Brianna shook her head adamantly, admonishing the doctor’s supposition. “It didn’t make me sick. I have had a stomach bug for a little while now. Off and on. I’m fine.”
“A stomach bug? For how long?”
Brianna closed her eyes, trying to pinpoint the first episode. “I don’t know. A couple weeks or so. It’s nothing, really.”
“That is a long time for a virus, Brianna. I think you should see a doctor.”
“If I agree to see Dr. Baxter, will you drop it?”
Dr. Shepherd’s eyes glazed over at the mention of her unrequited love. Brianna knew Dr. Shepherd had a thing for him. Her swooning made it hard to miss.
“I would.” Dr. Shepherd shot Briana a warm, inviting smile.
“Consider it done.” Brianna forced her lips to curve upward, reassuring the doctor that she would make the appointment.
“Great. So, shall we continue?”
Pulling her legs up on the couch, stretching out a long its length, Brianna gave her consent.
“Are you in love?”
Brianna took a deep breath, allowing several minutes to pass before responding. “I don’t know. I have never been in love.”
“What are you attributing love to at this time? There must have been something that warranted the label.”
Tears again welled up in her eyes. “I never wanted this.”
“This?”
“This, to feel like this. I was so careful about who I let into my life, in my circle. It didn’t matter. Seems like all of that caution was for nothing.”
“We often put up walls, intending to decrease the probability of our being hurt by situations beyond our control. We fail to realize that in doing so, we make ourselves susceptible to the very same pain we’re trying to avoid. The act itself, feeling pain, is inevitable. It is best to learn mechanisms to cope with it as it comes.”
Brianna shook her head in agreement, wiping the tiny puddles covering her eyes. “Well, I cannot ignore anything anymore. The pressure is suffocating me. I move without thinking.” Twirling her fingers in the seams of her T-shirt, Brianna continued talking. “I shouldn’t, but I miss him. I miss him all the time.”
“Who do you miss?”
Muted by the ignominy lingering beneath the interminable surface of fear that flowered her every decision, her lips quivered, her stubbornness denying Shepherd an answer. “I’m too ashamed to say.”
“Brianna, this is a safe place. Feel free to speak freely.”
Switching her body into an upright position, Brianna inhaled deeply and prepared to welcome the doctor further into her universe.
Chapter 16
Scenes spanning the last few days hiked the trails of Frank’s mountainous mental terrain. Some disappeared into the caves of memory, never to be seen again. His every thought, like planets around the sun, revolved around his wife. His heart sank deeper into his chest cavity, constricting as it moved. The detective’s words hammered at his brittle resolve, dousing his worries with the kind of accelerant destined to kill him.
That is not what the pretty wife said to me, Franklin. She told me that you did dis to her.
The pace quickened as the fleeting tang decorating his rib cage became constant, increasing in severity. Surely Lisa defended his innocence; she wouldn’t implicate him. He was not to blame for the physical harm she had done to herself. Her cries echoed in his ears, forcing him to sit upright on the thin cot of his cell. The small metal underwire groaned, shifting to accommodate the change in weight to a concentrated area.
I wasn’t perfect, but I never thought you would repay me like this.
Frank, never the vindictive kind, would not seek retribution in that way, especially not from Lisa . . . but would she?
Falling to his knees, he grabbed his chest as the pain steadily increased, the air around him seemed to disappear. This was not happening again. Glancing a wary eye through the bars of his cell, he searched for a guard to signal but found the narrow hall empty. Recalling a few of his techniques from talk therapy, he attempted to side-swipe his symptoms by replacing his thoughts with less stressful ones. Still gasping for air, Frank sat on his haunches. Lisa would not falsely accuse him. Their marriage, though strained, still meant something to her.
