“You’re dressed. Annoying.”
“Well, I’m not an easy lay anymore. Men will have to work for it as of yesterday. I’ve changed”
“Noted.”
She looks back at me sharply, a venom in her eyes that wasn’t there yesterday while we drank. I contemplate the reaction, taking my time to analyse where I go from here. More silence. It’s interesting to me given her mouth running away from her last night. All night.
“And this harsh outlook is the new you?” I ask, pushing some crumpled paper off a chair to sit. “New hair and attitude?”
“You wouldn’t know what I am, Mr Rothburg. I’m not even sure I do now.”
“Would you like to find out?” She stares, as if the question isn’t enough information for her. I don’t suppose it is, but I’m not giving anything else away until she proves a few things to me. “I was considering diverting you.”
“I don’t need diversion. I need real.”
“You don’t want real. Real is all around you now. In my apartment that your adulterant dead husband got as part of his job. It needs cleaning by the way.”
“Fuck you, Gray.”
“Eloquent.”
She smiles lightly and drinks some of her wine, looking at me over the top of the rim. I don’t break eye contact with her at any point. It’s nice to look into a woman’s eyes for once, just like I did last night. She was drunk then, though. We both were. I smirk under her scrutiny, amused at my reaction to her inquisitive gaze. I don’t know how she’s doing it to me, but she is. She’s taken hold of something I don’t usually possess anymore - curiosity.
“How old are you?” she suddenly asks.
“Relevant, why?”
“I’m not sure. I just want to know. It’s the kind of question Rick’s perfect fucking wife would never have asked. Rude. As of yesterday, I don’t give a crap if I’m rude or not.” Good.
“Past forty. Not past the next level.”
“Hmm. You look good for it. Although, too pale.”
“I’m sorry my DNA offends you.”
“I have a feeling you’re not sorry about anything Gray.”
I stand and walk past her towards the kitchen, looking for the wine she mentioned. The area’s as messy as the last room was, more detritus and objects scattered round. I grab a bottle of red off the counter and reach for a glass, backing away from the mess to head back to her.
“Are you always so disorderly?”
“No. But again, Rick’s perfect wife did a lot of things I won’t be doing any longer,” she snaps, aggression in her tone. “Why are you here?”
Her words make me question them, and whatever thought brought me here in the first place. She’s not the same as she was last night anymore. She’s curt and indistinct now, a new version of herself trying to push through the gloom she’s in. I pull the cork and fill a glass, listening to both the glug of the liquid and her breathing. It’s quiet other than those things and the low hum of traffic outside. Nice actually.
“You spoke last night about wanting to see things. Are you still interested?”
“Oh,” she chuckles. “Men fucking. Yes. Are you gay?”
“No.”
“And yet you saved my dignity last night. I was almost insulted.”
“You were drunk.”
“Deservedly so,” she says, raising her glass to drink more. “As you said, men are all pricks.”
I nod and move to the window, looking out at the world I was in earlier and last night. People are walking with other people in the fresh air. Talking. Normal daily routines passing them by. I frown and look at my hands, eventually looking back at her rather than acknowledge my thoughts about her. She’s still sitting there with her legs curled up under her, the sheer line of the robe slipped open a few centimetres to show a hint of breast.
“Take the robe from your shoulders,” comes out of me. “Let it fall.”
“Why?” I smile. It’s not a no. A good start.
“Because I asked you to. And if you want diverting from this reality, perhaps finding something else other than it for a while, then I’ll need you to obey me.”
“Obey you?”
“Yes.”
“You sound like Mr Vanciter from Newlands High. I didn’t obey him either. Find another word to make me interested.”
“Comply.”
“Still not aroused enough,” she drawls, sipping her wine again.
“Conform.”
“To what?”
“To doing as you’re told.”
“Tut, tut. If there’s one person in the world who won’t be doing as she’s told for a while it’s me, Gray.”
“Not even for entertainment?”
“No. Not for all the entertainment in the world. However,” She takes another sip of her drink, mulling her words over. “I might do as I’m told if I feel like it. What have you got to make me feel like doing as I’m told? The fact that you’re attractive enough to sleep with is not reason enough.”
I chuckle and lean against the window, sipping my own wine. I have nothing to offer her other than facts and rules, and they mean she needs to comply, behave, and listen to what I say to a degree. Not necessarily just for my benefit either.
“Ask me to do something for you.”
“Pour your wine on your highly expense carpet,” she says.
I tip my glass and pour instantly, not giving thought to the reason she asked that particular question. Although, I expected something more personal, sexual even. She doesn’t watch it land on the cream carpet. Neither do I. We’re looking at each other, no interest in the stain that’s forming beneath my feet.
“Take the robe from your shoulders,” I ask, dangling the upturned glass in my fingers.
She rolls her shoulders, gently moving one hand to loosen the tie around her waist. A veil of skin begins to show, her collarbone exposing inch by inch. It tantalises me in a way that her entire body exposed last night didn’t manage.
I watch the sheer fabric move, slipping further and further as she shrugs it quietly. Creamy, unblemished contours become a landscape to me, their hollows and shadows playing tricks with the light, until, eventually, she sits uncovered and unabashed in my presence.
