Midnight Soul

by Kristen Ashley

  “Later, babe. Love you.”

  “And I you, my darling.”

  He rang off and I took the phone from my ear and turned my attention again to the room in which I stood.

  Yes.

  Perfection.

  The room was. The house was.

  I was not.

  Noc had started his cases and this meant he woke us earlier. It also meant he came home later. And he even took phone calls and worked on his laptop after getting home.

  He made it clear he did not mind this. He was enjoying his work, he made that clear too. It was not exhausting, it was invigorating.

  I liked that for him. I drank my wine and watched the television or read a book I’d found at his house that was quite interesting and let him do what he enjoyed. And when it was time for me, I let him enjoy me.

  Therefore, obviously, with his new job and the satisfaction he got from it, now was not the time to bring up whatever was festering inside him, shadowing his soul.

  It was an excellent excuse.

  But it was still an excuse.

  I knew it.

  I just didn’t know how to get past it.

  * * * * *

  That Sunday, Noc stood in a bedroom upstairs in the home I was considering purchasing.

  The room in which I’d made my decision just days before and given him a call.

  It was right now where a little girl slept. Pink walls. An elephant motif. Not frilly but still girly. Absolutely adorable.

  It was the last room I allowed him to enter.

  The courtyard was lovely, elegant, private and serene, mature plants, with a handsome, built-in grilling apparatus I knew Noc would love (and he did).

  My magic room would be a sunroom, bright and cheery, seeming outside when it was in.

  The master suite, as it was known here, was luxurious with a separate shower and bath, both utterly divine.

  And the kitchen was large and stylish, but welcoming, making Noc’s assertion that it was the heart of the house very true.

  I liked all those things.

  But I’d decided this house was the one based on this room.

  He was staring at a stuffed elephant on the bed.

  “Darling?” I called.

  His eyes came directly to me.

  “I love it,” he stated. “We’re offering.”

  We were offering.

  He liked his house. I did too.

  But this tall, stately, elegant, spacious place was going to be our home.

  I felt my throat close.

  Amara would sleep there.

  Right there.

  I knew it just looking at him.

  I felt my face get soft and I smiled.

  Noc’s face didn’t get soft. The look on his was fierce.

  Even so.

  He smiled back.

  * * * * *

  “Frannie.”

  “Yes, darling.”

  “Sugarlips, I’m home.”

  “Yes, darling.”

  Silence.

  Then a shaking, “Babe.”

  “Yes, darling?”

  I did not see the hand that came to the apparatus I held in my own.

  What I saw on the television screen was the action pausing.

  My eyebrows shot together, I twisted my neck to the side, bent it back and glared at Noc, who was smiling down at me hugely.

  “I was making record time!” I snapped.

  “Babe,” he replied.

  “Do you know how many efforts it took to get to that time?” I demanded to know.

  “Babe,” he repeated.

  “You paused me!” I continued to snap.

  “Babe,” he said again, this sounding clogged, likely due to his visible hilarity.

  “I’ll never get that run back!” I groused and did it loudly.

  “Love you. Think it’s cute as all fuck you’re Franka Drakkar and Franka Drakkar is a woman who’d be so into a fuckin’ video game she wouldn’t even look at her man when he came home from work. But just sayin’, I just got home from work and I want my woman not only to look at me but greet me with a smile and give me a kiss, my preference, with tongues, even if it messes with her record time while it looks like she’s racing a fake race car in a make-believe video version of Monaco.”

  I felt instantly contrite, set the apparatus aside and pushed myself up from his couch.

  I then fitted myself in his arms, wrapping my own around him, lifted up on my bare toes and gave him a kiss.

  With tongues.

  When I rocked back, both of us held on.

  “Welcome home, my darling,” I said softly. “How was your day?”

  “Best part of it happened just now,” he replied in my same tone. “Though, that isn’t strictly true since what you gave me this morning edges it out.”

  I didn’t give him anything.

  In bed and with everything else, it was always Noc doing the giving.

  I melted into him.

  “See you introduced yourself to the PlayStation,” he noted.

  “I didn’t. Josette did before she left in a taxi to meet some friend of Glover’s. They’re at an establishment that has wine and paint. I don’t understand what that means but she reports she’s going to be drinking and painting on a canvas, even though she’s never painted a thing in her life.”

  “That’s strange,” he noted.

  “I agree,” I replied. “But she seemed excited about it.”

  His arms gave me a squeeze. “Maybe you should have gone with her.”

  Was he mad?

  “And missed time with you?”

  That didn’t get me an arm squeeze.

  That earned me another kiss, this also with tongues, and it lasted longer.

  When he lifted his head, he stated, “Dinnertime. Past dinnertime, actually. So you got a choice. I can throw some burgers on the grill or we can order pizza.”

  I liked burgers.

  But pizza beat out everything.

  Except, perhaps, lobster, but Noc didn’t offer that.

  And regardless, as I glanced to his entertainment station, I saw it was well after seven in the evening.

  He didn’t seem fatigued, but he’d left for work before seven that morning, thus I didn’t want him cooking.

