1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Nine

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  Frowning, I grabbed the crown off the mantle and left the house before my mother got home and asked me why I needed it.

  * * * *

  “I’m sorry. What did you say?” I was seated in front of Joan Klein’s desk, staring at her in disbelief. “Maybe I misunderstood.”

  Joan, a former beauty queen herself, had a beehive hairdo that looked like it might have been shellacked in 1975 and eyebrows penciled in way too dark. She cleared her throat. “Corporate feels, Ms. Nixon, that your current reputation is at odds with the qualities we look for in a Cherry Queen. We do not believe you would be an asset to the pageant at this time, and in fact we feel you have violated your contract.”

  “Violated my contract? Are you joking?” I blinked a few times, but her pursed mouth did not ease into a smile.

  “No. I am quite serious. If you look at your contract, which I have a copy of here, you will see that you agreed to refrain from engaging in any public behaviors that would discredit the Queen or the pageant.”

  “But—but that was seven years ago!” I sputtered.

  “The contract has no end date. Once a queen, always a queen,” she said dramatically.

  “Oh my God. So now what?”

  “Your crown and title are being revoked, and we’d like you to sign right here.” She set another contract in front of me, the page full of tiny black print. “This says that you understand your title is being forfeited due to breach of contract and you will no longer refer to yourself as a former Queen, advertise yourself as such, or appear at any functions claiming to be such.”

  “Seriously? I made a mistake! Don’t we all make mistakes sometimes?”

  “Yours were very public, Ms. Nixon. Too public.”

  “It was just a TV show!” But in my head I heard Miranda Rivard’s voice: Perception is reality, Skylar.

  “It was a reality show. You played yourself,” Joan pointed out. “And then there is the matter of that tattoo.” She nodded toward my arm, and I looked down at the pretty flowers and vines circling one upper arm.

  “What about it? The contract only said I couldn’t get any tattoos during my reign, which I didn’t. This is only two years old.”

  She went on, ignoring my question. “We would appreciate it if you did not speak to the press about this or mention it on any social media. We’ll handle it.”

  “Speak to the press? Are you kidding? Why would I want to call attention to this?” I scribbled my name on the contract without even reading it. Didn’t matter what it said, I no longer cared.

  “Leave the crown, please. It’s pageant property.”

  My jaw dropped and I hugged the crown to my stomach. “You can’t have my crown.”

  “Yes, I can.” She tapped my signature with the pen. “You just agreed to return it.”

  I wanted to throw it at her, but I mustered my pride and managed to set it down gently on the desk—right after I bent that stupid fucking rhinestone-studded oversized metal piece of shit in half with my bare hands.

  Chapter 5

  Sebastian

  After the episode at the beach, I went straight to the gym. In college I’d learned that working out was one of the things that helped me stay mindful of the present reality and stop “fearcasting” about the future. When I was running or lifting or hitting the heavy bag, all I thought about was my body getting stronger, my muscles working harder, my heart pumping faster. It forced me to stay in the moment, helped me work off the tension and anger I carried, and had results you could see. However, even running an extra mile and adding extra reps hadn’t been enough to banish Skylar Nixon from my mind.

  But actually, it was kind of nice.

  Because rather than the fearful, disturbing thoughts I’d had at the beach, my head was filled with other images of her—pleasant images. As I pushed myself to the limits of exertion, I thought of her body beneath mine, her hands on my back, her lips falling open. I thought of those blue eyes closing as I slid inside her, slow and deep. I thought of the soft sigh of pleasure I’d hear before she whispered my name and pulled me in closer.

  At home in the shower, I invited those thoughts back in, welcomed them as I let the water run down my body and took my dick in my hand.

  Oh yeah, jerking off was another activity in which I stayed mindful of the moment. Sex was too, although I hadn’t had sex in almost a year. Fuck, I missed it. But sex with strangers had never been my thing—although I might have to make it my thing unless I wanted to spend my life celibate.