She doesn’t speak as I gaze at her and take my time looking at something I usually deny myself. She sits proudly and watches me look at her, her hands out to the side rather than trying to cover herself. I let my eyes roam slowly, taking in the tight, dark nipples tempting me, the swell of the valleys and plains pulling me towards her.
“Will you be able to do that for me again, no matter the situation we’re in?” I ask.
“Maybe,” she says, as I walk closer to her.
“I need better than a maybe for where we’re going.”
“Why?”
“Rules. Obligations. Safety.”
“Do you want to lick them, Gray?”
“Yes.”
“How long for? Tell me.”
My eyes crawl back up to hers again, thoughts turning from conversational to anything but. I pull in a long breath and stay steady in her presence, a terse smile on my face. It doesn’t matter how much I want to lick them. Nor does it matter how much she might want me to do it.
That’s not happening.
“Meet me in the lobby at ten tomorrow night. Bring an overnight bag.” I place the glass down on a table and walk for the door, eyes casting back at the stain on the floor before I leave. “And get that cleaned. The carpets, as you know, are expensive.”
“Fuck you.”
Pleasant.
Chapter 11
Hannah
T he morning is as the night before was after he left. Quiet and maudlin. Never ending. I gaze out onto the street below me, my fingers gently tapping the window pane. I don’t know why. It’s just a repetitive motion that seems to anchor me to something. There’s nothing else to anchor to. I’m misplaced, my mind a scattered mess of why and why not. So much time wasted and so many thoughts and h
opes split into nothing but dishonesties.
My nail scrapes the condensation on the glass, drawing random circles and patterns. No hearts anymore. Hearts have become broken memories, the impact they used to have now crumbled and beaten. I sigh as I listen to my phone ringing somewhere, uninterested in talking to anyone. Who will it be? Another person to offer their condolences? If it wasn’t for the fact that he was a cheating asshole, I might acknowledge the thought of conversation. But he was.
The few I have answered want to tell me they’re sorry that he’s gone, and that they’re sorry they couldn’t get to the funeral because he was such a wonderful person. Wish I hadn’t bothered going myself. Maybe then I could ignore this emptiness that’s beginning to swell in my guts, turning me in some direction that I’m unused to. I’m becoming full of malice and rancour, and the full weight of that feels like it’s burning my skin.
It was here with me before Gray came in last night, making me think of things that no grieving wife should be thinking about. Revenge somehow. It’s not possible, though. He’s dead. And now I have no ability to retaliate. Maybe that’s why I dropped the robe, letting Gray gaze on something that no one else, other than Rick, has seen for a long time. It felt good to show myself off to someone, as if I was rebelling against Rick’s wishes. It shouldn’t work like that, but it does. I hope he was looking down on it, is still looking down on it and listening to my thoughts on the matter.
I half smile at the thought and keep scratching patterns, amused at the thought that he’ll be up there with no ability to stop me acting like a slut. Ten tonight. That’s what time Gray said he’d meet me. I don’t know where he’s thinking of taking me, and I don’t really care either. What’s the point in care? Care got me into this position in my life. My care for Rick got me nothing but heartaches and lies. Maybe going forward without care for anything is the way to travel. If I don’t care nothing can interfere, can it? I’ll be solitary. Singular. Unfazed and uninterested unless something makes me feel good about myself.
I walk aimlessly towards the bedroom and look over the clothes I’ve dragged from the wardrobe. The scissors still lie discarded on the bed near them. They’re nothing but rags now. Thousands of dollars’ worth of suits and shirts and track gear cut up into nothing but scraps of material. They need to go, as does the smell of Rick still lingering on them. They’d make a good fire. I could dowse them with gas, light it all up and watch them burn.
I start grabbing them to me instead, piles of them lodged in my arms as I walk back to the window in the lounge. It gets flung open in my haste, the clothes tossed out in the piles they’re gathered in. I repeat the process, crossing the floor and back until there’s not a shred of him left in the bedroom at all. And then I start on our personal things, speed, venom, and fury making me hurl things into the street below.
Cars screech under me, horns blaring and brakes being slammed on as photos and objects he bought get launched. I don’t care where they land, as long as they’re not here with me. I’m done smelling him, or seeing him in everything. He’s not here now. None of him. And what used to be here of him was a liar and a cheat, a fucking monster.
I laugh and fall back against the wall, tears and hatred making me slide down it to the floor. My head knocks on the surface, over and over again until the sense of nothingness descends again. It’s calm there. Nothing. My eyelids blink, drying up whatever frustrated tears want to continue. I’m not doing them anymore. I’ll be bare of them, let them rest six feet under like he is doing. Ten tonight. Ten tonight is what I have, and a man called Gray Rothburg. My friend Gray.
Obey him?
I snort, antagonism pouring through me.
Why the hell would I obey a man ever again?
My gaze flicks to the red wine stain on the floor. Odd. Red wine on the floor. I crawl over and make my finger run circles over that instead of the window pane. Tap, tap. Another tap. It feels different than the window. Softer. Like my finger is bouncing back at me rather than the harsh surface I was tapping before. I look up at the open window, listening to the traffic. Softer than the window. What does that mean? It means it’s a carpet, Hannah. I chuckle and reach for the bottle of wine by the corner of the sofa, bringing it to my lips, as I keep tapping the floor beside me.