  What I did want was whatever he wanted.

  “You chose, darling,” I said.

  “Feelin’ like a burger.”

  “How can I help?” I asked.

  He grinned at me stating clearly that any help I may be able to give wouldn’t be much help at all, but he then let me go, took my hand and guided us to the kitchen.

  “When it’s time, you can get out the chips and condiments. I’ll do the rest.”

  These were things I could do.

  I could also get him a beer, which I did. And I could open my own bottle of wine, I was relatively certain (I had watched him and a number of servants open a vast quantity of them), which I started to try to do but was halted.

  “Babe, no,” Noc muttered gently, ceasing his endeavors of opening up a package of meat to take the wine bottle and opener from me.

  “I can pour myself wine, Noc,” I told him.

  “You snap open a beer for me, that’s sweet, babe. But I get you your wine. Deal?”

  I supposed.

  Thus I also nodded.

  He got me my wine leaving me nothing to do but sit at the counter and watch him form hamburgers with his hands.

  I found this fascinating but mostly because Noc had beautiful hands and I’d watch them do anything, including manipulating meat.

  As had become the norm, he didn’t tell me much about his day because he wasn’t at liberty to share too much about his cases.

  We nevertheless found many things to chat about, as we usually did. How the purchase was going with my house. How Valentine seemed to be coming back to herself, still melancholy, but she’d begun discussing the things I would be doing with her and taking an interest in showing Josette and I ou
r new world. How I’d be going to what was referred to as a “gynecologist” the next day to see about “birth control.” And how Circe and Dax had not spent one evening apart since our dinner that was now a week and a half ago.

  He went out to fire up the grill and I remained seated, ignoring the fact that it had now been a week and a half since that evening Circe and Dax had come for dinner, and in that week and a half I had found excuse after excuse to set aside the fact that I had not found the right time or the right way to approach Noc about my concerns.

  He made this easy due to the fact he seemed most content with absolutely everything. My being a part of his life, in his home and bed. Spending time with Jo. Being involved in his new cases.

  You had to look to know he carried pain.

  But I’d looked.

  So I knew.

  I just wasn’t doing a thing about it.

  What I was doing was becoming quite adept at ignoring it or making excuses that it wasn’t the right time to do anything about it.

  On that thought, his phone that he left on the island rang just as he was walking back in from outside.

  I looked to it, saw on the screen the word Dad, then I looked to Noc, stiffening.

  “Your father,” I told him.

  Noc, who was always so very Noc, appeared delighted his father was calling, didn’t hide this and went right to the phone.

  I was not delighted.

  I was pleased he clearly enjoyed hearing from his father.

  But it was a father I would one day meet, of this I was certain. And when I did, I would need to impress him and even make him care for me, and this I was not certain I could achieve.

  “Hey, Dad,” Noc answered, moving to the refrigerator.

  I slid off my stool and began to gather the detritus of meat wrappings to throw them away.

  “Yeah, it’s good. Like it. Caseload is way lighter than on the force, means more focus. Respect the men I work for. Team’s tight too,” he stated, coming out of the fridge with a tomato.

  I pressed my lips together at the sight of the tomato and went to the cupboard for chips.

  “She’s good,” he said softly. “Lookin’ forward to you meetin’ her.”

  I felt my shoulders tighten as I selected my favorite variety of chips (one I noted was Noc’s too), barbeque.

  “What?” he asked, his voice changing.

  That was to say, changing significantly.

  I turned to him, chips in hand.

  He had his phone to his ear but his eyes were riveted to the tomato he’d placed on the island and he was now unmoving.

  “No, I didn’t forget,” he stated, and his tenor was deteriorating.

  I stood still and kept my attention on him.

  “Yeah, I will,” he declared, and I read his next as interrupting his father when he carried on swiftly and curtly, “Told you I will. So I will.” There was only but a brief pause before, “We’ll see about it next year.” Another brief pause and then, his voice lower, somewhat conciliatory, but still tight, he said, “I know it means something to you, so like I said, we’ll see about it next year.” There was a small measure of silence before he went on, “Yeah, it’s about Frannie bein’ here and me startin’ the job and, like I said, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it this year but it’s the way it is.”

  Slowly, I made my way to the island and stopped, standing opposite him, finding it troubling that Noc, always attuned to me, always, didn’t lift his head to watch me do this or even when he sensed me arrive.

  “I know it’s the first time I missed it, Dad, but I got a lot goin’ on,” he continued. “Next year, we’ll see about it. But you know I got things in my life now where it isn’t just all about me. I’m not there for one, so it isn’t as easy for me to be there seein’ as I’m all the way across the country. And if I got time off, I gotta share it the way we wanna share it, Franka and me, not just me makin’ the decisions.”

  I was reeling from learning the information through his conversation that it was clear Noc had already told his father about me, but I had little time to recover.

  What he’d just said quite obviously did not go over very well with his father, and I knew this when Noc’s back shot straight, forcing his eyes to aim away from the island.

  But they stared unseeing beyond me.

  “I know what it means to you. Of course I fuckin’ know,” he growled infuriatedly, and shockingly disrespectfully.