  Or maybe sex with a friend…

  I tightened my fingers around my shaft and stroked myself with long, hard pulls as the steam billowed up around me. God, what would it feel like to get inside Skylar? To smell her skin, taste her lips, watch her arch beneath me? Could I make her come? Was she quiet or loud? Did she like it on top? Would she let me pull her hair? Bury my tongue in her pussy? My hand worked faster, harder. “Fuck,” I whispered, over and over again as my cock went rock solid and then throbbed in my hand. I groaned as the tension inside me released in thick hot spurts, my leg muscles tight and trembling.

  For a solo flight, it was a pretty fucking good orgasm, and it made me wonder if maybe I should try talking to her again.

  Immediately, the voice was back.

  Don’t be fucking dense. You think jerking off to some adolescent fantasy means you can handle being alone with her?

  I wouldn’t have to be alone with her. I could just talk to her. Reintroduce myself. Be her friend.

  No. You can’t trust yourself. You want her too much.

  I wanted to argue, fight back.

  But I had no weapons to battle with, no words to hurl at this fucking ghost that refused to stop haunting me. What if I never got free of it?

  After getting dried and dressed, I scrubbed my shower tiles and called my therapist to see if he could fit me in this afternoon.

  * * * *

  “I had a setback today.” I wasn’t much for small talk.

  “Oh?” Ken, a soft-spoken man with glasses and a thick blond beard, crossed his legs and regarded me patiently. “What do you think triggered it?”

  I shifted uncomfortably on the couch in his office. “I saw someone from my past, a girl I went to school with.”

  “A friend?”

  “Not exactly…I didn’t really have friends in high school, partly because of my erratic behavior in years prior, but also because I isolated myself. People really didn’t know what to make of me, so I was largely ignored. But this girl. She was just…nice. We were assigned as lab partners in chemistry a few times because our last names were close in the alphabet. I used to get so nervous before school if I knew we had to work together.”

  “Did you have thoughts about her back then?”

  Fuck yes I did. I still do. “Not obsessive thoughts. Just average teenage boy thoughts and average teenage boy nerves around a pretty girl. But mine were compounded by the fact that I knew everyone thought I was crazy. I thought I was crazy.”

  Those years had been such a fucking nightmare—my father dragging me to doctor after doctor to figure out why I was so obsessed with contamination, why I was always counting things like leaves on trees or blades of grass or lines on the highway, why I was convinced that terrible things were going to happen to people I loved because of me. They did everything from dismissing the shit I did as adolescent quirks to diagnosing me with depression.

  Several therapists were convinced I secretly blamed myself for my mother’s death from a car accident when I was eight (she was coming to pick me up from a friend’s house) and believed the fear of doing harm stemmed from that, but they couldn’t tell my dad why I had to flip a light switch on and off eight times before leaving a room or explain to my teachers why I had to click my ballpoint pen eight times before answering every test question or clue my middle school gym classmates in as to why I would play second base but not first or third. I could still recall the what-the-fuck looks on their faces when I tried explaining that two was a g
ood number because it was even, and even better, a factor of eight, but one and three were bad numbers because they were odd.

  Ken pushed his glasses further up his nose. “You once mentioned things were better by the time you finished high school.”

  “They were,” I conceded. By junior year, we’d found a doctor familiar with OCD and I was put on medication, and I started seeing a therapist regularly. “By the end of high school, I had more good days than bad, but I still stuck to myself. The social damage had been done and I just figured, fuck it, I’ll start over in college.”

  Ken flipped back a few pages in the notepad on his lap. “You said your undergraduate years were fairly normal, but we haven’t talked much about them. You had friends? Dates? Girlfriends?”

  “Yeah. Starting over in a new place felt good. The thoughts and the compulsions never entirely went away, but I learned to cope. I felt I had control over them.” I thought about Skylar on the beach again and felt the back of my neck grow hot. “As opposed to fucking today.”