Closing his eyes to the room swirling around him, he fought to clarify his thoughts. Her tear-stained face broke into the frame. Reaching a shaky hand out to wipe her tears, his body seized with tears of his own. Frank’s forehead met the cement floor as he doubled over. I’m so sorry. Coughing, his body seized, and his eyes popped open like newly formed bubbles. Holding his left hand out in front him, he stretched his fingers, trying to circumvent the numbness encompassing them. Counting backward slowly from twenty, Frank attempted to settle his nerves, to focus his mind enough to regain control of his bodily functions. Sixteen . . . fifteen . . . fourteen. . . The tactic proved ineffective as he found himself coughing incessantly, smothering in panic. Realizing he was losing the battle of wills to the reality of his predicament, over and over again, he reassured himself that he was not dying.
Recalling the events of his last episode, Frank thought it best to get help. “Someone please . . .” Crawling toward the narrow, rusted metal poles, he continued to try to get the attention of a guard, but the coughing made it difficult to speak. As his world emptied itself of its color, Frank knew he was losing consciousness. He frantically banged on the bars with his hand, rallying a feeble attempt to draw attention. His energy rapidly depleted, forcing Frank to cease his efforts, lacking the strength to do any more.
As he lay on the floor, completely still, he could not stop his mind from posing the question he had sought to avoid. Would this be the last one? The attack that would kill him? From his angle on the floor, his fingers wrapped around a single bar, the bright peach stucco wall filling his vision—no decorative wall hangings, no windows to the outside, just the wall. Surely fate would not be so cruel as to let that blasted wall be the last thing he saw, not when he so desperately longed to be near his wife.
The morning after his last meeting with the detectives, he had gotten a call from a lawyer. A lawyer whom Frank had not retained. There was insufficient time for Frank to question his origin, and in truth, he did not care. He was grateful for his assistance, especially given the news the lawyer had to share with him. The conversation, however brief, left Frank with a glimmer of promise.
Frank returned to his cell with a smile on his face. There was a chance that his charge would be reduced. Since the threat of prison time no longer loomed in the horizon, he was left with this situation with Lisa. Her implication would certainly complicate things for him back in the States. She was angry, hurt, and rightfully so. He really couldn’t blame her if she had lied, but he was almost certain that was not the case. He assumed that Baptiste had issued the insinuation to intentionally upset him. He had caught enough episodes of SVU to recognize their tricks. Still, the thought apparently bothered him enough to trigger an attack. It was an attack, unlike the few prior, he could not suppress with his treatment techniques. Now, he lay helpless, praying that a guard would come before he blacked out completely, worried about what it meant for him if they did not.
* * *
As he flailed his big, burly arms about like helicopter propellers, Detective Saenz’s elevated-aged, nicotine-rich tenor sailed throughout the open floor plan of the precinct. Even through the tempered glass of the office, his disdain for their fearless leader’s marching orders was evident. Detective Baptiste viewed his mentor’s theatrics from his desk. Clearly, the captain had delivered the good news to him. Lisa, their star witness in their case against Frank Mason, had completely recanted her story. That minor snag, coupled with a phone call from some hot-shot attorney out of New York, crippled their investigation. Frank Mason would be free to go soon. Not unlike his partner, Detective Baptiste was less than enthusiastic about it.
“I cannot believe dis foolishness!” Detective Saenz plopped down in his seat, sli
ding underneath his part of the adjoining desk he and Baptiste shared. “That bastard is just goin’ to walk like da others!”
Detective Baptiste played with the cap on his pen. “We do not have any evidence, Saenz.”
“What are ya talkin’ ’bout? He was da only one in the room. He story keep a-changin’.” Rustling the papers on his desk, Baptiste busied himself in an attempt to avoid the speech he feared would follow. “Don’t let ya self be fooled. I see many men like Frank Mason. Rich tourists, tink he can come here, do whatever he want, then leave. Too many have gotten away.”
Scooting his chair back away from the desk, Baptiste stood. “Maybe. I need some air.”
“Go on, den, but I am right. Never told ya not’ing wrong.”
