When Darkness Comes

by Wilbanks, G. Allen

  My face flushed red again. “I didn’t mean…. I was just curious.”

  She placed a hand on my arm again, silencing my protests. “I was joking. Relax. Thank you for the ride.”

  “Can I walk you to your door?” I asked, turning off the car engine.

  “Thank you, Gregory. No.”

  There it was again. The same phrase. The same refusal. I had again been very politely told to back away. Yet I decided to try one more time. “Can I see you again?” I asked, bracing myself for another rejection.

  She paused, still seated with the passenger door open. Then she leaned back toward me, moving slowly but steadily, like a predator trying not to panic its prey into flight. Suddenly her face hovered very close to mine. The proximity brought mingled scents to my nose. Lavender. Vanilla. Musk. Whether it was perfume, her own smell or a combination of the two, I could not tell, but the impact of it on my senses was devastating. She lightly kissed my cheek, a bare brush of her lips across my skin, and whispered in my ear. “Perhaps,” she said. “If you are very unlucky.”

  Then she was gone. The car door slammed and she walked away. I watched her as she walked, enjoying this view of her. The sway of her hips. The sweep of her hair across her back. The quick light steps of her feet. I watched until she disappeared around the corner of one of the apartment buildings. And as I lost sight of her, an immediate sense of loss descended on me. I felt a strange desire to cry. Twice in one night, the girl of my dreams had disappeared out of my life, and I had no idea if I would ever see her again.

  I started the car engine and drove home to my own empty apartment. Once there, I crawled into bed and stared at the ceiling, not even close to falling asleep despite the late hour. After twenty minutes of lying there listening to myself breathe, I decided if I was going to stay awake, maybe I could at least get some studying done. I grabbed one of my text books from the bedside table, sat up, and turned on the bedside light. I started flipping aimlessly through it page by page, not really seeing the words in front of me. The text blurred and made no sense as my thoughts continued to circle around Andi. Finally accepting that it was pointless, I tossed the book onto the floor.

  I tried masturbating, hoping it would help me to stop thinking about her and maybe relax me enough to allow me to sleep. But climax did not help at all. It only left me feeling empty, with my mind more fixated on Andi than ever. I needed to see her again and I was afraid – literally frightened – that I had seen the last of her.

  The night passed slowly, and I counted off every minute of it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Three weeks passed and Andi and I did not cross paths again. Three weeks of depression, frustration, and anger. At first, I was angry at Andi for blowing me off so casually. Then the anger turned inward. I was furious at myself for allowing her to affect me so deeply. This was someone I had barely met and did not know anything at all about. Pining for her was pointlessly destructive and childish. But my ranting and self-recrimination did nothing to change the reality of my situation. I was floundering because of a woman I had spoken with for no more than ten minutes.

  I ate poorly. I slept little. I avoided friends and skipped several of my classes. I did attend several parties, but only to see if Andi would be there. I would stay only long enough to convince myself that she was not coming, then I would make a lame excuse to the host and return home to wonder where she might be.

  One lonely Tuesday night, with no parties to visit and nothing else of any importance to do, I found myself at a bar located a block from my apartment. It was one of the few establishments in the city that was not designed specifically to attract the college demographic. Tiny, quiet, and dimly lit, the owner had created it to be the antithesis of all the trendy, flashy establishments that battled to attract the twenty-something crowd. The design was cramped to the point of being claustrophobic and dark enough to be vaguely depressing immediately upon entry. There were a few tables in the place, but the majority of the space was designed around a long wooden counter, stools, and shelves of multi-colored bottles on a wall, with a sullen bartender pacing his way up and down the row of seated patrons seeking his services. Mine was just one more bowed head along his customer route.

  I drank much more heavily those days than was my normal custom, but it helped me to sleep. Enough alcohol eventually short circuited my thought processes and allowed me a few hours of dreamless unconsciousness. Some people call these blackouts. I called them escape.

