Stronger Read online

  "Why would you think that?"

  "Red is vicious. It's a fierce color--it's all about anger and fury and explosion. But pink, pink symbolizes change. It mixes the anger of red with the patience, balance and control of white. Anger plus balance equals change. Very powerful shit."

  He leaned back to admire his work. Pink lotus, green leaves. I didn't bother to ask him what hippie bullshit green triggered for him. George had gorgeous brown eyes and lips that I couldn't help but imagine on my nipples.

  "I'm a powerful bitch," I told him. "Are you ever going to kiss me?"

  He dropped his gun and his pants.

  The thing about George is that he made me laugh and he was not phenomenal, but decent at the talk--and by 'the talk', I mean that he was good at murmuring his appreciation about my body in a voice that made me want more.

  George was a surprise, after all his singular focus on inking me that first night--he turned out to be exceptionally good in bed. He knows the game and has mastered how to play it. This kind of man is my favorite, because he's good at what he does, doesn't spend the night, and leaves me with plenty of moments to replay in my head the next day.

  But, this kind of man is also a drug. He's so good, he should be classified as a narcotic, but I've only got three dates to spend with him and this is our last. He took me for dinner and we brought dessert and wine back to my place. We've been taking turns wearing whip cream underwear, but as I'm nestled between George's legs, it sinks in that this is our last date.

  I even consider breaking my ultimate three-date rule and squeaking George in for a fourth, but I know I won't. I hate the thought of the buzz wearing off and the moment down the line when George will insist I call him by his real name. When that happens, he'll want me to meet his friends or, worse, his family. Knowing that we can't just remain what we are now--people who mess up each other's hair between the sheets--is a little sad.

  I sink my teeth into his thigh. Nothing vicious or red about it, just a good love nip. George groans his appreciation. I'm going to miss him.

  I think of how much I'll miss George, as he shakes the whip can and flips me over, squirting rosettes on my nipples. The cold blast makes them rise and one of the rosettes tips over. George catches it and the sudden warmth of his mouth dissolves me. He trails his tongue down my belly. Damn. Yes, this has to be the last date.

  "I can't get enough of you," he murmurs between my legs. I fist my hand into his hair. George has got great hair too, thick and soft, the deep color of wet sand. His mouth is ruining me, and then--

  "Move in with me, Lydia," he breathes across my thigh. "I want to wake up with you every morning."

  His puff of words extinguishes the heat between my legs. I pull my hand out of his hair.

  Dammit. I knew this was going to happen. The sun is coming up and I should've made him leave hours ago. I get out of bed and slip into my robe.

  "Where are you going, babe?" George asks.

  "To get a drink," I say.

  "Now?"

  "I need it."

  He leans back on the pillows, smiling at me. He fills his mouth with a shot of whip cream.

  "Hurry back," he says through the whip goop. I return with vodka on the rocks--God knows I'm going to need it-- and George rattles the whip bottle in midair. "Vodka cream?"

  "Sorry," I tell him. "I didn't realize the time. I've got to get ready for work."

  "It's Saturday. What do you do?"

  "Design," I say. "I've got a client meeting. I forgot all about it."

  He doesn't move. All he does is smile, fill his mouth with another shot of whip and say, "I want to watch you get dressed, babe. I like being the only one who gets to see what's underneath your clothes."

  Oh no. I expected a lot better out of George. I expected, the moment I heard his incredible sex voice, that I'd be just one of his belt notches. That first night, I assumed he'd even totter off in the early morning, feeling a little guilty and hoping to God that I'd never call the wrong number he'd leave on the table. But he didn't leave a wrong number. He left in the middle of the night, but took my number with him. I certainly didn't expect a roommate-with-benefits proposal and sure as hell wasn't looking for any exclusive arrangements on who gets to view my delicates. I thought he was way more of a player than this.

  "I'm in kind of a hurry," I say, but he stretches across the bed, reaching for me.

  "Slow down, baby," he says, making a grab for my wrist when I don't reach back. He tries to do the playful thing and pull me back to him, but I hold my ground as if I have hooks in my heels, embedded in the carpet. "Slow down and be with me."

