by K. M. Scott
“I can give you a ride, if you like. My company has a car service we use, so I can have it drop you off anywhere you like.”
I stop my head swiveling left and right and say, “That’s really nice of you. I’m just going to take a cab, I think. But thank you.”
“There’s not a cab in sight. Let me get you a car and I can take you right to your apartment.”
I look once more up and down the block and sigh. I know I shouldn’t do it, but I have no other way home and my apartment is miles away from this bar in Brooklyn. With a sigh, I relent and say, “Okay. Thanks.”
Brian calls the car service and then says, “If you’re nervous, I can stay here and not join you. I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of creepy stalker guy. I’m just a nice guy trying to help someone get home.”
Hanging my head, I say quietly, “Thank you. I’m not really a miserable person. Really. I’ve just been through something recently and my friend wanted to show me a good time. The odds were pretty much stacked against her with that, though.”
“I don’t think you’re miserable. You seem nice. Nothing like what I imagined an actress would be like. You’re down-to-earth. I like that.”
I thank him for the compliment and we talk for a while about the weather, our careers again, and other noncommittal, superficial topics until a black town car pulls up. As I climb into the backseat, he stands at the door waiting for me to say whether he can join me or not. I can’t be a total bitch, so waving him in, I say, “Please join me. It’s the least I can do since you got me a ride home.”
Brian and I talk the whole way to the Upper West Side, and in some way, I realize I do like him. Not in any romantic way, but as a person, he seems nice. That doesn’t mean I trust him, though, so instead of telling the driver my address, I tell him Ian’s. I’ll just get out there and after the car drives away, I’ll make my way home.
The car pulls up to the entrance of Ian’s building and I turn toward Brian. “Thank you. This was very nice of you.”
Smiling, he leans in and kisses me. I don’t know if it should make me feel something for him, but all I feel is how much I miss Ian. I kiss him back and quickly get out of the car. He’s probably disappointed I didn’t ask for his number or give him mine, but I don’t care.
The car speeds down the street away from Ian’s building, and I know I should just turn away and walk home, but I can’t. I know he’s up there right now. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have gotten out here. Now all I want to do is see him.
The doorman recognizes me and gives me a big smile. “Good evening, Miss Richards! It’s nice to see you again.”
I smile meekly, knowing what I’m about to do is a mistake. Walking toward the door, I wish him a good evening as he lets me into the building, thrilled to know Ian never told him not to, and my heart begins to beat wildly. I should just turn around and go home, but he’s just a few floors up. I can’t stop myself.
Pressing the button for the elevator, I tell myself this is a mistake. He’s never texted or called back after telling me we’d see each other again. What if he’s changed his mind? What if he’s found someone else to be his muse?
My heart sinks at the thought of him writing because of another woman. Being his muse had made me special. If he’d replaced me…
The elevator dings to let me know I’m at his floor and as I step out into the hallway leading to his apartment, fear grips me making it nearly impossible to walk toward his door. I can see it, that familiar entrance to his home I’ve walked through so many times before, but now it just looks like a black void.
Like what lies behind it isn’t somewhere I’m welcome anymore.
With every step, my fear grows until I reach the end of the hallway and hear noises from inside his apartment. Is he watching television? I lift my hand to knock, but a sound stops me dead. Placing my ear next to the door, I listen and hear a moan.
A woman’s moan.
I can’t move from that spot, yet that’s all I want to do. I desperately want to run away and never come back here again. Unable to leave, I can’t help but cry. He’s in there with another woman. Another muse. I’ve been replaced.
Like some pitiful, unwanted animal, I stay there on his doorstep as the sounds of him with someone else fill my ears. Finally, they become too much and I can’t stand it anymore. Running away, I stumble to the elevator as my tears blind me and I press the buttons to get me out of there before he sees me and knows how pathetic I truly am.
I open the door just as the last sight of Kristina disappears into the elevator. For a moment, I consider running after her, but I stop myself. I’m half-naked standing in my doorway after fucking a woman I picked up in a bar. This isn’t exactly the way I want the woman I love to see me.
Jessica, or whatever her name is, wants to cuddle like we’re some romantic couple, but I quickly send her on her way with a smile and an empty promise that we have to do this again sometime. I needed her to help me forget Kristina. She didn’t do the job, but that’s not her fault.
Grabbing my phone, I type out a text and even though I know she heard me fucking someone else, I hope she’ll read it.
Kristina, I miss you. Why did you run away when I opened the door?
Not exactly my best prose, but texting isn’t my medium.
I sit and wait for her to answer as I fantasize about when we finally will see each other again. I want to look into those beautiful cornflower blue eyes and see that she missed me like I missed her. I can’t wait to feel her lips touch mine in a kiss that makes us both forget whatever it was that broke us up. My body hurts I want her so badly, and only she can ease this ache inside.
My phone vibrates across the top of the table, and my heart slams against my chest as I anticipate her answer. Hands shaking, I pick it up and begin to read, knowing immediately that she’s just as moving in text as she is in person.
How could you forget me so quickly? Wasn’t I your muse? You’ve already replaced me. How could you do that?
