by Alona Jarden
"Why? Because I drew a little?"
"No. Because you seem to remember new details and 'a little' doesn’t even begin to describe them," I winked at her and she smiled in embarrassment.
Over the next few minutes, I helped Katarina gather her work and reminded myself that she wanted me to keep calling her Kate.
"I think I need to update you on what happened today, Kate." I reached for her and helped her to stand up. "A pair of police officers were waiting for me at the entrance to work. They're interrogating everyone about your disappearance."
"Well done police," she nodded, apparently impressed by their ability to trace accurate leads. "Tell me everything they said."
I poured the two of us some whiskey in a glass, added a lot of ice in hers as she requested, and told her at length about my conversation with Officer Swenson and Officer Grimes.
We sat side by side in the rocking chairs on the balcony, breathed in the pleasant air and updated each other on our day's events.
"Other than the fact that you're guilty, do you know how or why they came to talk to you?"
"I'm pretty sure they didn’t go there especially to find me."
"How can you be so sure of that? You mentioned that they claimed you were not an easy man to find. Doesn’t that mean they were searching for you?"
"Maybe, or maybe that's just her style of speech."
"Still, they waited there to sit with you…"
"That's understandable," I giggled. "While I'm a hard-to-find person, you, my dear, are a very easy-to-find one."
"What does that mean?" She tried to understand if she should be offended by my words.
"They probably tried to understand what your daily routine is and, since you stick to it religiously, came to the branch you sit in every morning."
"If that's true, why did you find yourself in such an investigation?" she gave me an incriminating look.
I wanted to answer, but I didn’t know how and I paused.
Out of all the employees in the branch, I was the one who was in love with her, I was the one whose heart lost a beat every time she came in and I was the one who went out of his way to get her attention. But I couldn’t tell her all that.
"Andrew the psycho? Do you have something to tell me? Is there any reason why my question made you blush?" she smiled.
"Am I blushing?" I placed my hands on my cheeks. "I don’t think I am, I never blush."
"Well, if you have nothing to hide, I demand that you expose your cheeks to me."
"Happily, Kate." I rose quickly, exposed my ass cheeks to her and continued to speak without turning to her. "I suggest that, next time, you be more accurate in your requests of me."
She laughed for a long time while I went into my room to get out of my work clothes and into a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt.
"I see you switched from one uniform to another." She scowled at me as I returned to the balcony.
"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"
"I didn’t say it was wrong, I just mentioned that it looks like your uniform here."
"Do you want me to remove it?" I felt that we had reached a stage in our relationship in which I could tease her and pulled the ends of my shirt up, revealing a small part of my body to her.
"No, no, sit down." She hid her eyes with her hands, trying not to glance at my bare stomach. "Do me a favor and just sit the fuck down."
I wondered if I was still in control of the situation, as Kate had developed methods and abilities for digging into her memory without me. I also wondered if she had done that consciously or not.
"Now do you realize how talented you are, Kate?"
"In drawing?"
"Yes, in drawing, but not just that. You'll be talented in everything you decide to do."
"Come on." I seemed to embarrass her.
"I mean it. I really think you'll be an amazing doctor."
"And what do you want to be when you grow up?"
"You mean after I get out of jail?" It was important to hint at the possibility that neither of us dared take seriously.
"Umm..." She lowered her gaze and the discomfort she felt was very evident in the movements of her body. "I suppose that result for your actions should be taken into account."
"I'm just kidding," I lied.
"But I'm not. Did you consider that there will be consequences for my kidnapping?"
"Yes," I swallowed, "but some things are worth the risks."
"And I'm one of those things?"
"You're the only thing with any worth to me." I gazed at a distant spot on the horizon and felt her staring at me in amazement.
I wanted her to know about my feelings for her and I knew that ordinary declarations of love wouldn’t fit the special situation we were in. With that small comment, I laid the basis for my next exposure and diverted the two of us back to the subject of the conversation.
"You asked what I would like to do when I grow up."
"Yeah, you still haven’t answered me."
"That's because I'm already grown up and I'm doing exactly what I want to do."
"And what is that, if I may ask?"
"I am accompanying a special patient with the tools I've learned after years of specialization. I'm slowly and sensitively helping her great heart to remember what her special mind has forgotten."
"You're very good at what you do, Andrew."
"Why do you say that?"
"Did you see my artwork?"
"Yes."
"Did you see the..."
"I did, Kate," I interrupted her. "I don’t like you going back there alone. I think you need me by your side and I'm really afraid you won’t deal well with what you find if you act recklessly and take a peek at the end of your story."
"I swear I wasn’t peeking, Andrew. His face...it... I guess it was always there, inside me."
"I assumed it would be," I placed my hand on her thigh. "Do you know who he was for you?"
"I think he was my father. I mean… I know that's who he was, but it doesn’t make sense."
"If that's how you feel, I suggest you leave it, Kate. Stop trying to make sense and let me guide you to see only the things that will be reasonable to understand."