  I let him draw me in since he's not letting go. He takes what I know is our final kiss, and then I whisper, "I really need to get out of here."

  He lets go, but instead of getting out of bed, he settles back on the pillows. This is going to be a rough Band-Aid to yank off.

  So, I escape.

  I go to the kitchen, pour myself a tall travel mug of Jack with a splash of coffee, and skitter to the front door, still in my robe. I unlatch it as quietly as I can and let myself out on tiptoes, closing it quietly behind me. I rap softly on Aidan's door.

  When Aidan doesn't answer, I take the chance and rap a little louder. George's muffled shout comes from my apartment, "Is that your door, baby?"

  Aidan's footsteps approach his door and he opens it right up, no chain lock. He's wearing shorts, no shirt, no shoes, and he's glistening with sweat. His gaze rolls over my robe.

  "Hi," he says.

  "Hi," I whisper. "Do you have any coffee made? I'm out and I could really use some this morning."

  "Sure," he steps aside and I slip past him quickly. George has started searching for me in my apartment, calling, "Babe? Baby? Where you at, babe?"

  Aidan cocks his head to the side with a smirk as he closes his door. I go into his kitchen and move a box marked dishes out of the way, so I can get at his coffee maker. Aidan leans on the wall, arms over his chest as I add a splash to my full cup. I snap the lid back on and take a warming sip.

  "I thought you'd be unpacked by now," I say.

  "I'm slow when it comes to unpacking...babe," he smirks. Aidan's right--George has a classic case of over-babeing. I smile over the rim of my cup and take another sip.

  "Babe?" George calls again.

  "And some people are really slow at moving out," I whisper to Aidan with a wink.

  There is a commotion next door, muted through the walls, but it's still easy to make out George's fury, "What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK, BABE?"

  "These walls aren't as thick as they should be," I whisper again as I move away, into Aidan's living room. His furniture is dark brown leather, his coffee table is square, glass. A corner of his living room is still stacked with boxes. The place screams bachelor and it's so sad that I can never even have a sample bite of this man. It's taking him so long to move in and unpack his junk that things could go miserable between us and it would take him years to move out. That kind of thing makes for a huge headache that I don't need. But man, do I wish I did.

  "What were you doing, before I showed up?" I ask softly, taking a seat on his couch. He drops onto his chair.

  "Working out." Our voices are nothing but murmurs as George's ranting continues to escalate next door. Aidan motions to a thing like a crowbar that is wedged in the doorframe of his bedroom. Chin ups. Looking at his arms, it's obvious that he does them a lot. "How about you...babe? What were you doing?"

  "Very funny," I say as George stomps across the floor in my apartment. Something shatters and I wince. "I hope that wasn't my full-length mirror. It'll be almost impossible to get ready without it."

  Another crash. If the last one wasn't my mirror, this one is.

  "Do you want me to escort your friend out?" Aidan offers, but I shake my head. Another crash. Another. A million crashes, one after another.

  "I deserve to have a few things broken," I say. I take another long sip from my mug.

  "Do you?" Aida
n asks.

  Everything is silent for a minute before the door to my apartment squeaks open and slams shut. George's voice in the hallway is so clear that I startle on the couch as he shouts, "THANKS A LOT, BABE! THANKS A FUCKING LOT FOR SKIPPING OUT!"

  Aidan and I freeze as we hear the squeak of Mrs. Lowt's door. Her muffled voice drifts in, "Who are you? You one of Lydia's? Listen, if you have a problem, you come in here. Yes, come! You can come tell me all your problems."

  "Are you...what? You're ALL NUTS!" George hollers and he stomps off down the hall.

  Mrs. Lowt calls after him, "Stop shouting! You want the police to come?"

  I look back at Aidan.

  "Sooo," he says. "He didn't sound too happy, babe."

  "No, he didn't."

  "That couldn't be your boyfriend," he reasons. "You said you were married...but I get the feeling he's not your husband either."

  "He was just a friend."

  "Do all your friends stay the night?"

  I smile over the rim of my mug. "Some of them."

  "It sounds like you don't stay friends though."