“That is true.” Baptiste hustled toward the door of the precinct but decided to look in on Frank. He needed to see his eyes once more. Something did not sit well with him about the entire situation. Frank had seemed genuinely distraught at the crime scene and consistent with the story for the most part. It so happened that the inconsistency, the possibility of another perpetrator, was a huge discrepancy. The evidence was inconclusive at best. The prints on the knife were not discernable. There was nothing to suggest that anyone other than Frank was in the room at the time the altercation occurred. A maid confessed to letting a man in, earlier in the day, but could offer no physical description. Charlie, whom Frank initially accused, was a woman and could not have been the man the maid let into the room. Frank insisted that he only entered the room after Lisa’s invitation. Something was missing. Maybe if he spoke to Frank alone, without Saenz, he could get some answers.
Turning down the tight corridor, Baptiste spotted something protruding from the cell where Frank was being held. Squinting his eyes to see, still about seven cells away, he quickened his pace. As he drew closer, he could see that it was not an object but Frank’s finger. That’s strange.
Sprinting back down the narrow hall lined with empty cells, Baptiste screamed from the entrance for help. “Get an ambulance! Get some help, quickly!”
Dashing back to Frank, with an officer in tow, he continued shouting instructions. “Open it up. Unlock this cell! Hurry! Mr. Mason? Franklin!”
The officer, fumbling with the carousel of keys in his hand, unlocked the cell as fast as he could. Shoving the officer to the side once he unlocked it, Baptiste fell to the ground, knees first, at Frank’s side. He first laid an ear on Frank’s mouth but couldn’t tell if he was breathing. Placing two fingers in the shadows under his chin, he checked for a pulse. It was faint, but it was there nonetheless.
Baptiste sighed with relief, grateful he wasn’t dead. “Where is that ambulance?”
He looked around the small cell. There was nothing out of place, nothing that Frank could have used to harm himself. At a loss with what to do next, Baptiste, a deeply spiritual man, prayed for his healing. He sat there on the floor beside him, holding his hand until the ambulance arrived to take him to the Hôpital Louis-Constant Fleming.
Chapter 17
He couldn’t believe it was happening again. He had tried to put it out of his mind, to live like he didn’t want it, didn’t long for it with every fiber of his being. But the truth hurt—it hurt more than her teeth slightly scraping the soft skin of his shaft. Even more than the slight pinch of her nails digging into his side, reminding him that it should stop. It was a sign that this moment was not truly his. This beautiful woman did not belong to him, but perhaps more importantly, he belonged to another.
His eyes wandered down to the force of nature wreaking havoc on his love jones and watched in awe as her head moved with a rhythm that made his knees weak. This, in fact, was something she would never do, and on some level, that may be partly to blame for his being there. Still, he knew she deserved better.
He had tried to forget the first time he locked lips with this woman; the cotton candy–flavored lip gloss he didn’t know he’d miss. It began innocently enough, just one moment too many alone together. They shared just one laugh too many—and then it happened, the physical connection that added weight to the fire already smoldering between them. He had tried to forget, but not today. Today, he could not dismiss the wave of pleasure consuming his body as he felt his manhood leave its essence in various places of her mouth. No, not today.
Today, he would not resist her. Taking a handful of her soft, black hair, he drove his piece deeper into that space. He leaned against the desk and steadied himself with his free hand. Matching her beat, he moved with her, racing toward his inevitable finish. He pumped in and out of her mouth, closed his eyes and focused on the feeling. The warmth quickly spread throughout his lower region. He tried to keep his eyes closed. He did not want to see.
He could feel her eyes on him, and just this once, he wanted to leave the memory without blemish. But he couldn’t resist. He had to look, to put a face with the feeling. Again, his eyes wandered down to the woman on her knees in front of him, but this time her beautiful brown eyes met his, splintering his heart into a million pieces. Surely someone was playing a cruel joke on him. It was simply not fair. He loved his woman with everything he had and some things he did not.