  It was still fairly early in the evening, and I had only just begun to work on my third Long Island Iced Tea. Out of boredom, my eyes traced a familiar path around the bar, starting first at the crowded shelves of alcohol bottles lining the dark-stained wooden wall in front of me. I considered the variously shaped and colored bottles and wondered briefly if I should try something new before deciding to stick with my Tea. From the bottles, my attention trailed over to the small color television set in the corner of the room where a basketball game played silently on the rectangular screen. I didn’t know who was winning and I really didn’t care either. I wasn’t even certain which teams were playing. I watched for only a few moments before quickly losing what little interest I had in the game, then I let my gaze come back to rest on the still mostly full glass in front of me.

  While hunched over my drink contemplating another long empty night, I felt a finger lightly tap on my shoulder. Although there was no reason for me to expect anything other than one of the other patrons looking for a light for his cigarette or some other typical nonsense, I swear I recognized the feel of that touch. I spun around to find Andi standing beside me, her hands clasped in front of her and a playful smile on her face. She was too damned beautiful for words. In my excitement to see her, I jumped off of my barstool and impulsively threw my arms around her.

  “Andi!” I cried. “Where have you been?”

  She permitted my familiarity and accepted the hug, but did not return it. Embarrassed, I released her and took a step back. I realized that she must believe I was borderline psychotic. Why else would a man she met once at a party three weeks ago grab her so desperately; like an old lover finally back from war?

  I stammered an apology and followed it weakly with “I missed you.” I was relieved to see that her smile had not disappeared.

  “Actually, I missed you, too,” she said. “I’m glad I ran into you. I was hoping we might see each other again.”

  The words electrified me. She had missed me! I stared at her, just drinking in the sight of her. Her hair hung loose down to the middle of her back. She had tucked the long strands closest to her face back behind her ears, showing off the soft angles of her jaw and the smooth graceful line of her neck. Although the weather that night was not particularly warm, she wore only a white, short-sleeved, button-up blouse over a pair of blue jeans. The blouse was unbuttoned enough to reveal a significant depth of pale white cleavage and the upper edges and clasp of a pink bra. I noticed, suspended between her breasts she wore a teardrop-shaped pendant. The pendant appeared to be a large ruby or other deep red stone, centered in a delicate gold setting. I stared at the pendant – and the perfect porcelain backdrop it was set upon – for perhaps a minute too long. When my gaze found its way back to her face, she was watching me with one eyebrow cocked upward in mild disapproval. She was still smiling, however. She was probably used to men looking at her, I thought ruefully, and not without a twinge of jealousy.

  “Where have you been the last few weeks?” I asked, now keeping my eyes firmly on her face and trying to make the question sound neutral.

  “Away. I visited a friend in another state. We haven’t seen each other in quite a while so I stayed with him a couple of weeks.”

  Him. My heart squeezed in my chest. I felt as if someone had punched the air out of my lungs. A sharp lump formed in my throat and I struggled a bit as I tried once again to sound casual. “Is he a boyfriend?”

  She laughed. “Hardly. No, he is just an old acquaintance I visit occasional
ly. A friend of the family, you might say. He is much older than I am,” she said, perhaps trying to put my concerns to rest.

  The vise pressing on my chest eased considerably. “Can I buy you a drink?” I patted the barstool next to mine.

  She accepted and ordered a soda from the bartender. When it arrived, she nodded her thanks then sipped delicately from the glass. She watched me intently as she placed her glass back on the bar, obviously waiting for me to continue the conversation.

  “Do you go to school here?” I asked, making small talk and fighting not to blurt out the thoughts storming through my head. I think I am in love with you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.

  “No. I have been out of school for quite some time.” That amused smile played about her lips once more as she asked, “How old do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “Twenty-three. Maybe a little older.”

  “’A little older’ is the better answer. I’m not saying how old, but I do think that I have aged very well.” She flipped her hair back in mock vanity.

