I’m asking, when I asked to see your studio. I want to offer you the same of myself.” The offer stunned me, and I instinctively deflected, flailing a little to be sliding into this with him again, even though I had wanted it just minutes before.
>
“You seem to think I have a gift that will let me see inside your soul. You know this is just for fun right?” I hated myself as soon as I said it, because it was a lie. Yes, the rule was to always tell the tourists only the good things, the things that would make them happy to spend their money, but the women in my family line hailed from the Romani, and we took fortune telling, and the gift to do it, seriously. I wasn’t as good as my mother and grandmother had been at seeing into a person’s soul, but I was still better than average. He crossed his arms and frowned at me.
“It’s not commonly known about me, but my great grandmother had the gift. It was something that my family spoke about in hushed tones, and I was a grown man before I put it all together, and figured out what they meant. She’d come to the US from Eastern Europe, and took this kind of thing pretty seriously. It sounds like you don’t?” Caught, I decided the truth was the best option. I was already concealing enough from him.
“I’m sorry, you’re right. I do take it seriously. I was raised to take it seriously. My great grandmother was a Romani.” His surprise showed on his face.
“Is that why I can feel you in my blood?” I think he meant to keep that to himself, because once it was out, his face flushed again, and he shifted in his chair, before making himself meet my eyes. “Now, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, it’s just that I feel very drawn to you, to know you, to understand you. There’s no actual reason for that, since I’ve just met you, but I keep coming back to it anyway, because I don’t understand it.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, but stopped there, waiting to see what I had to say to his confession. I didn’t answer him right away, and as before, he was confident in his words, not backing down in the face of my silence.
“I haven’t decided about the studio, yet,” I said finally, “If I agree, and you still want your cards read, we can revisit it then.”