This woman caught him off guard, and he didn’t know she would pull him in like this. Didn’t know he would be so vulnerable to her advances. His eyes rolled, and his mouth opened to protest, but his moans were the only audible sounds. Maybe if he could force himself to remember her name and ignore her face, the common trait that she and his wife shared, then he could let go once and for all. Maybe he would finally have the strength to deny his primal urges.
She moved faster, and he knew the end was near. She stopped abruptly and, as if on cue, he pulled her up and bent her over the small table stand that had been supporting his weight and crashed his rocket into her deep space.
“Shit,” he whimpered. Flooded with guilt and absolute pleasure, he continued his climb into the atmosphere.
“Armand?” Michelle stood in the hall at the back of the living room, roughly twenty feet from him. Frozen in shock, muted with questions, her legs quit on her.
Startled, Armand pulled out of her, his rock-hard wand, now aiming at his fiancée, shining with the juices of another woman. Michelle’s eyes widened in horror at the sight, reminding him of his nakedness, confirming the tragedy unfolding. Busted and breathless, Armand snatched the waist of his jeans up, tripping over his own two feet in his haste to reach her, landing face down on the carpet.
“Michelle, I can explain.”
“What in the fuck is going on, Armand?”
Standing, knees slightly bent, with his hands in front of him, palms out, Armand attempted to erase the image out of Michelle’s mind. “MK . . . it’s not what you think.”
“It isn’t? Please tell me that you weren’t fucking some bitch in my house.”
His legs nearly gave out as his mind rattled off empty explanations, none of which he offered to her because it would only make things worse. “Okay, I’m not going to lie to you. I . . . I messed up, MK. I am so, so sorry.”
Tears slowly filled the brims of Michelle’s eyes. Waves of pain and panic washed over her as her mind toggled between the two emotions. Her fists clenched and unclenched near her sides. The room spun around her so violently that it made her queasy. She did not utter a word but had quietly pulled her sweat pants up above her waist, sliding into the corner by the front door, choosing to look there instead of in Michelle’s direction. Armand’s eyes darted from her to his fiancée. Fear turned his insides into pudding.
“Michelle, I can explain.” His words liquefied the cement that had set in her legs. He shrunk a little as she started to move in his direction.
“How could you!”
Armand, still nursing his sprained ankle, staggered backward, leaning on the front door for support. Michelle’s calm demeanor only increased Armand’s anxiety, the anger and hurt in her eyes cracking his bones the longer she stared.
“Michelle . . . I—”
“You what, Armand? You what?”
Their living room, a major selling point for Armand, had always seemed massive, until now. Now, that room felt like the backseat of a cab. Gulping, he cursed himself for having been so damn stupid. This was the very last thing any of them needed. Shit. He was unclear whether Michelle had noticed her. If she hadn’t, perhaps he could get her out the front door before she did. Their relationship would not be the same, their love changed forever, but he wanted to protect however much of her heart was left.
He hobbled forward, with his arms reaching out toward Michelle, blocking her body with his tall, muscular form. “MK, I am so sorry. Please hear me out.” Silently, he prayed that some telepathic ability would manifest in him, instructing her to quickly open the door and run like hell up out of there. That didn’t happen.
Armand’s plea paused Michelle’s movement, at least temporarily, near the center of the room. While he racked his mind, trying to figure out how to prevent any more casualties, he continued to try to keep her calm. “You got every right to be pissed. How can I make this better?”
Michelle started toward him again. Her steps were unsteady. As she got closer to him, the look in her eyes sent a chill down his spine.
“Michelle . . . tell me what to do.”
Michelle, inches away from him, never broke their stare. “Move.”
Disregarding her request, he presented a counter offer. “Can we go in the kitchen and talk?”
Payment for his insolence was swift and immediate. Unleashing the fury hinted in her eyes, Michelle exploded. “Fuck you!”
Michelle swung wildly. The first hit caught him by surprise.
Maneuvering his head, he quickly tried to gain control of her arms. Armand put his hands up, gesturing surrender, but she didn’t ease up.
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