  I let the line of questioning drop. Many women are sensitive about their age, and if she wanted to be secretive that was fine with me. I was just happy to be with her again.

  “Would you like to go someplace and get a bite to eat?” I offered. I tapped the rim of my glass indicating its contents. “We can finish our drinks then go find something. I probably shouldn’t drive, but there are lots of places close enough to walk.”

  “Thank you, no. I ate before I came here. I’m fine. If you’re ready to leave though, I would love to see where you live.”

  She picked up her drink and brought it to her lips, seemingly unconcerned with the effect her statement had on me. My heart kicked into high gear again and my mouth went dry. I answered with the first thing that came into my head.

  “Really?”

  “If that’s alright with you. Would you mind having me in your home?”

  “No. Of course not. I’d love to have you over. Anytime. Did you want to go now?” I knew I was rambling but I didn’t know how to stop.

  “If you like.” She stood and ran her hands across the front of her clothing, smoothing the lines of her blouse and – intentionally or not, I could not be sure – flashing me another view of her pink bra. “Shall we?”

  In response, I reached into my pocket and retrieved enough money to pay for our drinks and cover a rather hefty tip. Dropping the money on the bar, I stood up and held out my arm, which Andi accepted. It was a decidedly old fashioned gesture, but it felt appropriate with her. With her left arm draped around my right and her free hand resting on my forearm, Andi leaned a shoulder against me and we stepped out into the night air. I don’t believe my feet touched the ground once during the walk to my apartment.

  When we arrived I paused on the concrete porch of my ground floor apartment before putting my key in the lock. I turned to Andi and asked if she would mind waiting outside for just a moment, there was something I needed to take care of. She seemed a little puzzled, but agreed. I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and reluctantly closed the front door, praying she would not be gone when I returned. As soon as the door was closed, I ran around the apartment like a mad man, trying to diminish the clutter that normally accumulates around a man living by himself. I swept dirty dishes off of the counter and into the sink, picked up clothes and tossed them into a closet, and in general tried to do six months-worth of house cleaning in ten seconds. When I finished racing through the apartment and relocating or concealing what I could of the mess, I was breathing hard and maybe sweating a little, but at least everything in the apartment looked semi-presentable. I opened the door and by some miracle, discovered she was still standing on the porch. I asked her in.

  As she crossed my threshold she cast her gaze around the apartment like a police officer sizing up potential hiding places. The inspection took very little time. There wasn’t much to see: a living room attached to a dining nook and tiny kitchen, and a short hallway that led to the single bedroom and bathroom. Ugly tan tile dominated most of the floor except for where a round, well-worn throw rug had been placed in the main living area in front of a black vinyl couch. The walls were mostly bare, painted originally with some shade of white paint that had, over time, taken on a slightly yellow hue.

  “Do you have any music?” she asked, as I closed the door behind her. “I believe I owe you a dance. If you feel like dancing.”

  The request surprised me, but I didn’t hesitate. “Of course. Just a second.”

  I hurried over to the stereo system which sat balanced on a homemade shelf nailed to the far wall of the living room. The shelf perched just to the left of its twin which held up my television set. I sorted hurriedly through my CD collection trying to find something Andi might like. My musical tastes ran generally toward the fast and loud, but right now I wanted something slower and more intimate. After a bit of searching I found some appropriate dance music and fed it into the player.

  When I turned around, Andi stood directly in front of me. She stepped into me and laid her cheek against my chest, her hands slipping around my waist and settling on my back. Not believing my good fortune, I enfolded her in my arms and held her as close as physically possible. Andi felt soft and feminine and wonderful in my arms. The curves of her body melted into mine as if they had always belonged together. I could smell the traces of perfume; the same hints of lavender and vanilla I had smelled around her in my car. And underneath lay that heady muskiness that stirred an animal longing deep within me. We held each other, not so much dancing as sharing a long sustained embrace. Despite my efforts to stay passive, I felt my body reacting strongly to her proximity. I became aroused, and as close as Andi and I were she could not fail to notice my condition. Yet she did not pull away. Instead she pushed herself more firmly against me, sending waves of pleasure up into the pit of my stomach and out to the rest of my body.