  I stood still, silent, stunned that Noc could sound like that at all much less aiming it at his father.

  “Yeah, it’s a tough time for us all, Dad, and I get that. I get it for you, probably now more than ever, havin’ Frannie. I get that for Dash and for Orly. What I keep tryin’ to get you to get is that the way you deal with it might not be the way we all wanna do that.” There was another moment of silence before he declared, “Dash is like you. But Orly is like me. And not to dig the knife in deeper, but to make my point, he’s also like Judy.” A very brief pause before, “You get my point, you totally get it. Don’t make me say it.”

  And then there was a very long pause as I watched, fascinated and horrified, as emotion twisted Noc’s beautiful features. Ugly emotion. Pain so deep witnessing it wounded me. My heart squeezed, my stomach lurched, and it took everything for me not to round the island and envelope him in my arms in the effort to absorb his pain, take it deep inside me so it was something he’d never again feel.

  But he wouldn’t want that. Not in that moment. Everything about him screamed it.

  So it cost me, but I stayed put.

  “Okay, I’ll say it. She’d hate this shit and you know it. Every fuckin’ year, Dad, we do it for you and because Dash gets somethin’ out of it. But it’s mostly for you. I want you to have what you need. But you know Judy would fuckin’ hate it. Thought it every fuckin’ year, kept it to myself. Talked to Orly about it. He kept it to himself. You pushed it. Now you’re hearing it. Judy’d think that shit was fucked up. And my guess, deep down you know it.”

  I realized I was holding my breath, drew in a deep one, and held that.

  “Think that’s a good idea. We’ll leave it at that and talk more later. But like I said, I promised I’d do it here. And I’ll do it here.” A very short pause before, “Right. Love you,” he pushed out tersely. “’Bye.”

  With that, he hit the screen of his phone with his thumb and tossed it with a rather volatile clatter on the island.

  Then he scowled at it.

  “Darling?” I whispered.

  He turned his scowl to me.

  I swallowed at the range and depth of emotions in it, anger, frustration and hurt.

  “Is everything all right?” I queried carefully.

  “You been standin’ right there, gorgeous, and you don’t know the answer to that?” he asked, his tone edged sharply with sarcasm.

  What did I do now?

  I’d never had this Noc.

  I didn’t even know there could be this Noc.

  I decided to start with something benign.

  “You’ve told your father about me?” I asked.

  “Love my dad. He’s not a colossal dick like yours, so I fall in love with a woman, she’s all but livin’ with me and I see my future with her in it, he’s the first one I tell.”

  This delighted me in all ways except the tone with which he shared it.

  “You hadn’t shared that with me,” I told him quietly.

  “Well, sorry, babe. Now you know,” he replied shortly, grasped the plate with the burgers and stormed out of the kitchen to the deck.

  I drew in breath and followed.

  Before I even got close to him, he warned, “Not in the mood to talk about it, Frannie.”

  I stopped and stared at his back, noting his movements of putting the burgers on the flame were stilted, but noting this only vaguely.

  My mind raced for something to say.

  It seemed to take eons but I finally caught on it.

  “I’m here for you
when you are, my love.”

  “Right,” he bit off.

  “Like you always are for me.”

  “Yeah,” he stated dismissively.

  He wanted no more words said.

  Yet I sensed I should not leave it at that.

  I hesitated a moment before I admitted, “You’re clearly feeling something upsetting and I want to help, but I don’t know how.”

  He turned, dropping the lid on his grill, and growled, “You can help by opening up the chips. I’m fuckin’ hungry.”

  He then prowled right by me and into the house.

  I kept my eyes to the grill, deciding the next day I was going to start practicing slicing tomatoes at Valentine’s.

  I could open a packet of chips.

  But it was becoming clear that after experiencing the exquisite glow of realizing you’d found the man you’d love for eternity and he’d found you right back, life intruded.

  I needed to be brave and face that life head on. I needed to be able to cope with whatever came at me. But more, at Noc.

  I needed to learn to do what he did.

  Support. Nurture. Care. Understanding.

  And I had no skills in those areas.

  I couldn’t even slice his tomato.

  But I could learn to slice a bloody tomato.

  And I had to learn it all.

  * * * * *

  Noc pulled me down on his cock, I gasped at the silken violence of it and watched as he came.

  We were both seated, me in Noc’s lap, my legs wrapped around his hips, his legs stretched beyond me.

  He’d already given mine to me. So in his moment, I simply held him in my arms, and when his head fell forward, his forehead resting on my shoulder, I buried my face in his neck.

  “I love you,” I whispered there, and for once, words of such grave import felt like they meant very little at all, for I knew I should be giving him so much more.

  He turned his lips to my skin and kissed me before he whispered back, “Love you too, Frannie.”

  His words did not feel the same as mine.

  They felt like they gave me everything.

  With nothing further, he pulled me off him, set me gently in the bed and exited it, not going to the bathroom before he twitched the covers over me.

  Nurture.

  Care.

  He was back in no time, pulling me into his embrace, burrowing into me, holding me tucked close, my back curved into his front.