  "Usually not. It gets too complicated."

  "Why was he so upset?"

  I shrug.

  "Did he misplace his wallet or something like that?" Aidan asks. I lower my mug. Now he's going too far. I glare from my seat on his couch.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nothing...I--"

  "What do you think I am, Aidan?" I sit back and take him in. "Because you keep suggesting that I'm a thief...or a whore."

  "I'd never suggest anything like that."

  It's not surprising that he'd try to back out of it. I've never met a man that would say it in polite conversation. I think it's because they figure it could ruin their chances if it's true. The only time whore really gets used is when they realize they have no chance at all. Then, they splattered all over the conversation like a volcano burping lava.

  However, what's unnerving is that Aidan isn't jumping to his feet to defend himself or to attack me for calling him out. I'm used to a lot more rage from men that disagree, but Aidan is keeping his tone soft, as if George is still trying to locate me.

  "If you'd never suggest it, then what are you saying?" I ask.

  "I was only curious about why you're hiding from your friend in my apartment. And why you are sitting on my couch while your abandoned friend is essentially being fed to Mrs. Lowt."

  I take a sip from my travel mug, weighing lies against the truth. I decide to tell him the real deal, since I can never have even one date with him anyway.

  "I have a three date rule," I confide with a shrug. "This was his last date and he wasn't going easy. Since you said if I ever needed anything you were right next door, well, this morning I needed to disappear. So, thank you."

  I rise off the couch, clutching the terry cloth lapels of my robe to my chest so we don't have another wardrobe malfunction. Aidan is my neighbor and my new friend that may be able to save me on occasion, and in his rugged, man apartment, I see the necessity in keeping him just that. He can be my personal bouncer and body guard, but it won't help to keep the lines drawn in this arrangement if my boobs keep falling out. My malfunctions have to be intentional, just like everyone else's.

  "I'll come back with you," he says as he gets to his feet. "Let's make sure that your friend is gone."

  "Mrs. Lowt scared him away. It's fine. I can take it from here," I say, but Aidan shadows me to the door.

  "Not while you're only wearing a robe," he says.

  He follows me back to my apartment. Mrs. Lowt doesn't open her door when Aidan does and I can tell that he's relieved. We sneak into my apartment and Aidan closes the door behind him, before he even takes a look at my apartment. The minute he does, he growls, "I hope you got this guy's number, because I need to have a word with him."

  My apartment is exactly what we heard: smashed, crashed and shattered. Aidan puts a hand over my waist, holding me back. There are tiny shards of my bud vases and wine glasses and my full-length mirror tracked all over the floor. Shelves are torn off the walls, the coffee table kicked over.

  "Well," I sigh, slipping on my boots from near the door. "That was a lot of demolition for only a few minutes, wasn't it? I never expected George would be such a bastard. He was so much fun."

  "George? That's his name?" Aidan asks as I crunch across the floor to the kitchen.

  "Oh, I don't know. That's just what I called him."

  I round the corner and suck in a breath. The floor is flooded with booze and more bits of glass. George had opened my liquor cupboard beside the fridge and broke all of my bottles on the floor and in the sink. All my glasses are smashed too.

  "Oh, man down," I groan, picking a shattered bottle out of the sink that is only held together by it's label. George only knew me for three dates, but he sure knew how to get me good.

  I laugh half-heartedly at how I was considering breaking my three-date rule for this guy as I peek around the corner of the kitchen and see Aidan, still standing near the door, taking in the ruin of my apartment. His expression is almost sorrowful.

  "You can go," I say. "I have a dustpan."

  "I'll stay. He might come back."

  "I doubt it. He's got to be tired. After all the smashing George did, I'm going to assume he's too worn out to come back and do any more."

  "You never know. I'll stick around and help."

  "Thanks, but I'll be fine. I'm confident that this is George's way of saying he's accepted my resignation from our relationship."

  Aidan's angry gaze roves over the room again.

  "This is pretty typical of how your relationships end?" he asks. "I'd be furious."

  "Typical? No," I tell him a little coolly. His words feel like another assumption, even though there's nothing offensive in his tone, his stance, or his gaze.