"Damn it, Andrew. I'm sure it's easy for you to say that, but it's hard for me to do." She got up too quickly, got dizzy and lost her balance.
"You've managed to learn quite a bit, but you can’t hold your liquor." I hurried to support her, holding her arms to prevent her from falling over the rail.
"I... I don’t usually drink alcohol."
"Really? I wouldn’t have guessed it." I rolled my eyes and gestured toward the empty glass that remained next to her chair.
"And I don’t really like whiskey either." She squinted her eyes.
"So why did you drink it?"
"I wanted you to think I was one of the guys." Her eyes sparkled at me and the moonlight broke into thousands of light fragments, hypnotizing me.
"In that case, you failed, Katarina." I leaned over and whispered into her ear, "You're as far away as you can be from being one of the guys. I think you're as womanly as one can get, and I love it." I dared to place my lips on hers.
From the moment I’d shoved her into my car, I’d waited for something to go wrong. I’d waited for her to scream at the top of her lungs when she woke up or to rumble wildly, causing me to restrict her to the cabin, by my side. I’d thought for sure she would spit in my face as I’d removed the cover from her eyes, and thus, as I pressed my lips against hers, I still waited for something to go wrong.
I was sure I would open my eyes and find that she was looking at me with rage and anger for crossing the physical boundary she’d set for us, but I was pleasantly surprised that she didn't. Katarina's head tilted to the right and her lips, which were as soft as I'd imagined them to be, invited me to go on and enjoy them. She crushed her chest into mine and opened her mouth only slightly, just enough to make me realize that, like me, she too wanted that kiss to last lon
ger.
With enormous hesitation, I placed one hand on her hip and the other on her cheek. A sigh of relief that had been contained in me for years came loose and, with it, I returned to thinking clearly.
"Wait." I couldn’t believe my own words, and yet I went on. "Maybe we should stop," I whispered directly into her mouth.
"Is that really what you want?"
"I..." I cleared my throat as my voice broke. "I..." Damn it, I cleared my throat again, trying to speak clearly. "Kate, I think that..." Fuck it, I gave up.
"You, are funny," she laughed and pulled back.
It was clear to the both of us that my body had reacted radically to the fulfillment of its dream. All she’d had to do was press her lips to mine and rub against me with her sculpted body for me to be defined as 'out of order', while she was able to go back and behave in a sound manner almost immediately.
All the blood in my body had rushed into the bulge that pressed within my pants and I needed to wait a while before I was able to think straight again.
"What did you get for dinner?" She went back into the cabin and began unpacking the boxes of food from the bags I’d brought.
"Umm… Chinese food," I replied, still from the balcony. "I... I'll be right there."
"No problem," she giggled. "You can wait until your peanut gets back to its microscopic proportions. Then, you can come home, so we can eat."
I assumed she was pleased with her witty remark. Maybe she even enjoyed knowing it hurt me, but she was wrong. She missed her use of a very significant word, which allowed me to ignore everything else she’d said.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear her call our cabin 'home' and hadn’t missed the fact that she went 'home' to make the dinner table for us, instead of running to the woods after we shared a surprising and passionate kiss, as I’d thought she would.
I’d dreamed about that kiss ever since I was eight and she was five, but I’d never dared to initiate it.
I wasn't sorry it had taken place, but I knew it was a major mistake and a significant ethical breach for me as her caretaker.
A huge mistake in the shape of an amazing kiss!
Chapter 21
Kate
It was official. I was completely out of my mind. I’d lost myself, I’d lost my train of thought and I’d lost my sense of good judgment.
I was gone!
It was obvious that this weird saga drifting me away from my life was going to end at some time in the near future and I was really hopeful to get out of it stronger, more confident and with a clearer view on life. To do that, I knew that I had to repress the feelings I’d somehow managed to develop for Andrew.
Damn it, it was an impossible mission.
I'm sure some would call it Stockholm syndrome, but I didn’t really care about the title of it. The fact was, my feelings shouldn’t have developed for him and that kiss shouldn’t have happened.
At that second, I made a promise to myself that it never would happen again.
I didn’t need a fancy label to know that a romantic relationship with Andrew couldn’t result in anything good. Regardless of the fact he’d kidnapped me, he just wasn’t for me. I wasn’t the kind of girl who kissed guys like that, and certainly not guys who’d taken me four days ago and had imprisoned me against my will.
That being said, it was exactly what I had done.
Stupid old me.
I arranged plates and cutlery on the table for the dinner Andrew had brought us and tried to hide the harsh thoughts that burdened me.
I tried to bring us back to a place where we could manage small talk or, at least, a conversation that would allow us to overcome the paralyzing sexual tension, but with no success. Every sentence I wanted to say was too suggestive, too defiant, too teasing, or too flirtatious, and I soon realized that it was better for me to just shut my mouth.
"Seriously, Kate, you have to ask yourself what the source of your obsession with the size of my penis is," he giggled. "In any case, has no one ever told you that performance is what counts and not the size of it?" He answered still from the outside and I was sure he'd expected me to reply with a 'keep saying that to yourself' or something of that sort, but at that moment, it felt meaningless.