  “But we’ve talked about how having control over your thoughts isn’t the answer. It isn’t possible for anyone, really. One of your main goals at this point is to let go of that excessive need for control and learn to live with risk and uncertainty. Learn to let the obsessive thoughts be.”

  “Yeah, I know that, and when I’m sitting here or when I’m alone or out among strangers, I’m fine with that,” I snapped. “But today was different.”

  “What happened?”

  I told him what had transpired on the beach this morning, the image of Skylar’s blond hair against the sand, her slender legs extending from her skirt still fresh in my mind. “And yes, I tried talking back and reasoning with myself and being an observer and all that, but nothing was working. I couldn’t deal with it the usual ways.” I shrugged angrily. “So I counted. Ran away from her.”

  Ken nodded slowly. “And afterward?”

  “I felt like shit,” I said. “I was furious. I wanted to punch someone. Myself, I guess.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I went to the gym.” And then I went home and jerked off while thinking about her just like I used to when I was seventeen. I’ll probably do it again tonight because two is a better number than one. One is bad.

  “Did that help?”

  I almost smiled. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  Ken rubbed his beard and thought for a moment. “Do you think, if you saw her again, you might try speaking to her?”

  I linked my fingers in my lap and stared at them, trying to imagine shaking her hand without fear. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to. Another part says why invite trouble? I’m doing okay these days, you know? At least, I was. Working on the cabin, handling a couple cases for my dad’s firm, writing every day, staying active… Until I saw her this afternoon, I felt stronger than I have in a long time. I think that’s why I’m so fucking angry about the relapse.”

  “One relapse doesn’t undo all the progress you’ve made, Sebastian. It could just be a bad day.” Ken uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I’m not going to force you to do it, but we both know that avoidance is never a successful strategy when it comes to obsessive thoughts. It always backfires, which leads to more anxiety and distress. If you really want to move forward, you should talk to her. Is this someone you think might be just a friend…or something more?”

  “Just a friend,” I said quickly. “I’m done with relationships.”

  “Give yourself time. You’re only twenty-eight, Sebastian. One bad breakup doesn’t mean you won’t find happiness with someone else eventually.”

  “It wasn’t just one bad breakup. This was just the first time someone told me I ruined her life too.”

  “You didn’t ruin her life.”

  Agitated, I ran a hand over my hair. “Diana had a wedding dress, Ken. Invitations had been ordered. Deposits paid. Honeymoon cruise booked—not her dream honeymoon, of course, which was my fault because I refuse to get on a plane, but a honeymoon nonetheless. I’m never doing all that shit again, because it will all have to be undone when I panic and relapse and she realizes she can’t be married to a fuck-up like me who has—wait, let me see if I can get this right—no fucking clue what it means to love someone because I can’t get out of my head long enough to put someone else’s needs first unless I’m fucking her.” I spat Diana’s words back at Ken as if he’d spoken them. “That’s what she said, and she was right.”

  “Sebastian, stop.” Ken sighed and straightened up. “We’re not talking about proposing to this woman. Or sleeping with her. We’re talking about a conversation. And if the obsessive thought returns, don’t try to banish them and don’t run away. You’ve got tools to work with. Try magnifying, or the watching/waiting we’ve talked about. Do the writing exercise where you imagine the worst. That’s worked for you in the past.”

  I was quiet for a moment. Flexed my fingers a few times. “I’ll think about it.”

  After the session was over, I left Ken’s office building and walked down the street to Coffee Darling. When I first started going there last year, I had to bring my own cup from home because I was so worried about contamination. But exposure therapy had helped me work through it, and now I felt a lot more comfortable walking into a bar or restaurant and using whatever was given to me. Did I love it? No, and a little doubt always lingered about how clean the utensils were, not to mention the kitchen, but usually I managed to cope without embarrassing myself or anyone with me.