The palpable hurt in her words makes me feel like someone’s stabbing me in the chest. I don’t know why she left, but this isn’t the message of a woman who doesn’t want to see a man.
Her texts continue to come as she pours her heart out to me.
Didn’t what we were to each other mean anything to you?
I thought when you told me you couldn’t think of anyone else that you meant it. I heard you with her when I came to your door.
My fingers twitch as I think about what to type back to her. This isn’t my best way of communicating, so whatever I say will probably come out all fucked up. Better for me to just listen.
A few minutes later, a much longer message comes in and she breaks my heart with just a few words.
I can’t bear the silence from your end. Are you getting these messages? Don’t you care that I miss you? Please say something. I can’t go on like this. Do you miss me like I miss you? I lie in bed at night thinking about you and wishing you’d call, but you never do. Why?
As much as I know I should message her back and tell her how I feel—how I miss her more than I can even describe and how I feel like part of my body’s been ripped away without her in my life—I don’t. Maybe I want the chance to say what’s in my heart in person. Maybe I don’t know what to say.
Or maybe I’m punishing her in some tiny way for leaving me.
Whatever the reason, I don’t answer her. Instead, for the first time in over a week, I want to write. Turning my laptop on, I wait for it to warm up as a hundred ideas for Silk race through my mind. The creative floodgates open, and I can barely keep up with all that I want to write. By the time my fingers hit the keyboard for the first time since she left, it’s like they’re on fire.
I type like a madman, words flowing through my hands like never before. I’m inspired by Kristina again. My muse has returned. A week ago, my creativity had dried up, gone with the woman I adored, but now I can see the end of the book. All those nights of missi
ng her and being awash in alcohol are past now.
My writing comes out in ways that are entirely new to me. Always a very deliberate author, I’m now a man on a mission. Our book must be completed.
Nearly two hours later, I sit back and look at what Kristina’s return to my life has brought to me. The first draft of Silk is finished. I’ve never been prouder of any creative effort in my life, and I know it’s all due to her.
I take a shower, shave for the first time in eight days, and dress in clothes I know she’ll love. Now to convince her to see me after what I did earlier. Seated back on my couch, I type the best words I have and hope they’ll be enough.
Come to me. I miss you and need you. I was lost without you.
She doesn’t answer. I wait ten minutes. Then twenty minutes. Finally, at thirty minutes I begin to think I might never see her again.
No. I told her we’d see each other again, and we will. I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but we will.
I’ll make sure of that.
A knock on my front door stirs me from my thoughts, and I walk toward it knowing it’s her even before I look through the peephole. I feel her close to me again. It’s like a fire inside my chest that burns only for her.
I open it slowly, barely containing my impatience to have her by my side again. She’s standing there, her eyes wide and filled with insecurity. I don’t blame her. How could I? The last time she stood in that very spot she heard me fucking another woman.
“Please don’t send me away again,” she says quietly in a plaintive voice that makes me want her even more.
“I never sent you away.”
She steps into my arms and in one long moment everything I’ve ever wanted is mine again. Her body melds to mine like a missing part finally returned. Standing there in my doorway, I hold her and I’m happy.
I feel her sob against my chest and squeeze my arms around her to bring her closer. I want to crawl inside her so she can never leave me again. She sweetly fingers the buttons on my shirt and asks, “Is she still here?”
“No. She was nothing, Kristina.”
She looks up at me with hurt-filled eyes. “Then why did you go with her?”
“I tried to forget you, so I went to a bar and picked someone up. I thought maybe being with someone else would work, but all it did was make me miss you more. Then when you came to the door before, I had sense you were there so I went to the door looking for you.”
“I heard you with her.”
I don’t know what to say to this, so I pull her into the apartment and close the door. Wrapping my arms around her, I whisper against the top of her head, “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
“I wanted to die when I heard those sounds coming from in here.”
Tilting her head up so she has to look at me, I kiss her gently on the lips. “You have to forgive me, Kristina. Tell me you can.”
She hangs her head. “I want to say no, to tell you I can never forgive you, Ian.” She stops and stays silent for so long that I wonder if she truly can’t forgive me. Then she speaks, and my world is right again. “I can’t, though. I just can’t.”
I lift her chin with my finger and look down into that beautiful face looking up at me. “Forgive me and know I’ll never touch another woman.”
“Never?” she asks, not believing me.
“Never. How could I want anyone but my muse?”
She smiles and I know she’ll forgive me.
I kiss her forehead and pull back to ask her a much harder question. Looking into her eyes, I look for the truth as I ask, “Why did you run away from me?”
Her smile fades into a deep frown. “You frightened me.”
“How?” A surge of anger, not at her but at myself, rushes through me at the thought that anything I did made her frightened.
“When you wrote that scene about Kate standing outside the house of the man she loves. She was stalking him, and I thought you wrote that because you did that to me. I know you would never hurt me, but it scared me. So I ran away.”
Backing up, I release her, now angry with her too. “I did do that. Just like the character, I stood outside your apartment one night and watched just to see you. But that you think me doing that would harm you makes me wonder if you know me at all, Kristina.”