I was no longer interested in our witty quarrels.
Surprisingly, I ended up not replying at all. All I did was try to convince myself that I didn’t want to kiss him again, but I did, or did I? Was it me that had wanted to feel him breathing next to me, or was it Katarina?
Yes. It must have been her. She was the one who took away my words and filled my head with impure thoughts and hopes that he would hold me again in his arms.
She was the one who daydreamed about the touch of his hands on my body and his soft lips against my skin.
I could say a lot about him, but his penis was all but microscopic. In fact, when he clung to me and I felt his thickness growing harder and harder pressed against me, I was afraid that if I didn’t step away from it, it would push me over the porch rail and send me to my ridiculous death.
It would have actually been the most stupid cause of death in the universe and I could already imagine the inscription on my tombstone.
'Here lies at eternal rest Kate/Katarina, who fell to her death after standing too close to the biggest cock in the universe when it got aroused.'
"Why did you get so quiet?" His voice took me out of planning my premature death. I’d hardly noticed that he wasn’t on the balcony anymore.
"I’m not."
"Yeah. You're oddly quiet. You always have something to say." He poured himself some more whiskey while asking me if I would like a refill with his eyes.
"You... you kissed me. You kissed me and now you act as if nothing has happened." I couldn’t resist mentioning what had happened between us.
"Yes, I… I'm sorry about that, Kate. I shouldn’t have kissed you."
"You're sorry?" I asked, incredulous.
"I am. I mean, I'm not sorry we kissed, but... I'm sorry I kissed you."
"I so want to say something smart about your limited mental abilities, which once again demonstrate how inept you are, but I must admit that I'm not sure how I feel about our kiss either."
"Oh, don’t get me wrong, I'm one hundred percent sure about how I feel in regards to kissing you, I'm just sorry I did it," he poured the drink I didn’t like, even though I’d never said I wanted it, and went on with his explanation before I could jump to conclusions and take offense at what he’d said. "I've been waiting for this kiss all my life. No one is happier than me for it happening, but I believe it’s the wrong place and time for it."
"Well, you miserable piece of..." I paused.
"Kate, don’t."
"Don’t what?"
"Don’t do that. Don’t hear things I didn’t say."
"What are you saying? Could you please be clearer?"
"I'm saying that I'm not sorry I kissed you, but I'm sorry it was not a kiss that was agreed upon by both sides. That was a mistake, but nothing about you will ever be a mistake as far as I am concerned."
"I see."
"I take full blame for the…"
"That kiss wasn’t your fault completely, Andrew."
"It wasn’t?"
"No. Just as it takes two to tango, it also takes two to...you know."
"I thought I knew, but it seems that I actually don’t. Tell me Kate, it also takes two for what?" He played innocent, with a playful smile on his face.
"You know," I blushed.
"I really don’t. You need two for what, Kate?"
"For understanding that you're an idiot!" I exhaled in frustration and sat down in one of the chairs around the dining table.
Andrew went to the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of Coke Zero, and filled the rest of my glass with it, painting its previous contents dark brown.
"The Irish would describe what I did as blasphemy, but if the pure taste of whiskey is too strong for you, maybe you’ll like it more mixed with Coke."
"I don’t have to drink whiskey, you know."
"I know, Kate, but if you refuse to do that, how will I know that you are one of the guys?"
"You'll know..." I nodded, "Don’t worry, you'll know."
"Can I ask if Aidan is your boyfriend?"
"Aidan?" I almost choked. "Why are you asking about him?"
"I suddenly got jealous of him again."
"Of Aidan? Again? Why would you envy him?"
"He shared his life with you. Every time he came into Starbucks, I wondered if you guys were together."
"Aidan wishes we were together."
"He's not the only one," I managed to hear him mumble to himself before rushing to change his question to another. "Have you ever had a significant relationship?"
"No. I’ve never been in love. Not after my early teens anyway."
"I don’t get it, Kate. How is it that you weren’t chased after like crazy?"
"Well, that wasn’t your question," I smiled. "I haven’t had a significant lover, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been pursued aggressively for most of my life."
"Now the world makes more sense. So you just refused everyone all the time?"
"Sadly, no," my smile grew wider. "No one actually ever pursued me that strongly and the only one who did, managed to get my attention." I paused to catch his eyes and then continued. "Then, he knocked me out, shoved me in the trunk of his car and locked me in my dream cabin which, I might add, I had forgotten I’d even dreamed."
"I never had any success in the romantic field either."
"Well, you have to admit that that’s no surprise."
"I don’t have to admit anything because, unlike you, I was pursued aggressively and I did refuse all offers of courting."
"Yeah, right," I waved my hand at him.
"At least I'm not a virgin." My eyes widened. He was painfully correct, but how did he know that?
"I don’t believe you just said that, you...you..."
"I'm what? I'm right?"
"No. You're wrong and you're a liar."
"I am everything but a liar."
"Everything?"
"Well, almost everything." Again, he smiled calmly at me.