  Nothing, except that he looks like he's been emptied and it makes a horrible sadness well up in me where there is no reason for it. I'm not sad about George, or even what he did, at all. These things happen. But something in Aidan's expression makes me want to sit down and rest my head in my hands. I guess it's the feeling of being judged that makes me a little angry.

  "I can tell you that as far as relationships go, you'll never see the assholes coming," I say, "and you usually don't see them going either. There is no typical when it comes to people, Aidan. Relationships are just things that happen."

  "What does your husband think about that?" Aidan asks. Oh now. I flash a dagger of a glare at him, to let him know that he is moving into dangerous territory.

  "He agrees," I say. Aidan just looks away.

  "Well, if you need me, you know where I am."

  "Yup, I do," I say and I throw in a lukewarm, "Thanks."

  <<<<>>>>

  George does not return. I would have killed him if he did, since it takes a lot longer to clean everything up than I thought it would. Worse, he destroyed all of my happy juice that could have been a spoonful of sugar in this whole mess. The one cheerful thought I have is of going down to the Lakeview Liquor on the corner to restock. And it will be fun to get new wine glasses.

  After everything is cleaned up, I take a shower and get dressed, but it is hard to see how anything looks on me when I only have a few shards left of my mirror that George didn't manage to kick out of the corner of the frame. I finally haul it out to the dumpster. The only mirror left is the medicine cabinet mirror in the bathroom and it's in the worst possible place. I have to balance on the edge of the tub and I still can't see everything I need to.

  Scrutinizing my ensemble in pieces is fairly impossible. I'm not sure I can go out like this. George really knew how to sink my battleship.

  This all started with Desmond. He used to insist that I stand in front of the mirror so he could assesse each outfit I wore, before we could leave the house. Sometimes it would turn into a sex game, with him running his hand up under my skirt, checking to see if my panties matched the rest of my outfit. Or, if some
thing was out of place, he would bend me over his knee and spank me for the infraction. At first I thought it was scary, then just a little kinky, but eventually, I learned to love the sting of his hand, and then his belt. When Des left me for Claudia, I continued the weird ritual of having to make sure that I was always dressed correctly, except that I never felt like I'd done it right and there was no spanking to relieve the feeling.

  Now, hanging on to the shower bar and trying to fit my entire reflection into the tiny box of my medicine cabinet, I know it's ludicrous, but I can't stop. I pull up my leg to view how well my shoe matches.

  It'd make sense that I have worn outfits before and could just repeat the successful ones, but that's not how it works in my head. Each ensemble has to be carefully studied each time I wear it. I've found loose threads, scuffs on my shoes, a nail pop in a stocking, a smudge of ink on the elbow of a shirt.

  It's especially impossible to tell whether or not my attire is wrinkled because of the contortions I'm doing or if they will remain there when I'm finished. I put on the skirt and blouse I wore to Desmond's mansion, but I can't go out like this. The top button of my shirt doesn't look right buttoned or unbuttoned and my hands are starting to shake so much it's uncomfortable trying to mess with it. I add it to my pile of reasons for hating Desmond and one day, I'm sure the reasons will take root. At least, I hope.

  I know that what I really need to switch my mood is an Alabama Slammer. Or a straight up shot of Two Fingers Tequila. That would lighten me up again. I hit the computer and order the necessary groceries from the store a street over. I'd be willing to pay a few golden eggs to have them delivered to my door, but the order is denied. They won't deliver liquor.

  Shit. I need a drink.

  I finally conceal myself inside a trench coat and knee-high boots and slink out into the hall. I might as well be naked--I keep my eyes on the floor as I scurry down the hall and wait for the elevator.

  Riding down to the ground floor, the reflection from the steel doors is comforting. A woman from the floor above me rides down with me and watches, but I don't care. I twist and turn and try to make myself presentable in the distorted image. My sense of calm returns a bit. I'm starting to feel okay when the doors roll open and the woman steps out ahead of me. I'm about to step out when a man's face swoops in close to mine. I startle backward as I stare into the eyes of the man who's made me this neurotic.