She reaches out to touch me, but I won’t let her. The frustration and fear of losing me again registers in her expression. When she speaks, it’s even clearer. “Ian, don’t say that. I know you. Don’t say I don’t.”
“You say you know me, but you think I’d hurt you? You think missing you so much that I stand out on the sidewalk across the street from your building praying for just a glimpse of you is me wanting to hurt you?”
I back up even further from her and watch the tears well in her eyes. This reunion isn’t turning out how I’d hoped it would, but I can’t change who I am and she deserves to know that.
Kristina grabs my hand and holds it tight. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent so much time worrying about stalkers. I didn’t mean that I was afraid you’d hurt me, though. Tell me you know that. Please tell me you know that.”
I try to pull my hand away, but she refuses to let go and I pull her into me. For a long moment, we stare at each other afraid of what the next words may be from the other’s mouth. I can’t do anything but admit who I am again and remind her of the kind of man she’s with.
“I’m addicted to you. I have been since the first time I saw you, days before meeting you that first night. It’s who I am. I became addicted to how you make me feel, and that night I stood outside looking up at your windows, I wanted to feel that. I can’t change this, Kristina.”
“You’re addicted to me like a drug?” she asks in a confused voice.
I nod. “Just like a drug. When I’m with you, I feel like the man I want to be but most times can’t be. But with you, I can. When I’m not with you, I crave your touch, the taste of your lips, the sound of your voice, your smile when I read what I’ve written to you. Most of the time, I’m okay just knowing I’ll see you again, but other times…”
My voice trails off as I remember how I felt standing outside her apartment staring up at her windows. “Other times, like that night, I want so much to see you that I’d willingly hide in the shadows just for a glimpse of you from the street below.”
My confession doesn’t frighten her, but I see in her eyes her confusion. Her therapist was wrong. She doesn’t get addicted to people. If she did, she’d know exactly what this feels like.
“I missed you so much. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything. I’m sorry I got scared. I was being stupid.”
I kiss her lips and cradle her face. “You weren’t stupid. I never thought that would frighten you, but you weren’t stupid.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and then the question she asks me makes me more jealous than I ever thought possible. “What if I slept with someone else too?”
All at once, I want to push her away and hold her to me. I bite out, “Did you?”
“No, but I can tell it bothers you. Now you know how I feel.”
I drop my hands from her face and walk away from her. “Feelings aren’t like that. I can’t know what you feel any more than you can know what I feel, other than if we tell each other.”
“Then let me tell you how I feel. Like my heart was being ripped from my chest. I heard you in here with her. Heard her making the same sounds I make when you make love to me. I wanted to run away but all I could do was stand there and listen to you with her. That’s how I feel, Ian!”
I turn around to face her. “You said you forgave me.”
“I did, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt to think about it. Maybe I should go out and fuck another man. I could have tonight. I met someone at a bar and he gave me a ride here. I could call him and then maybe you’d know how I feel.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Make you understand what it feels like when you know the p
erson you care about is with someone else? Imagine yourself outside my apartment door hearing me moan another man’s name as he fucks me. I’m on his lap straddling his hips riding his cock and I make that noise you love—the one like a whimper right before I come. Imagine hearing that, Ian. And then I want you to just forgive me.”
Her anger isn’t just at me. I know that. But it doesn’t change how much her words fucking hurt. I hate the man she met tonight. I don’t care that she didn’t do anything with him. I hate him.
And I love her.
I walk to her and can’t hold back. I want her. I need her. “Not another fucking word, Kristina. You’re mine. No one else. Do you understand?”
“No, I don’t,” she sobs. “I don’t understand how to forget you with her, Ian. Make me understand.”
Stuffing my hands into her hair, I pull her head back and kiss her hard. Her mouth surrenders to mine and as I snake my tongue past her lips to tease hers, an ache in my hard cock spreads throughout my body.
“I need you so fucking bad,” I whisper against her lips. “I never needed her like you. I never wanted her like you.”
Kristina’s hands slide down my chest to unbutton my pants, her fingers fumbling with the zipper as we kiss. Finally, she slides her hand beneath my boxer briefs and palms my cock, and it stiffens even more. “Tell me what you did with her.”
“No,” I groan as she slowly strokes my cock.
“Then I’ll assume you did the same things with her and won’t do them again. Tell me.”
I tug her hair harder and close my eyes as she rubs the head of my cock. “I took her from behind. I could pretend it was you if I didn’t see her face.”
Kristina kisses me as she plays with my cock and then says, “Then you can’t do that with me just like you won’t let me use my fingers with you.”
I want her so bad at that moment, I agree. “Deal. Now get those clothes off unless you want them to end up ripped off your body.”
She slides her skirt down her legs to reveal nothing underneath. Her pussy, clean shaven and bare, makes me want to bury my face in her, and as she strips off her sweater, I drop to my knees to taste her. With my thumbs, I open her folds so no part of her is hidden to me and gently flick my tongue up her gorgeous wet slit, loving her taste on my tongue. Musky and sweet, she’s all I want in my mouth.