There’s nothing else now other than wine. Wine, more wine, and then some more wine to spice up the wine. As Gray said, the sad reality of real is all around me here. It’s in the fabric of my thoughts. In fact - I roll upright and start pacing the room - it’s even inside me. Rick is. He was inside me, fucking me, not long ago at all. I can feel him still, feel the way he moved, the way his frame covered mine. I want a new real. I want a real that destroys this real I’m in, wipes it away as if it was never real at all.
Hmm.
I should clean that stain on the floor. It’s what Hannah would have done before this. Hannah with all her tricks and tips on how to maintain the perfect home and the perfect life and be the perfect fucking wife. I don’t. I walk over to the fucking stain and pour the remainder of the bottle of red I’m holding all over it, creating a bigger stain on the cream carpet. I even swish the bottle at the matching cream drapes, splashing droplets and spots of deep red all over them. Better. More real. More like the current version of me.
The vision has me walking back to the bedroom, the scissors picked up and brought back to the drapes. I don’t care as I start cutting, slashing the full length of them. I know they’re not my drapes. I know I didn’t hang them or put them there, but I never got a fucking chance to hang anything of my own, did I? His job. His house moves. His fucking life that I followed like a good little girl so he’d be happy and get his career on track. And what am I left with? This? A laugh barks out of me as I back away from the new version of real drapes in front of me. That’s more like it. Ripped to shreds, the perfect pretence of them destroyed and hanging tattered and dirty.
Just like me.
A sharp knock on the door makes me swing my head to it, scissors poised in my hand. Who the fuck is that? I hover, my bare feet planted on the floor. I’m not answering doors. Doors mean people, and people mean conversing, and I’m not ready for conversing.
Another knock, the handle ratcheting for some reason.
“Fuck off!” snaps out of me.
“Mrs Tanner, open the door.” Oh, Gray.
I walk to it, swinging it wide. He walks in and looks me over, a brow raised at the scissors still in my hand. I don’t give him any answer to his unasked question. I just let the near see-through robe swing around me and sway, as I walk off into the kitchen for more wine.
“Interesting design,” he says from the lounge. I pick up a bottle and start pouring the wine into a glass, not giving a damn for his opinion of my handiwork. I do walk back to him, though, intrigued as to why he’s here now. It isn’t ten tonight as far as I know.
“Why are you here?”
“Passport.”
“What about it?”
“Do you know where yours is?”
“Of course I do. I wouldn’t have been able to go on all those fucking trips and luxury vacations if I didn’t know where it damn well was.” What a stupid question. He doesn’t seem stupid. Why asks such stupid things?
“Good. Bring it tonight.” He backs up towards the door, no more explanation than that, and starts to leave. “Have you slept?”
“No.”
He nods and keeps walking, apparently no care if I have or not. I watch him walk for a few moments, checking out his back view as he goes towards the elevator at the end of the hall. No words. No talk or conversation. Just me looking at him as he waits for the elevator. Handsome. And interesting. And, regardless of his odd way of conversing about things, real. But then the doors slide open and he walks in to it without turning around, leaving me with nothing but this corridor and the sad reality of contempt I’m in.
I slam the door and triple lock it, my back resting on it. I’m done with that out there. And this in here. I gul
p wine back and look at my handiwork again, happy with the portrayal of realism. Sleep? I haven’t slept since his place. When was that? Yesterday? No, the day before. Maybe. I don’t know.
Another swig of my wine and I walk circles, part of me wondering if I do need sleep. Perhaps I do. Maybe this real will fuck off if I’ve slept. He’s right. I should go sleep. The bed is clear now. I’ve tossed Rick’s stuff, cleared it out. It’s my space again now.
Yes, sleep.
My wine gets drained and I walk slowly, letting the glass fall absentmindedly from my grasp to the floor as I go. I’ll sleep until later, and then I’ll get ready for Gray. Where is my passport? Don’t know. I don’t know much at the moment. Maybe I should. I cross the room and pick up my phone before heading for the bedroom, swiping the notifications of missed calls away. It’s real that I want, and that means I need to know more about the only real I have in my life at the moment.
The profile details of Gray Rothburg fills the screen the moment I’ve inputted my search, pages of him brought up. Mostly Annox based. I settle back into the sheets and briefly look through them, the words blurring under my gaze. There’s nothing but reams of information about his work history. It’s all carefully crafted. Professional. Deals and amalgamations with other companies, or details of companies he’s taken over. Nothing personal. Not shots of family or life other than work.
My mind reals, memories of Rick talking about the same situations or words I’m witnessing on screen filtering in, and I let the phone fall from my grip. I don’t want that. I want the Gray behind those words. The one that laughed with me last night when I talked of dirty things and men fucking. The Gray on the screen isn’t him. That’s all a lie to me.
My Gray smells of heat and hope, of reality.
It’s all I care about.
Chapter 12
Gray
A Distraction of Lies Page 7