  The small shop was empty, and the owner, Natalie, was wiping down the counter, but she looked up and smiled at me when I came in. “Hey stranger. Haven’t seen you in a while. How’s it going?”

  “Good, thanks.” I liked Natalie, partly because she talked so much I never felt like I had to say anything, and also because she understood when I shamefacedly explained why I brought my own coffee cup to her shop. She never launched into any defensive explanation about how clean her place was—and it was clean, I never even hesitated before using the bathroom there, and public restrooms were a huge trigger for me—she just poured coffee and chatted away. When I was finished, she always rinsed and dried the cup for me, too. Best of all, she seemed to know when I didn’t want to be bothered, and she’d leave me alone with my caffeine and my notebook.

  “Come on in. The kitchen’s closed, but since you’re just a coffee drinker, have a seat and I’ll pour you a cup.”

  “Are you sure? If you’re closed, I can—“

  “No, no, come sit down. You can keep me company while I go through the closing routine.”

  Removing my sunglasses, I set them and my keys on the counter and sat down. After Natalie poured me some coffee and disappeared into the kitchen, I opened up my journal, frowning at the damp pages, and turned to what Ken called my Exposure Hierarchy. The idea was to list things that make me anxious and then rate them with subjective units of distress, or SUDS, based on how uncomfortable or scared they made me. Some were related to my fears about germs and contamination, some were related to my ordering and number compulsions, and some were related to frightening “what if” thoughts that assailed me for no good reason, like thinking I’d go batshit crazy and stab someone if I held a kitchen knife in my hands.

  I thumbed through page after page of items, dozens of things I couldn’t bear the thought of doing at one time. And I wasn’t allowed to count while I did them, or numb myself, or repeat any mantras. I had to actually focus on what I was doing, mindful of the fact that it was a truly uncomfortable, if not horrifically disgusting, thing.

  But I’d done it. I’d done almost everything on the list. I was doing so well, it had been months since I’d had to add anything to it.

  My ultimate goal was to feel good enough to go back to work full-time this summer, not at a big-name, high-pressure law firm like I’d been at in New York, but for my father, who had a small practice in town and had offered me a job. Would the work be as exciting as what I’d done in New York?
No, but I hadn’t handled the stress of being an associate at a corporate firm very well, to put it mildly. The eighty hour work weeks, the all-nighters, the tedious grunt work, the insane deadlines, the constant pressure to bill, being ignored or hazed by senior partners… Actually, I was amazed I lasted as long as I did. I was fucking miserable the entire time.

  But looking ahead, I thought I could be happy practicing law in a low-pressure setting, and living here would allow me to get better acquainted with my little nieces and nephews and spend plenty of time outside. I was considering training for a triathlon next year too. Working on my physical self was always gratifying—the rewards were guaranteed.

  A lonely life? Maybe.

  But a quiet life. A peaceful life. One where I didn’t have to worry about making anyone else suffer.

  Unfortunately, it would always have to include battling the unfortunate, fucked-up circuitry in my brain.

  After a sip of coffee, I took my pencil from my jacket pocket and turned to the end of the list. Taking a deep breath, I added another item.

  Talk to Skylar Nixon.

  I stared at the words and tried to think about rating the task—how anxious did the thought of talking to her make me? But before I could decide on a number, I got the uneasy feeling that someone was watching me. I looked over my left shoulder, and there she was. Standing just inside the door, so pretty she took my breath away, and staring right at me.

  Chapter 6

  Skylar

  Our eyes met, and a shiver moved through my body.

  Holy shit. It’s him again.

  And he’s really hot.

  After leaving the pageant offices in a huff, I’d marched down the street to Coffee Darling, Natalie’s adorable little bakery and coffee shop. When she opened it two years ago, it was only coffee and the muffins or donuts she made herself at the asscrack of dawn, but she’d since hired another pastry chef and also offered light salads and sandwiches at lunchtime too.