  Andi turned her face up to mine and, without thinking, I kissed her. Her lips felt cool against mine. My tongue sought hers and I brought my hands to her face to hold the kiss as long as possible. Her skin was smooth and soft under my fingers. Her flesh felt slightly cold, but that did not seem odd to me because I knew that mine must be feverishly hot. After another moment, she pushed me gently away to look me in the eyes. The expression on her face was pensive, almost sad. God, I could have lost myself in her eyes forever. Those black pools promised me eternity and annihilation in equal measures.

  “Poor Gregory,” she said. “You don’t see it yet. There is something I want very badly from you. Just as I think there is something you want from me.” She slipped one hand between us and caressed my erection through the material of my jeans. “Yes?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I gasped, barely able to push the word out.

  Andi guided me backwards and settled me into the couch, the only available furniture in the room. She knelt between my knees, moving slowly, never releasing me with her hand or her eyes.

  “Your needs are so simple and pleasurable to meet,” she said. “Mine are … not so simple. But they are pleasurable.”

  She unfastened my pants and released me from the confines of my jeans and underwear. I saw her smile as she grasped me anew, this time with no restricting clothing in the way. She moved slowly, savoring the feel of my swollen flesh in her hand, delighting in my reaction to her touch. My cock pulsed with my heartbeat as it rose to full attention and my body shivered in slight ecstatic tremors with every movement of her skin against mine.

  I arched my hips away from the couch, moving rhythmically with the motion of her hand, pushing up against each downward stroke. Andi increased her speed and her smile grew with my climbing excitement. When she lowered her head to my lap, the silky feel of her lips and tongue caressing the most sensitive parts of my anatomy pushed me past any means of self-control. The muscles of my body clenched and spasmed. Pleasure crashed through me and Andi’s hands and tongue continued to move lovingly
over the length of my penis as it contracted through each wave of my slowly ebbing orgasm. Finally, I could only fall back into the couch, spent; drained of all energy and immensely satisfied.

  I closed my eyes in happy surrender. I felt, rather than saw, Andi continue to hold my manhood in her mouth, sucking gently even as it shrank and grew flaccid. Her tongue greedily trapped the last few drops of seminal fluid as they issued from my limp and defeated member. I did not think too deeply on the act. I merely accepted it for the physical and emotional comfort it gave me.

  At last she released me. I opened my eyes and gazed down at her where she remained with her arms draped across my thighs and her head resting on my hip. She appeared as fully satisfied as I felt; though at the time I thought the physical enjoyment must solely have been mine.

  “Have you ever considered,” she said quietly, more to herself, I think than to me, “how the taste of semen is remarkably similar to that of blood? It is thick and salty and warm. Very pleasant on the tongue.”

  I know I should have reacted to the wrongness of that statement when she said it. I should have been warned that something was amiss. But I still hung partially suspended in the numbing after-haze of climax, and her words passed me by, causing no reaction. I am not making excuses for my mistakes. I accept the responsibility of my failures, but I also try to be honest with myself as to why they occurred.

  Andi rose to her feet. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Very light. Very platonic.

  “Goodbye, Gregory. I have to go.”

  “What?!” I jumped up from the sofa. “What do you mean? Can’t you stay tonight? Where are you going?”

  Andi didn’t respond to my questions. She brushed a hand down the front of her shirt, checking that her outfit had not become too disheveled, then moved to leave. I followed her to the door, not bothering to straighten my own clothing, entreating her to stay just a while longer. She insisted she could not. She said she did not trust herself around me, yet. I had no idea what she meant by that statement. It left me more confused than ever as to the status of her feelings for me. She doesn’t trust herself around me? I thought. Or she doesn’t trust me?